Planning a Party of Presidential Proportions: Lessons Learned (Part Two)

Bailey Edrington
Oct 17, 2016
3 min read

Before I continue with the second installment of "Lessons Learned", I wanted to take a second to acknowledge my amazing team.

My wonderful team and Gamma Phi Beta International President, Annabel Jones. From left to right: Allecia Jones, Bailey Edrington, Annabel Jones, Emily Rogers, Hanna Harrison

Pictured above is my wonderful team with Gamma Phi Beta International President, Annabel Jones. From left to right: Allecia Jones, Bailey Edrington, Annabel Jones, Emily Rogers, Hanna Harrison. Not Pictured: Emily Rhinehart and Ashley Walker (though they were not official members of the team, they contributed a fair amount of time to this event.)

Without further ado, the part deux of "Lessons Learned"

Lesson #3: Kindness is key.

Though I dedicated an entire post to this idea, I cannot help but highlight it here as well. Kindness is everything. Throughout the course of planning this event, I learned just how important kindness is when dealing with others. It doesn't cost a thing; however, it yields invaluable results.

Always be more kind than necessary. Always.

People are far more willing to help you when they enjoy working with you. More than that, when you are working with others, you are representing your organization. In a sense, you are the face of that organization in the world and it is your sole job to represent your organization well. The most effective way to do this: be kind. Always.

Lesson #4: Roll with the punches

Do not overlook the severity of food allergies. I repeat: do not overlook the severity of food allergies.

This is an oversight you only make once. One of our members, Danielle, is severely allergic to celery; if it is in the air, her throat starts to close up.

We conveyed this to our caterers before the event and trusted it would be handled. On the night of the event, we passed all the allergy cards out to our members and we sat down for dinner. Danielle came up to double check that there would be no trace of celery at the event. I told her I would double-check before the plates arrived. I asked our event coordinator and she said there shouldn't be any celery in the dishes.

My plate arrived at my table and I started eating, relieved at how smoothly the event had been going thus far. After my first few bites, I looked up and I could see Danielle's skin turning red and blotchy and I noticed she was coughing. I inspected my dish more closely and sure enough, there was a single piece of celery resting beside my chicken. I checked the dishes beside me and noticed they all had celery in them too.

I immediately walked over to Danielle to see if she needed anything. She said she was going to need to leave when her throat started to hurt. I told her she was free to leave whenever and I grabbed her a parking voucher so she could get out more quickly.

Danielle ended up needing to leave about five minutes later. I checked on her later that night, and she said she was doing much better, which I was so grateful for. However, I learned a very valuable lesson: don't overlook allergies.

These were just a few of the many lessons I learned during this process. I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to plan an event of such importance. I am even more grateful for the lovely team I had the privilege to work with. This event would not have been possible without them.