Class of 1994 Mini-Reunion in New York: Fun on a Tight Budget
by Anne Enna ’94 & David Friedman ’94
On May 19, 2005, the officers of the Class of 1994 hosted a cocktail party on a roof-deck in New York. They promised “no Master or Dean to break up the fun,” and asked classmates to BYOB. Here’s their how-to on having a good time in the big city:
Our mission for this event was to put together an affordable (in this case, free) event for attendees in a geographic location that would ensure high attendance from the class. We chose to have an event in New York City to enable classmates to reconnect with one another and have a great time, while reinforcing their connection to Yale and the Class.
The challenge of running an event like this is the budget. One idea we had was to forego any paper mailings and rely instead on an Evite sent to classmates on the eastern seaboard and an email to the entire class. Creativity and focus on the important aspects of an event are important; but most bars and venues in New York charge $50-$70 a head for mediocre locales, and food is often extra. Given that our budget was $550 (an amount funded by classmate dues), we quickly realized that we needed a free venue. We were fortunate that a classmate had access to a beautiful party room and roof-deck high atop midtown Manhattan – free of charge, with only some gratuities for building personnel required (and our own cleanup).
At Anne’s suggestion, we minimized expenditure on food, billing the event as cocktails and appetizers. We bought platters of cheese and sandwiches (and chips) from a supermarket and lots of beer, liquor, tonic, and non-alcoholics beverages. Although we don’t know what the exact attendance was, with a lot of people coming and going, our best guess is that 150-175 classmates and guests attended throughout the evening. We believe that we brought in the evening at approximately $4 per person.
The feedback received about the event was uniformly positive – people were requesting that we do such things more regularly, unwisely volunteering their homes, etc. There was enthusiasm about the level of turnout and the energy – it was loud! The gin and tonics and the Coronas went quite quickly.
I do hope that we will able to have similar events over the next four years, perhaps deputizing class members to take larger Yale cities (Washington, DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc.) and throwing cohesion events of different sizes. We would need to balance treasury needs with the benefit of these events and explore whether there is a way to make them financial break-evens for the Class. For $10-$20 a person, a party could be well-covered.
Erin Levi’s attendance as a representative of the Alumni Fund was quite positive, in our estimation, as she was an appropriate demonstration of the University’s interest in the Class. We will do what we can to support Class of 1994 goals broadly, including fundraising.