Family reunion suggestions?

[HoosierHelen]

On Sept 17th we have a fair amount of relatives coming to FW for our annual reunion. We have been blessed with a great location to hold this at my Aunt & Uncle's home. They have over 15 acres with a nice size pond. We have activities for all the children throughout the afternoon. Everyone brings food dishes and we grill hamburgers and hot dogs there. It is always a great time.

Yet, each year, I leave there feeling that something is missing. I feel that the cousins I grew up with and was so very close with as a child ... I don't know them as well as I used to. Several of them have made similar comments also. There are about 20 of us in the 50 - 65 age group. Many are scattered in other areas of the US and we only see each other at the reunion. Obviously family still means much to them for them to make this long journey each year.

Since they are doing the traveling, I thought perhaps this year I could come up with an activity for a mixer for just the cousins either Fri evening before the reunion or Sat evening after (that might make for a long day though?) Has anyone got any suggestions for a mixer activity for this age group of people?

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

[No Adventure Is Too Small]

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

We have found that an adults only Euchre tourney goes over very well.
We structure ours with a 50 cent or dollar entry fee, and put numbers for
each player in a jar, we have seats at tables pre numbered, and at the end
of each fourth deal you redraw for partners. So when it works well no one has
the same partner twice. So it amounts to one deal around the table, and the tournament
lasts for ten rounds, each team gets the final score of each game as individual scores.
So one bad round won't necessarily be detrimental. After ten rounds of play the highest
score gets 50% of the pot lowest score gets 25% and person that makes the most loners
get 25%. You can add cocktails to the mix or just softdrinks for tea totalers. This game
forces you to interact with the biggest variety of your family and no one has an unfair
advantage. It is typically fun for all and the money just gives a little incentive/bragging rights.
As an alternative to money though you can create a family trophy that gets passed on each year.
Nice winners trophy and ugly losers trophy perhaps lol, all in all just good fun and forced getting to
know each other again.

[krazetrain]

Helen,
I am guessing that the of age group you mentioned, at least half are capable of using a computer. You might request that the others bring family photos and set aside time for each person to "brag" inform everyone of the doings of thier family. If they also brought the photos on a flash drive or a cd/dvd. They could be downloaded onto a PC. Google has a free photo program called Picasa 3, that also gives you a free online web album. using that web album, you can store photos (or those of the group) online. You get access to it by using a gmail accout email address and it is password protected. Then the photos of the group and thier families would be stored online. By providing the people with the link to the account, they may access and download any photos that they want. With a little effort a family web album and linked family posting site would be put together and it would grow allowing the youngsters a view of the family history. My family has been sharing flash drives with family pictures and we are just beginning to build our family photo album. Using picasa3 also prevents any precious photos saved on a PC from being lost due to a virus or crashed hard drive.

[HoosierHelen]

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions. We do have a family website that is maintained by a family member. She posts our family pics and stories throughout the year that we submit to her.

It is always fun to click on there and see what the others and doing and what the children are looking like. (Us old folks...not so much... )

I like the Euchre suggestion. I tossed the idea out yesterday to a few and they like it also. I believe we are going to add it as a late afternoon activity to end the day on Saturday. I'll bet it will work perfectly!

[No Adventure Is Too Small]

Thanks to both of you for your suggestions. We do have a family website that is maintained by a family member. She posts our family pics and stories throughout the year that we submit to her.

It is always fun to click on there and see what the others and doing and what the children are looking like. (Us old folks...not so much... )

I like the Euchre suggestion. I tossed the idea out yesterday to a few and they like it also. I believe we are going to add it as a late afternoon activity to end the day on Saturday. I'll bet it will work perfectly!

It makes me smile a little on the inside when I can actually help someone in some small way.
I hope that you enjoy interacting with each other as much as we do.
There is nothing on this earth more precious than family, yet so many of us neglect it.

[edeevee]

Helen,

Just wondering how the reunion went?

[HoosierHelen]

Helen,

Just wondering how the reunion went?

Hey...thanks for asking! It went very well. We played cards into late evening and I felt we all had an extended visit that has been missing in previous reunions. Actually, one of my cousins gave me a gift of a software package named 'The Family Tree Maker'. I do believe my work with this will open other doors for family communications.

[No Adventure Is Too Small]

Hey...thanks for asking! It went very well. We played cards into late evening and I felt we all had an extended visit that has been missing in previous reunions. Actually, one of my cousins gave me a gift of a software package named 'The Family Tree Maker'. I do believe my work with this will open other doors for family communications.

Sounds great H.H. there is nothing better than family time.
Far too many are either dysfunctional or nonexistent with the time constraints in todays busy lives.