Every year I am in charge of the annual church retreat. This past year I had to coordinate over three hundred people at a camp deep in the forests of Colorado. Coordinating this many people is a lot like herding cats—and generally about as effective. Add to the complication of it all, the group wanted to meet in the great outdoors, which I interpreted as not near any place that I could easily run to get supplies or food if and when we ran out.
In years prior, I had always relied on having a grocery store of some kind around as a plan B. This time, no such luck. I had to be at the top of my game or I was going to be faced with an angry (and hungry) mob.
Being I am no stranger to event planning and figuring this would not be my last event to plan, I decided to purchase some event management software to help me with a few things. But not everyone would be as tech savvy as I might like to think that I am so whatever software I used, it had to be user friendly. I decided most people would be relatively comfortable with online payment options and automatic emails. So I started there. The rest would just kind of fall into place.
The breakfast foods that I chose were presented buffet style and included edible foods that tasted decent cold. We had food like bagels, fruit, muffins and other highly portable and somewhat lasting food. But I could not rely on only cold stuff. Especially when it came to people wanting their morning coffee. Providing hot coffee for over 300 people was an entirely different challenge.
The solution was to pre-order bulk coffee cups, lids and coffee. I brought in some large igloo coolers to store the water for coffee and to make it on the spot via a camping coffee maker. I did not want to take a chance that I would not have electricity. As a special treat, I did not skimp on the coffee either. I went with Green Mountain's Special Reserve Los Nacientes.
People thought I was nuts going to all this trouble, but I know how people are if they don’t get their morning coffee—and I wasn’t going to risk a revolt! The moral of the story is to always be prepared - from the actual event planning to picking the right coffee. When you are prepared, people will love you for it. And if you aren’t prepared you better be able to run; fast!
