Hi All

Our group will be 20 next year - we were thinking of holding a celebration of some sort to mark this occasion.

Has anyone done anything like this before?

What sort of things did you do?

Any ideas will be appreciated!

Thanks

Ems

There was a thread about this before - someone was celebrating a 50th anniversary I think. God knows where this will be though...

For our 50th, we held a dinner dance and invited ALL past and present members. It took quite a bit of doing tracking down 50 years worth of members and we didn't get everyone's contact details but we did pretty well. At the event we probably had half and half old and new members and we had just THE BEST time. We made a particular fuss of our oldest member cos she'd actually been in the very first show 50 years ago. We had a speech from our Chair and a speech "from the floor" and a toast or two. Got the local press in and they took a pic and put a bit in the paper. I would heartily recommend something like this.

Congrats on getting this far!

I still think the green room, inviting ex-members of the group is a good one. That's what we did for our 80th anniversery last year.

Ooh a party!!

For those who've had anniversaries like this, did you advertise in the local papers for ex members you had lost contact with and you get a good response?

Tonight at rehearsal, we asked one of our original member when exactly the group was formed (the first panto was December 1984)..

John: Yes it was December
Emma: No, when were we actually formed, we must have had to rehearse..
John: oh yes, it was the September then..I can tell you exactly...(counting up on his fingers)......it was 17 years ago
Emma: No John, its our 20th anniversary next year

Bless.

Our one surviving 50 year member is as sharp as a tack. NOTHING gets by our Rose. Scary lady.

No we didn't advertise in the end but probably should have (for old members). Because we've been going for so long we relied a lot on the networks of people who know one another. More or less worked.

Our most senior current member (continuous) first directed for us in 1952 after both directing and acting for other local groups, and two weeks ago finished her latest role as the Dowager Queen Mother in the panto. She's 91, never misses a show, does all our publicity mailouts from her little warden-assisted flat, is our President and attends every committee meeting, and is an all round jolly good egg.

We all love her.

In answer to the posts on this topic, it was I who posted a similar topic recently. It is The Cuddington Players who are celebrating their 50th Anniversary this year. We have 2 special events planned to mark this occasion, in addition to our normal calendar. Firstly, we will be holding a joint concert with the choir of St Marys Cuddington in the Church. We used to do all our performances at the old church hall, but this was demolished some years back, and the new hall does not have a stage, so we had to relocate. But we considered it appropriate to return to our roots, for this special event. And secondly, we will have a big party in the summer, with a barbeque and a band. We are trying to find as many of our former members as possible to invite to both events.

Claire