At Homecoming, we had an "alumni tent"; a place for alums to gather and socialize during the afternoon. It is a great idea and the tent was filled with people sharing happy memories of their alma mater. And, instead of our providing a healthy dose of hospitality with the facility, we proceeded to charge our alums a dollar for water or pop; five dollars if they wanted nachos and, of course, more cash for the beer. What were we thinking? Wouldn't it have been better to welcome alums with a free drink ticket or two? Or give free beer in exchange for a contribution to the school. Or at least have the nachos on the house. These are our most engaged alumni; they travelled back to campus and are participating at the events and we ask them to pull out their wallet for trivial expenses. The old saying of "penny wise and pound foolish" comes into my mind.
And then it happened again with the "appreciation day" for city volunteers and committee members. The city owns the golf course, but still charged $5 for participants to play a round. Why? Couldn't they have truly said thank you by absorbing the five bucks? Forgo the hamburger at the end if you have to, but taking money from the one you are trying to thank and putting it back into your revenue stream sounds to me more like a sale instead of a recognition event.
I am confident that both sets of organizers had good intentions and were trying to work within budget constraints. I propose that they would have been better of with a focus on the long term benefits of those dollars rather than just the short-term expense of them. You want your invitees to say "wow", but not in the context of "wow, are they really making me pay for this?"
-- beth triplett
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