Ice Cream - What's More American Than That?

One of the coolest (literally) events I've done recently was an Ice Cream Social for Buckhead Church. For the last several weeks, Pastor Andy Stanley's sermons were in the theme of "Letters to Our Next President." So to wrap up the theme, Buckhead Church "treated" all of their members to Ice Cream. Is there anything more American that that? I think not.

Aside from driving home Pastor Andy Stanley's lesson and key topics, overall I think this treat was just that: a treat. How many times do you leave church or temple and have an ice cream cart waiting for you, begging you to take part? Personally, never for me.

I can't tell you how many times I heard:

• "Wow. They are so nice!"
• "I love this church!"
• "I sure didn't expect this!"
• "How cool is this?!"

All organizations should take note. THESE MEMBERS FELT APPRECIATED.

One of the most common reasons for under-performance in the workplace is that the employees feel under-appreciated - as if their contributions don't matter anyway. I'd like to challenge 10 organizations within the next 10 weeks to host some sort of Employee Appreciation Event. As you have seen, it doesn't have to be elaborate.

Sometimes, ice cream alone will do the trick.

Green Baby Shower

One of the most common trends in all of events is "Green." And no, obviously I don't mean the color green. I had the opportunity recently to throw such an event for a good friend of mine. Jenny is HAVING A BABY!

In keeping with her lifestyle choices, we chose to do her baby shower with only one rule: Everything had to either be organic, recycled, or recycleable. Pretty tall order, eh?

So here's what we did.

Trader Joe's and Whole Foods became our place to go in the planning process for the food part at least. The menu consisted of organic fruit, free range chicken for the chicken salad, and whole wheat pasta in the ziti. Naturally, we had more food that this, but you get the point.

The other thing to think about is plates, forks, napkins, and decor. Luckily, our good friend, Paul Brummer loaned 30 of his china plates and silverware to us for the day. Also, Monica Lamour loaned us her cloth napkins. The cool thing about this conglomeration was that it WAS a conglomeration. Nothing matched. And that is ok!

The decor came from $1 pots that I found at the local dollar store and plants that Monica bought from the local nursery. These were the table centerpieces - that doubled as favors for the guests. I also bought plants from IKEA that made great buffet accents.

Finally, because everything had to be recycled or recylable, we used recyled paper for the games, and I took home the remaining paper and recyled it again.

Here are some pictures from the party.

Congrats, Jenny!