This was the biggest event of the year for my agency and the biggest test of my internship is ultimately completed. I am so excited to say that I was part of this banquet. I had such an amazing night. Here are the details.
The day began at 9:30am where all the interns came to the venue to set up all the tables and chairs, band equipments, medals, art work, and registration tables for check-in. Check-in consisted of parents showing up with their child or children, giving their name to the registration volunteers, and the volunteers giving them a name tag with assigned seating. The banquet structure started by having a reception and a guitar solo, dinner buffet, Pledge of Allegiance by Brandon and Carla Piestewa (the children of the late Lori Piestewa), National Anthem played by the Mogollon Band, presentation of the art contest winners, presentation of the essay winners, benediction, and closing remarks by Ron Wolfley.
It was nice to see that parents were interacting with other parents throughout the night at the celebration banquet. There were approximately 560 guests at the banquet. I talked to several of the parents and asked them how they liked the set up of the banquet as well as the food. They told me that they were surprised at how organized the banquet was and how excellent the food was. The banquet had a great flow to it throughout the whole night.
Once the banquet was over, the interns (me included) recruited several of the parents to help out with clean up and putting back all the tables and chairs. On Monday, the executive director called me for a meeting to discuss the positives and negatives of the banquet night. We talked about all the positives and had a longer talk about the negatives in order to fix them for next years banquet.
The whole planning of the celebration banquet was a bit challenging, but I can now say that I was part of a banquet that housed 560 guests. I feel very confident in my ability to host another banquet again.
