The Final Froctober Edition

 

I can't believe we are about to enter our last week of October? What the frock? So to end this month is true Froctober style I am re-capping one of this years favourite events.

This year I ran the Shine program at school for year 7 girls. The foundational concepts of the program are worth, strength and purpose. You can read more about the program here. To end the nine week program we ended with a special high tea. The girls brought a dress to wear, a present and word of encouragement for another girl and were escorted to the hall where a beautiful high tea awaited them.

 PICS:

 

TIPS:

1. The space we used was quite large, it is a school hall so we had to be strategic in decorating as the area was so-large. We decided to focus only on the front part of the hall close to the stage so we could use it to present their awards and certificates. This way we could use all our efforts to decorate a smaller area. If you have a large space, then a good tip is to focus on making one area of it look really good.
2. We borrowed a lot of things for this event. Table cloths, glass vases, beautiful tea pot sets, props for the photo booth-all borrowed. I had two friends who were recently married so they still had things left over from their decorations, do you have any recently married friends you could ask? This helps to keep things cost effective.

   TRICKS:

1. The trick that I think really set this event apart from other events we've held there would have to be the choice we made to hire chair covers. The chairs are these big plastic things which are blue and green, I knew if we went all out with everything except the chairs, it would not look as good. We saved money in a lot of other areas and I managed to find them for around $3.00 a cover including the organza bow. If you really want something to look special, then make sure you ensure the chairs are decorated to fit the theme. 
2. I used a pinterest inspired project to personalize mugs for each of the girls. I used the good old sharpie and bake trick to create mugs with the word Shine, their name and the words-worth-strength-purpose. I baked them for an hour at 350 degrees celcius. Aside from the mugs the girls received a certificate of completion and a gift from another student. 
3. Food wise we kept it nice and simple with sandwiches and scones with jam and cream. I made the scones the night before using this super simple recipe, 3 ingredients is all it takes. 

This particular event was one of my favourite to organize and hold. The girls were in disbelief when they saw the hall, as it had never looked so good (if I do say so myself). The girls truly felt treasured and blessed by the effort we put in to making them feel valued. It was the perfect ending to our 9 week program.

I hope you enjoyed the Froctober series. 

xo

Froctober Edition II

Well its here again, time to share another special event. If you missed last weeks, then not to worry, you can check it out here. Last week I re-capped an African Jewelry Party. This week I'll be re-capping an event I held at school last term-Father's Day Morning Tea.

I'm on the mental health and wellbeing action team at school, seeing I'm the Chaplain it kind of only seems appropriate. One of the things we discussed earlier in the year was the need to have our students parents involved more at our school. So I thought it that at both Mother's and Father's Day we could invite parents to our Chapel services and have a special morning tea for them. We have two campuses, so its quite a lot of work having to do it for both Upper and Lower Primary, however it was well worth it. 

Today, as I said I'm going to re-capp our Father's Day Morning Tea and Chapel Service. We had a cowboy themed morning tea. We made a video about a 'Super Dad" that we showed at Upper Primary and we had the class leading worship share things they love about their Dad during Lower Primary's Chapel service. We then had the service as usual, which was really great to have our Dad's along to join us for praise and worship and the message. It was great to see our students interact with their parents in a positive setting at school. 

Unfortunately because I was 'running' the event I didn't get a whole lot of pictures to share, and because it's a school event, I wouldn't be able to share photos of the kids anyways. But you will get the idea; 

PICS

The middle photo on the bottom is from Lower Primary Campus and the rest are from the Upper Primary Campus

TIPS

1. A tip in knowing where to start when planning an event is honestly to have a "theme" that you can work with. Once we had the western theme, we knew what foods to serve that would tie in with it.
2. RSVP-we decided to scrap the idea of having an RSVP to the even as we felt it may inhibit those Dad's who decide to come at the last minute due to the fact they didn't RSVP. We really wanted as many Dad's to come as possible so we just left it open ended and I think this worked the best for this kind of event. At both morning teas we had enough food and in fact some children even brought food for us to serve up.

TRICKS

1. For Mother's day we made our whole chapel service focused on Mother's, however for Father's Day we decided to just keep Chapel as normal but just add something small during the service to honour the Dad's. If you are holding a special event alongside a pre-existing event then it's up to you to decide how to integrate the two. The Mother's Day Chapel and Morning tea was a blast, but having our Dad's come to our normal services was just as great and I think its safe to say they were both equally blessed by our efforts
2. For almost every special event I hold I go to this site: Hostess With The Mostess Seriously if you have not checked this site out, then you must. It has amazing ideas for almost every occasion you would want to celebrate. Check it out.  

The Father's Day morning tea was a highlight for me this year, seeing our kids serve their Dad's food and spending time with them was just precious.  Look forward to sharing with you about another frock-worthy event next Thursday!

Froctober Edition I

Welcome to the first edition of Froctober!.

Today the special event I will be sharing Tips, Tricks and Pics from is an African Jewelry Party my friend Bethany and I held in July. By hosting an African Jewelery party you are raising awareness and funds for a truly wonderful organization in Uganda. The Organization is called Operation Uganda and you can read about them here. The three pillars of their organization are:

Rescue a Child – There are over 2 million orphaned and vulnerable children in Uganda through child sponsorship and the rescue fund we are able to rescue and care for orphaned and vulnerable children.

Empower a community – After years of war aids and extreme poverty local communities in Uganda have suffered. Operation Uganda empowers communities through skills based training, education and child sponsorship.

Transform a nation – one child at a time, one widow at a time, one community at a time. Together we can transform a nation and help the poorest of poor out of poverty, one at a time.

One of their empowerment programs is teaching women how to make jewelry and other crafty items. Then they ship the handmade jewelry overseas so that people can buy the products, and raise funds for Operation Uganda. This is how an African Jewelry Party comes about, people decide to host one, invite their friends along and a Jewelry consultant will come out on the day with all the products as well as a DVD and give a short presentation about the organization.

We decided to have the party at Bethany's house as most people we were inviting were friends of hers. And because, Bethany would like to actually go to Uganda to visit Operation Uganda in the not too distant future. Ok now its time to share some Tips, Tricks and Pics of this special event.

PICS

Here were some of the awesome handmade products the consultant brought along.

Ha, excuse the messy icing but they got squashed and smudged on the way to Beth's house.

These were some other designs (pre packaging)

TIPS

1. If there is a particular cause or organization that you would love to raise money for or raise awareness about then I would suggest looking around on the internet to see if that particular organization has a "get involved" section set up for people who want to raise awareness/funds. Operation Uganda were fabulous, they sent us invitations and gave us the details of the jewelry consultant they would send to us. They supplied all the products, methods of payment and gave the presentation about their work at the party. All we had to do was provide the location and some afternoon tea. This eliminated a lot of work for Bethany and I. 
2. As you can see the cookies I decorated got a little smudged in transit, I was trying to have less to carry by putting as many as I could in a container. I would suggest that even though you may have to to bring more containers don't put nicely decorated treats on top of each other, even if they are dry at the time, heat could melt your work and smudging occur:( 
3. Decorating for this event was minimal. As you can see we put up a thought provoking poster and then strung some zebra bunting to enhance the African theme along the ceiling. The cookies were also quite a talking point and served as decoration for the food area. We didn't want to detract from the main attraction which was the beautiful handmade products which were really the feature of the entire room.

TRICKS

1. So, how did we get the Uganda shaped cookies? I spent hours cutting them with a butter knife-not! We went online to Ebay wonderful Ebay... and found all sorts of country shape cookie cutters(you can pretty much find any shape under the sun. Everyone loved the cookies they were a simple yet effective addition to the food table. 
2. I think the trick to keeping a party cost effective is to re-use decorations or things from home that fit the theme of the party. The Zebra bunting (which you will see in a post next week) was re-used from a previous special event. The poster "Where you live should no-longer determine whether you live" normally hangs up in Bethany's room. And the cookies ended up being a part of the decorations too. So before you go out and buy or make decorations for your next special event, get creative, take a look around your home (or a friends) and see what you can firstly re-use.

The African Jewelry party was a lot of fun and most importantly awareness and funds were raised for Operation Uganda. Hope you enjoyed the first edition of Froctober. Look forward to partying with you next week.

Froctober Series Launch

Ok, lets be honest. We're pretty much coming up to the party end of the year. For me, working at a school it pretty much means Christmas Party, after graduation celebrations after Christmas Party etc... So to kick start the party season I am having a little "Froctober Series" (Frock + October = Froctober) a chance for you to put on a pretty frock, and join me for some special event re-caps. 

See, I have had the privilege of hosting, organizing, co-running all sorts of special events this year. And I want to share them with you. When I talk about living a life of More Than Words, it excites me because it is when you choose to love beyond words that you can express love in a creative form. 

For me, one of the ways I express love is through event management/planning. Nothing shows someone or a community that you care about them quite like the amount of time, effort, energy, finances, planning that comes with holding an event. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we must always go to such great lengths to show love, but when time calls for a special event-you better believe that is what I will pour my love through... 

See a lot of my ideas were inspired by other ideas I found. So I hope through my sharing it will inspire you in your event planning. I would also LOVE to have you guest post for Froctober, so if you have an event that you would like to share tips, tricks and pics about then please send me an email or post a link to your blog in the comment section and I will feature you. I'd truly love to have you...remember sharing is caring:) 

Formalities aside, let the party begin

You are Invited to Froctober 

 

When:Thursday throughout the Month of October 

Where: morethanwords2012.blogspot.com.au

Dress: Your party frock 

RSVP: If you would like to share your special event then please contact me via email: morethanwords.info@gmail.com by Monday the 22nd of October.

Hope you can make it!