You’ve built a big class reunion committee. Now it’s time to put your committee to work. Here’s a handy list of topics to cover during your first committee meeting or conference call.

Calendar committee meetings. Your alumni’s calendars (and yours) will never be as open as it is now. Don’t wait to schedule the next meeting  during every call. Trust me, it will take too much of your time, and you will not get a good turnout. Give your committee members proposed dates/times of monthly meetings for the entire pre-reunion period as well as one date for the recap call after the reunion. Choose dates that work for you and take into consideration any time zone issues for your committee members.  As long as there is a critical mass available for each meeting, establish the dates during the first committee meeting. Don’t worry that not everyone can make each meeting. Perfect attendance for all the meetings is unrealistic. As long as you are providing your committee members  with detailed minutes, they should be able to stay up-to-date.

Set goals. Your committee members will be more engaged if they are involved in setting class goals. For metrics, consider reunion stats from prior classes, the class’s prior reunions, and comparable schools’ data, if available. Goals can include donor participation, donations, and profiles for a class reunion book. You can even set competitive goals within the class, such as targets for each class section or interim goals with pending deadlines (such as an upcoming fiscal-year end).  Goal-setting particularly works for law school alumni. After all, you are dealing with lawyers, who tend to be just a wee-bit competitive. They will be motivated by goals.

Assign homework. Distribute the class alumni directory and ask each committee member to:

(1)  Identify about 10 to 20 classmates to contact. Have them send you their selections prior to the next month’s meeting so you can make final assignments.

(2)  Update any stale or missing contact information, especially email addresses. I can’t stress the importance of taking this step as early as possible in the reunion planning process. Ask committee members to review the class alumni directory and public sites such as state bar registries, LinkedIn and Facebook. It is even more helpful if committee members use their social media accounts to ask classmates for updated contact information. This step has the added benefit of generating momentum for the  reunion.

Have fun!   Although the official reunion is a ways off, the reunion fun starts when your committee is formed. Each committee meeting is an opportunity for your alumni to reconnect, reminisce about their school days, and to engender goodwill for the school. Make sure to let them know how much you and the school appreciate all their hard work and effort.

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