Volunteer Appreciation BBQ 2012

Overview

What: A BBQ to celebrate Free Geek volunteers, staff and board members
When: Saturday, July 21, 2012 from 3-7 PM
Where: Free Geek/Market Studios parking lot

Planning

• Planning committee included Stephen, Amelia, Walter, Misty, Kelly, Robert, Kevin, Sarah, and Larry (Board member)
• We used the events@ list and a google doc spreadsheet to communicate
• We met roughly weekly started about 2 months before the event

Much of our planning information is contained in several sheets in this spreadsheet: Media: Planning_for_Summer_Barbeque_2012.gnumeric

Food/Drink

Drinks

We had lots of beer:

• 15 cases of assorted Ninkasi (donated by Ninkasi)
• 1 keg of Widerm Bro's IPA (donated by Widmer)
• 2 cases of Omission (gluten-free) (donated by Widmer)
• 1 keg of Rogue dark IPA (purchased for reduced price)

We easily went through both kegs but have ~10 cases of Ninkasi left. Start soliciting beer donations ~2 months in advance.

For non-alcoholic choices, we had two large beverage coolers--one for ice water and one for lemonade. This seemed to be fine.

Food

Facilities

• Porta potties (2, including one wheelchair accessible) from American Sani-Can
• Set up three large tents (having a large tent over the food tables was key) and one small pop-up canopy (for the beverages)

We have the parts for three large tents, but they take some time and ~4 people to set up. Should do a parts check before the day of to make sure it's all there.

• Pulled out tables and chairs from all over FG (probably had ~15 large tables)

Make sure to label where tables came from with masking tape so that they go back to where they came from.

• Sound system was provided by Austin's DJ friend (large powered speakers, a mixer, and a mic)
• Santi brought his grill from home for the meat, and we used a FG smaller grill for the veggie stuff

Games/Activities

DJ

Raffle

Everyone who came before 4 or 4:30 got 3 raffle tickets to go toward winning the following prizes:

• A super high-end system
• A laptop
• A/V stuff (a reverb amp and 3 DVD players)
• Gift cards/items from other businesses (see spreadsheet for details)

The raffle is a hit every year. Start soliciting businesses for donations well in advance--at least 1-2 months. We had a poster thanking sponsors that featured their logos; telling businesses that we do this will make them more likely to donate.

Here are the Raffle tickets we used. It contains 100 tickets, but if you change the numbers in the top row (ie from 1000 to 1100 and from 1001 to 1101) you can generate the next 100 tickets. We printed and cut out out 600 on cardstock paper and this was more than enough.

Chess

Cornhole