October 2009

Wanna put stress on your marriage? Put 9 events in one month.

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October 2nd - Homecoming Afterparty

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This provided a hang-out for youth after the Homecoming Game as a substitute for afterparties. We had a campfire with S'mores, capture the flag, and other games. We actually had a pretty sweet turn-out, many of the youth came!

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October 7th - Fair Night

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As a change of pace from the typical Fantastic Friday on Wednesday, we hopped in the bus and headed to the Tulsa State Fair. We covered quite a bit of ground and ate quite a bit of food. Then when the youth returned to the bus, they each found themselves with a bag of cotten candy. It was a really fun evening.

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October 8th - Erica's Night

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We attended her play "It Happens Every Summer" at B.A. and she did a fabulous job. Honestly, she may have had the funniest line in the whole drama, "Anyone want some cookies?." (You had to be there.)

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October 10th - Jake's Night

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We went to Jake's football game, then treated him out to the quickly becoming traditional Buffalo Wild Wings.

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October 23rd - Tailgating at Bixby High School

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So, the AMAZING Events team and I got together to brainstorm a major event for the fall which would produce alot of momentum and interest in AHYEAH in one of the schools. Because the majority of our youth are in Union we had the huge/exhausting/expensive event at the IHigh last year. Along with being limited to one school, it was also extremely difficult to promote.

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In the midst of our brainstorming, Sarah Thompson (you rock) had the idea of hitting all the major schools by having the youth group tailgate at one of their major football games. What an idea! This would widen our horizon, take alot less grunt work, and be where the students already are!!! Sarah, Barry, and myself got on set-up, Deb jumped on food, and Brian took on fliers, banners, and give-aways. It all fell together beautifully, and the youth loved the idea and came out to support it!

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Our first one was at Bixby. Brian cranked out sweet cinch backpacks with our logo on them along with a big banner, for several days some of the youth and I had been hand spray painting 60-70 t-shirts with the AHYEAH stencils and graffiti, and Deb popped in with hot dogs and snacks. We parked the bus (an advertisement all by itself) in a rather strategic place and gave away the backpacks (pink or black with an AHYEAH flier inside), spray painted t-shirts, had a raffle sign up for 1 of 3 ITunes cards (this is how we gathered info to call them and promote AHYEAH), and food throughout a couple of hours before the game and all the way to half time. We blasted music and tried to start mini football games in the parking lot with passing youth. For our first attempt, it went rather well.

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Afterward, we took a minute to think it through how it could be better. I remembered that several weeks back a couple of youth estatically told me about how a Red Bull car had met them in the parking lot outside a football game and gave them free Red Bull. I threw out the suggestion that we give away free Monster Energy Drinks to the people who would fill out the raffle ticket. Plus, we decided to set up a large tent or two and stretch our banner across the outside. Both good ideas.

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October 24th - Amy's Night
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Amy was in a marching band. I had never been to a marching band competition before and expected very little. Heck, we were going to support her. Boy, was I wrong! It was a blast. All the bands were so creative and in sinc, it was totally entertaining. Plus, her band won!

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October 26th - Coleman's Night

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We headed over to Jenks and despite many of the youth being Union fans, we rooted him on with enthusiasm. :)

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October 30th - Tailgating at Union

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Well, we tweaked the event a little bit. Be brought a huge tent, and tons of Monsters, and whew what a draw. Plus we got a sweet spot where most everyone had to walk past us to go to the game, especially the band, cheerleaders, and ROTC. When you yell at a group of students that your giving away free Monsters, it definitely catches attention. People were grabbing a Monster, filling out a raffle and running and grabbing/telling their friends to get one. It was awesome. 100+ Monsters were gone by the end of the night and we had stacks of kid's info in raffle tickets, youth were leaving the game to come and get free stuff. We gave away all of the AHYEAH spraypainted t's and definitely caught attention.

Some of the youth have actually seen the T's being worn at school for now 7 months after we were there. God is cool!

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October 31st - Wacky Watermelon Night

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This was an improved version of 2008's Wacky Watermelon Night. We kept events like the watermelon pinata, and improved others such as: stacking watermelons with duct tape instead of chewed gum (gross), and launching water balloons at the carved watermelons (with candles inside) with waterballoon launchers instead of just throwing them.

We also had an awesome band (Acts 29, the new name of the former Blood Drive from Meta 3:14) come and jam out while we carved the melons. Live music + carving melons instead of pumpkins + bashing a watermelon with baseball bat + hanging out with friends = FUN!