CH Retirement do - creative help required please!

joolsybools

I'm looking for help in organsing a 2 hour lunchtime retirement do for a colleague who has worked for our charity for 20 years.

After some debate we have decided to hold the do at our head office instead of hiring a venue as, understandably, there are issues around spending money on this whilst there are other people in the organsiation who may be faciing redundancy soon.

We have invited around 150 people about half of which are external partners. There are some top people within our charitable sector invited: people with OBEs / MBEs / Chief Execs of large non-profit making organsaitions, so whilst having to work within a very limited budget for catering I want to make this a nice occasion in terms of making the room look presentable/stylish/saying thank you for 20 years of highly valued and very respected work.

I think I may have sourced some gorgeous cheap fresh flowers locally (SW London) but I need some help to decorate the room i.e. make a naff room look respectable! If anyone has any creative ideas then please help!

I'm NOT looking for donations/sponsorship, purely ideas how to make the ugly duckling room/situation blossom!

Thanks x

This is a copy of the thread that' is also posted here : http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=573669 I hope I'm not posting in the wrong place, sorry if I am.

lavender_girl

How about a few placed 'here and there' helium balloons with congratulations or something along those lines. Have the napkins personalised with the persons name. Get some little glass bowls and float some flower heads. This is quite economical, but looks really nice, for the centre of each table.

Have a centre piece with a cake. You can send a photo with persons name to a few organisations who will print on to icing which you can then put on top of a shop bought cake. I know of a good company if you are interested, that I have used a couple of times. You could then cover a stand with some material and build it up with a few flowers like a couple of Gerberas etc...place around with the cake on top, that would give a good focus. If you have strip lighting and little daylight coming through, how about getting some lamps in at different heights that gives a soft glow, rather than stark.

Well hope that helps :0) Hope it goes well for you.

joolsybools

Thanks lavender girl, there's some good ideas in there, ta.