Holiday Events

With everyone in the holiday spirit, it’s a great time to gather your residents together in one room and organize a community holiday craft party. This month, residents will be making an assortment of winter and holiday-themed crafts for all ages – from children to older adults and everyone in between. We’ve highlighted a few snowflake crafts but there are other ideas and links at the end of the article. Preparation As always, with any craft event, it’s important to try the crafts yourself before sharing them with your residents. While working on your own sample design, you may find ways to streamline the process or discover new techniques that you want to share. A trial run will also give you some finished samples you can set out for residents to copy so they know they’re on...

A well-planned bazaar and fundraiser during the holiday season will catch donors and attendees when they are already in a giving mood. At the same time, the holiday season is always busy so it’s best to plan the event well in advance so that there will be less chance of a conflict with your resident attendees Here are a few tips for planning a non-profit bazaar in your community that can hold space as a fun and successful event. Guests Decide if your event will be open only to residents, or if you will open it up to other community members as well. You may decide on a compromise and insist that each resident is allowed to bring one or two “guests” to the event from outside the community. This can allow residents to bring partners, friends, family members, or any other guests...

The holiday season is a great time to start a rotating art exhibition showcasing local artist and artists on a monthly, or bi-monthly, basis. You can organize the exhibitions yourself, seek volunteers from your resident community to help manage the events, or seek out students from a local arts department. **TIP** Find out if your local community has an "Art Walk" day or something similar (usually the first or second Saturday of the month) and time your exhibitions and opening shows to correspond to that city-wide event. To host an art exhibition in your lobby area there are a few things you’ll want to consider. Finding artists There are many different ways to find artists and structure the exhibitions. Image source: Pixabay ...

As we get closer to Christmas, most people start to panic as we realize how many items we have not crossed off of our “to-do” lists! This resident event is a combination of services which relieve at least some of those stresses. First, host a “Parent’s Night Out” for your community and invite your residents to drop their children off at the clubhouse for a night of kid-free shopping! Make sure you have plenty of staff members available that evening so there are more than enough adults to chaperone this event. You could show a holiday-themed movie, gather some materials to make Christmas crafts or print off a variety of coloring pages, provide light snacks, and keep those kiddos busy and entertained so their parents can get those last-minute errands done! Make sure you have a sign-up sheet at the office so that you...

There are many popular holiday movies that are played this time of the year, but there is one in particular that inspired this week’s Resident Event! Let’s plan a Polar Express Movie Night! Schedule an evening in the clubhouse (or theatre room if your property has one) and invite the kids and their parents to board the Polar Express! On your flyer, the heading should read, “All Aboard!” or use this great image which has elements from the movie: Photo credit: http://www.theparamountcenter.com/files/8914/1486/1108/polar-express.jpg In the movie, the kids need a golden ticket to board the Polar Express which goes to the North Pole. When you send out the flyer/invitation attach a “Golden Ticket” that your guests must bring with them so they feel really excited about coming! You can print them at your...