Get Organized: Make a To-do List

When planning for any party, you should always make a simple list or diagram, so your helpers know what to do. While you should be there for the set-up of every party, realistically that won't happen. You might have tests, appointments, classes, etc that may not allow you to have time to set up. Therefore, make a list. It will take 10 minutes to type up. Here is a sample:

Things to do for Party:

1. Put bar in corner of room

2. Set up decorations (you can draw a picture of the room and label the locations of the decorations)

3. Clean up living room

4. Place trash cans in (put locations here)

5. Put away tables and chairs from the common room

6. Put DJ equipment out

7. Set up lights

Setting Up for a Party

When you are setting up for your party, you need to arrange the room maximize certain things. There are a few things to remember when it comes to setting up the party. These things can change depending on the scope of your party. I will go into detail for those specific situations later when I talk about specific types of parties. For general purposes, I will assume that you are setting up a cocktail party of some sort. For this cocktail party, the first thing you need to recognize is the flow of people and the party.

When you host a party, you need to make sure that people know where to enter, drink, and dance. In order to make it easy for people to do the aforementioned things, you need to move a few objects. The entrance should lead the guests to the main drinking room. When a guest enters this main drinking room from the entrance of your frat, the first thing they should see is the bar (if you don’t have a bar, then build one or use a large table). The bar should never be in the middle of the room, but it should be put in one of the corners or sides of the room. When the bar is located in the corner of a room, it allows people to easily see it and get their drinks in an orderly fashion. Remember that people tend to line up in front of the bar and stay there for long periods of time. To accommodate this, you should never put the bar by the entrance to the main drinking room, as this make the room too crowded by the entryway. 

The dancing room should be in a separate room from the main drinking room. The bar should also be as far away from the dancing room as possible, since you don’t want the music to be extremely loud by the bar. If music is too loud by the bar, then it’s difficult for guests to order a drink and converse with each other. You should have a couple of couches in the room so people can rest. These couches should be between the bar and the dancing room. If the couches were near the bar, then it would make the way to the bar too crowded, and this would make it difficult for guest to get their drinks. The couches are also there to show where socializing area is. The area between the dancing room and the bar will be the place where people congregate to converse and enjoy themselves. It shouldn’t be too crowded in that area, since people will have other areas to go, such as the dance floor or the bar. 

Also, a big thing is have plenty of trash cans. Your Clean-Up Chair will thank you for putting trash cans out. If your guests see trash cans, and they are conveniently located, they will throw away their drinks by themselves. Place large trash cans, next to the bar, main entrance, and entrance to dancing room. Ideally you should use the 32 gallon green trash cans with a liner in them. Trash cans will make your party much better!

Social Committee Breakdown

Here's a breakdown of the positions and their responsibilities in the Social Committee:

1. Decoration Chair—brother in charge of purchasing all necessary decorations for the party. Decorations will always change to compliment the theme of the party. Sometimes there is no need for this position, as the social chair might prefer to purchase decorations. (There will be MANY posts about different decorations and themes.)
   
2. Beverage Chair—brother in charge of purchasing all beverages and cups for the party. The social chair should try to go with the Beverage Chair as much as possible, in order to estimate how many and types of beverages, etc to buy for the event.
   
3. Set-up Chair—brother, usually a newer brother, in charge of setting up all of the decorations for the party. This includes moving necessary furniture and placing the beverages in the main area of the party.
   
4. Clean-up Chair—brother, usually a newer brother, in charge of taking down all decorations from the party, and he is in charge of throwing away all trash from the event. Also, this brother should return all furniture back to their original positions after the party.
   
5. Security Chair—brother in charge of selecting sober brothers for the party. If wristbands are used for the party, then this brother will be in charge of distributing them. He is also in charge of checking guests in at the door. If your frat uses a guest list, then the Security Chair will be the one in charge of compiling that list.
   
6. DJ Chair—brother in charge of the music for the party. If your frat has professional DJ equipment, then he is in charge of setting up the equipment and putting it away after the party.
   

This is just a glimpse at the positions. I will go into more detail for each position later on in the blog.