Family Reunion Items

Whether your reunion is large or small, it's nice to have a "Welcoming address" to kick the thing off.  It doesn't have to be long... 5 - 10 minutes unless you have a really good speaker in the family.  Here's a few things you might put in a welcoming with a small plaque or trophy...

  • Welcome everyone to the reunion, and thank them for coming.
  • Mention which different families (or family lines) are at the reunion or with a family tree plaque.
  • Give a general outline of the day's (or weekend's) festivities.
  • Thank the people who helped put the reunion together.
  • And of course, add a few well placed jokes or inspirational thoughts.

Certificates and Trophy Awards
Create certificates to be passed out to family members. Use your imagination and try to think up as many categories as possible, so that you can recognize the largest amount of family members that you can. Possible recognition categories include these basics:

  • The oldest and youngest family members
  • Who traveled the least and greatest distances to attend
  • Who has attended the most consecutive reunions
  • Youngest grandparents
  • Couple with the most children or grandchildren
  • Married the Longest
  • First to pay their money for the reunion
  • Second to pay their money for the reunion
  • Longest married couple

      And now some of the categories games.

 "Balancing Act" Award…who can stand on their hands (or head) the longest

"Historian" Award…for someone who takes pictures of people when they least expect it

"Get Up and Go" Award…the person who sleeps the latest, if it’s an overnight reunion

A Family Recipe Book
Create a family recipe book using the favorite recipe (or a few of them) from each family. Collect the recipes beforehand   Make sure you give credit to all the contributors.  Everyone likes to see their name in print, even when the only people to see it will be their family.  Print a copy of all the recipes and take them to your local copy shop.  They can put them together in a book format and bind them for you.  You might want to ask family members to chip in for the printing, or take orders for the in advance to pay for it.  You can pay for it yourself, of course, but most people wouldn’t prefer that.

Family History Book
If you have a genealogy software program capable of automatically printing books of your family (descendants of the main person, along with pictures, notes, etc), print a book of your family and make it available.  If your program can print photos in the book, ask family members for a picture to scan in and include in the book.  Have a marker available for corrections and updates to the book for next year’s reunion (you know, babies and all).

Family Newsletter
A family newsletter is a great way to keep in touch with each other between reunions. It doesn’t have to be a monthly thing, no, not at all.   Two or three times a year is plenty to keep everyone in touch.  It doesn’t have to be long, and you can ask for a small donation to offset printing and mailing. Ask family members to send you information, and use your own word processor to write the newsletter. Here’s a few of suggestions on what to include:

  • Spotlight one of the family members
  • Print a list of upcoming birthdays and anniversaries.  You might want to leave the year off for some of those over sensitive female relatives, or better yet, put in a year that makes her younger, and you've got a new friend for life.
  • Anniversaries of any particular event (next Wednesday marks the third anniversary of when Little Ray Ray fell down the hill and broke a rib)
  • Print new addresses for families that have moved
  • Memorial stories on family members who have recently passed away