Children’s Farewell Party
Number of People: 4-6 to organize and run the party - all parents help clean up!
Budget: $0 (The chairs will place your order with Conference Services)
The Children's Grand March will lead children out of the Dining Hall after the Banquet on Friday evening. At the end of the march, take all the Terns and Gulls to Brookfield for an ice cream party.
Contact Conference Services early in the week to arrange the ice cream, which will have been pre-ordered by the chairs.
In the past, Senior Teens have taken care of the music. (If you want to repeat that you should check with the Teens prior to Friday afternoon). Initiate a "mixer" activity and any games or dances that the children might enjoy. You may ask someone to lead some singing. One year a scavenger hunt was planned which was quite popular. Kids may want to play on the playground, which is fine for part of the time, but you will have tired, and punchy kids after a long week, so other planned activities may be helpful to keep everything going smoothly. Keep children occupied until 8:45 at which time they leave Brookfield.
Four people is minimum for this activity -- two to organize and run, others to scoop ice cream and supervise/interact with the kids. There is a big initial rush for the ice cream!
Try to keep ice cream eaters inside of Brookfield - otherwise they tend to leave spoons and cups all over the playground.
Usually there is a lot of ice-cream left over and the longer it gets left out, the soupier it gets. Try to organize ahead of time to stop serving icecream after everyone has had some, and put it in a freezer for a while until the teen party gets going at 9:00. The goal is to keep the icecream frozen for the teen party, which doesn't start until 9:00. You can try putting it in the freezer in Newton Center, or bringing it back to the kitchen in the dining hall, and letting the teen party coordinators know where to get it an hour later.
At least one parent of participating children is expected to stay and help clean up afterward because the Teen's Farewell party begins in Brookfield at 9:00.
You may want to talk to the musicale director to have him/her announce at the appropriate time that parents must pick up their terns and gulls; otherwise the parents may stay through to the end of the musicale and the kids won’t be picked up on time.
Last edited by Kathy West - June 2018