The AC Story

As the AC gears up for another summer filled with exhibits, workshops, music and theatre, we are also busy planning benefit events to help us continue to bring you all this great art!  Preparations for our two big summer fundraisers, the Annual Auction on July 2, and the Great Arts Benefit on August 13, are in full swing.  All this event-planning energy in the office has made me reflect on how I got started on the party planning path.

I can’t actually remember the first time I threw a party that wasn’t impromptu, or the first fundraising event I ever became involved with.  But over the years, I’ve managed to organize a few nonprofit benefits and community events.

I suppose I’ve become a reasonably good, albeit reluctant, event planner.  I imagine this has something to do with lists.  I love lists.  I make lists on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.  I have different lined pads of paper for different kinds of lists.  A Magic Rub eraser and a Paper Mate Sharp Writer mechanical pencil are my trusty tools of the trade.  Ordering list items chronologically is my specialty.  I aspire to one day have a master list of all my lists.  I keep paper and pencil by my bed, so handy for those 3 a.m. episodes (you know, eyes-wide-open, bolt-upright, must-not-forget-this-very-important-thing).

The goal of event planning is to throw a bash for (hopefully) a large number of people, and have it all seem effortless and seamless. No one (besides the other planners) should see any hint of the months of preparation, hashing, rehashing, phone calls, errand running, snafus, wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Hopefully all those lists predict, or at least in the end, document, steps in the whole process.

I have learned this:  lists do not a party make.  Certainly, for an event to be successful, it is necessary to know what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.  But it’s people, lots and lots of people, who really help to shape and move and contribute and support and cheerlead and jump in and bail out and clean up and…you get the idea.  Without scores of dedicated people, you just can’t pull off an awesome event.  Lists can be a road map, but you don’t get there travelling alone.

Which brings me to my favorite list:  the long, lovely volunteer thank-you list that warms my heart and humbles me.  Event planning is not easy, but it’s also never lonely.  And as Martha, the patron saint of party planning says, that’s a good thing.

~ Camille Costa Nerney is the AC’s Executive Assistant, and hopes to add you to her thank-you list.