Graduation Planning

Table of Content

1. Introduction 2
2. Feasibility of the Event 3
3. Aims and Objectives 3
4. Event Organizing Stage 4
4.1 Getting Approval from the university 4
4.2 Foods and Beverages 5
4.3 Decoration 6
4.4 Equipment 7
4.5 Invitation 7
4.6 Promotion 8
4.7 Guest List 8
4.8 Back up Plan 9
4.9 Conclusion 9
5. Entertainment Activities Stage 10
5.1 Delegate Talking 10
5.2 Performing 11
5.3 Gaming 11
5.4 Taking Picture 12
6. Budgeting Stage 13
7. Compiling the Activity Program 15
8. Conclusion 16
9. References 17

1. Introduction

Asia Pacific University (APU) is a Private University in Malaysia which is established in 1993 (APU, 2013). It is a international school owns more than 10,000 students from over 105 countries studying in its Malaysia campus. The course of the university can be divided into three main areas, Information Technology (IT), Engineering, and Business Management.

The year is ending soon, and as the organizer of the Faculty of Tourism Management of APU, we are planning to organize a Graduation Tourism Dinner Party in the university. The event is going to be organized under Tourism group from Business Management to invite all the tourism lecturers and tourism students who are going to graduate from the university. The rest tourism students who are still studying in the university are also going to be invited as participants.

2. Feasibility of the Event

The Graduation Tourism Dinner Party is supported by the Faculty of Tourism Management Group of APU and all the tourism lecturers. All the tourism students will glad to join the party as a chance of communicate and bid farewell to the university and the lecturers. The whole event is going to be organized within APU campus. Before the event start to organize, the group will get approval from the university. There will have no sponsorship from outside, but all the students and participants are going to pay for the ticket for food and beverage.

3. Aims and Objectives

The objectives and aims of the event are to celebrate tourism students who are going to finish their total course successfully and work in the real society. At first, it is an opportunity for students who are going to graduate getting some recommendations from lecturers. At the same time, it is also considered as a chance for current tourism students who are still in level 1 or level 2 communicate with their seniors and gain some study experience. Thirdly, the party provides a stage for lecturers to show expect and hope to the students who are going to graduate from the university. At last, enhance the relationship between students and lecturers, bonding the tourism group.

4. Event Organizing Stage

Graduation Tourism Dinner Party is organized for graduating student, so the date selected has to after they finish the final exam. Regarding to that, organizer decide the date is 7th December 2013. Overall, in the process of event, we are going to provide dinner, performance, and few games to entertain the participants. The event will take 2 hours starts from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. There will be maximum 40 students and lecturers attend the event, and the location will at Mines campus beside the river.

4.1 Getting Approval from the university

Before the procedure started, we need to get permission from the university first for using of campus. At first, we will write a letter to the administration of the university together with proposal of our event. On the proposal, the date, time, objective, and planning process needs to be listed clearly. All the organizing activity can only be done after applying and approve the proposal. If it is possible, better to require financial support from the university to save the organization cost. We also need to mention that the event is going to pick Mines campus river side as the location of the event to make sure it is allowed by the university.

4.2 Foods and Beverages

After we get the permission of the event from the university, and confirm the location. Next step is to prepare foods and beverages for the dinner. We plan to order foods from a caterer who can provide local Malaysian food (Figure 4.2). We will chose few of caterers first and look at their menu prepared for the event, as well as the price. The average price can not more than RM10/pax to remain the ticket price. So the total price for foods and beverage should not more than RM400 include drink supply. The reason to choose Malaysian food is for the international students who are going to graduate from the university. Some of them may be finish their journey in the country. They can enjoy in a local food graduation dinner party will become a better experience at the end of trip in Malaysia. As for tableware or dinnerware, we can borrow from the cafeteria at Mines.

Figure 4.2 Malaysia Cuisine

Source from: (Quarrygirl, 2008)

4.3 Decoration

Decoration of the event needs to refer to the location. As we mentioned before, the location is decided as Mines campus river side. Then those indoor decorations are not suitable for the event. However, we can use balloons and color ribbons to decorate on the trees and tables (Figure 4.3). Besides, we can also put some small flags of APU if it is available in our university. There will be a huge poster on the back of the stage. The poster will highlight “Graduation Tourism Dinner Party” in the middle and design by our student. The most important is we are going to prepare a graduation signature board. All the participants including lecturers and students will sign their name on the board as a souvenir for the event.

Figure 4.3 Decoration Reference

Sources from: (Gordon Ranch, 2013)

4.4 Equipment

In the event, we are going to arrange some performance and invite some lecturers and students to present on the stage. In this case, renting a stage and prepare for all the equipment is necessary. First of all, we can borrow the stage from our university. Previously we used the stage for all the national Independence Day or other events at TPM, so it is feasible to borrow the stage. Besides, we need to rent all the equipment such as speakers, microphones, and sound console from hotels as not more than RM200 one day. We can also rent some instruments from students or studios.

4.5 Invitation

As an event organized in the university, we need to invite some important guest to participant in our party besides all the tourism students and lecturers. For example, we can invite the president and vise president of APU, Administrators in the office, and department leaders of the university. We need to prepare an official invitation letter and give it to them by email. In the invitation letter, the location and time need to be mentioned clear and show the respect to the invited people. At the end of the letter, we should say “Thanks for your attention, hope to see you in the Graduation Tourism Dinner Party”.

4.6 Promotion

The activity is only organized for tourism students and lecturers. However, the students still need to be informed and would like to attend the event. Then how to promote the event is very important. At first, organizers have to design fliers for the event. The fliers need to be attractive. All the necessary information about the event should present on the paper. The fliers may include motivation literature, date and location of the party, price of ticket, activities involved, participants, and some relevant pictures. During promotion time, we can check the timetable of all the tourism classes on the web space, and only targets on tourism students. We can also ask the help of tourism lecturers to pass the fliers to the students and promote our event. In this case, open a booth at the hall is not necessary because it is not open for all the students.

4.7 Guest List

After invitation and promotion on the event, all the participants can be confirmed. Then we can prepare a guest list including all the lecturers, students, and invited people. In the guest list, the name, contact number, email address should be recorded clearly to make sure we can contact them if any changes on the plan. When we prepare the guest list, participants should pay for the ticket except the people who are invited.

4.8 Back up Plan

For all the event has been well prepared, they will have plan B to stand by the accident and make sure the problem will be solved. In our case, the most possible problem is the weather. Because our event is planned as an outdoor party beside the river, it could happen that the party is going on when it is raining. Our plan B is to move the food in to the cafeteria and change outdoor party into indoor. So before the event, organizers are going to communicate with leader of the cafeteria and get the permission.

4.9 Conclusion

Those planning above are just the details during organizing process. The process will never finish by individual; it requires a team or a group of people to implement all the tasks. In the process, each person in the team need to responsible for on particular item. Leader of the team will decide the responsibility of individuals based on their personalities. It requires the leader to have a good leadership and can bound the team together to achieve the objective. This is for the organizing part of the event. Details of entertainment activities, budgeting and compiling program will refer to the following part.

5. Entertainment Activities Stage

Referring to the entertainment activities, organizers of the event have decided to divide into 4 parts to entertain the participants and make them involve in the activities. The four activities are delegate talking, performing, gaming, and taking picture. In the following part, we are going to discuss one by one.

5.1 Delegate Talking

At the beginning of the party, we plan to invite university delegate, lecturer delegate, graduation student delegate, and junior delegate to make a speech. University delegate is come from the invited people who are leader of our university. He or she is going to talk about the Faculty of Tourism Management development, and the expectation in the future. Lecturer delegate will be one of our lecturers to talk about the graduation student’s performance, and future expects or congratulate to their graduation. Next, Graduation student delegate will talk about their feeling to study in the university, and appreciation for the university and lecturers. At last, junior delegate will show their blessing to the seniors, and talk about their plan for the future study. The process will take around half an hour.

5.2 Performing

As we mentioned before, we are going to arrange some performance during the event to entertain participants. The performing will from the music club, drama club, and dancing club. Organizers will contact with president of those clubs and invite them to perform for our event. Each of the club will perform two programs as their own choice. During the performing time, we will arrange microphone and speakers or other related equipments for all the performance. There will be one person charge on the technology issue during the performing time. After all the performance finish, there will be one perform from tourism lecturers and students. In the whole process, there will be a student charge for photographing and recording. All the performance time will take another half an hour.

5.3 Gaming

In the entertainment, we arrange totally two games that can involve every body in the event. In the process, the students are divided into 5 groups (8 students in a group). First is “Question and Answer”. Lecturer stands on the stage and asks tourism students questions one by one. The questions are prepared by the organizers and related to the general knowledge of tourism. For example, “Which country is the top tourists’ arrival country in the world?” The one who provide right answer will add one point to the group.

The second game is “Grab the chairs”. Each group chooses a delegate participant the game, five students stand on the stage. There will put 4 chairs on the stage in a circle. Five students standing around the chair and start to move follow the music. Once the music stop, they should try to grab one chair and sit down, the one who still stand and do not have chair is obsolete. In the end, the loser group has to perform on the stage whatever singing and dancing. The section will last around one hour until the activity finish.

5.4 Taking Picture

The last entertainment is taking group picture with all the participants. This session is specific for graduation students to keep memory in the university with classmates and lecturers. They can take picture with their favorite lecturer or friends. The most important point for the session is the background and environment. They also can take a video to record lecturers and friends’ blessing and the good time.

6. Budgeting Stage

Budgeting is the most important part in the planning process. Must be given careful considerations to ensure all aspects are taking care of. The budgeting of our event is only focus on forecasting expenses and deciding the ticket price. Because of the objective of the event is not profit earning, but creating memory for graduation students. So it will not take profit into consideration.

There are few sections need to be take into consideration of budgeting. Food and Beverage is the most items on expenses are RM400. Equipment rental is from hotels will take another RM200. Then is the decoration that we have mentioned before including balloons, color ribbons, flags and posters are going to use around RM200. Fliers during promotion is another term need to spend will take around RM50. Then the last we will consider about contingency fee for making sure the finical support is enough. The budget show clearer in Figure 6.0.

Figure 6.0 Budgeting

Food and Beverage
RM 400
Equipment Rental
RM200
Decoration
RM200
Promotion
RM50
Contingency
RM150
Total
RM1,000

The total budget for this event is RM1,000 according to the figure above. Because of the event’s capacity are 40 people, each of the participants needs to pay RM25 as ticket price.

7. Compiling the Activity Program
Time
Item
Activity
2:00
Decoration
Build the stage
Put out the tables and chairs
Put all the balloons and color ribbons on the tree and table
3:00
Equipment
Prepare the speakers, microphones, and computers
Check on the working situation and effectiveness
3:40
Arrange participants
Welcome the participants, and arrange sits for them.
(University leaders and invited people sit at VIP)
4:00
Start
Monitor Ceremony start the event and announce the Party starts.
4:05
Delegate Talking
1. University delegate speaking
2. Lecturer delegate speaking
3. Graduation student delegate speaking
4. Junior student delegate speaking
4:30
Performing
&Dinner
Performing start on the stage by music club, drama club, and dancing club. Participants enjoy the dinner at same time.
5:00
Gaming
1. Question and Answer
2. Grab the Chair
3. Lose Group Performance
5: 45
Taking Picture
After group photo, participants can take picture with their favorite lecturer or friends.
6:00
Free Time
Monitor Ceremony announce the party is end
Participants can dance on the stage with music

The table and schedule above shows the entire compiling program on the event day from the preparation to the end. As we see, the preparation is starting from 2:00pm 7th December 2013. The activity will last only 2 hours, and the rest time are free for participants. This style of activity and arrangement will help students and lecturers relax and enjoy in the moment. After the event, there will be some students stay to the place and response to collect all the equipment, and decorations. Before all the participants leave, the organizers will prepare a signature board to leave all the students and lecturers’ name on it.

8. Conclusion
In the literature above, we have already introduced all the details and plan for the Graduation Tourism Dinner Party. No matter how well the plan is, there will be always lots of problems in the process of organizing. We need to be careful with the planning and solve the problem in the right way when going into the real situation. The most important part in the event is organizing and planning all the performance and games.

After planning the event, the author has learned what are the elements and steps need to be considered when organizing an event like the graduation tourism dinner party. It is not easy to organize an event with perfect consideration. I will learn from the experience and improve in the future.

9. References

APU, (2013) Explore APU: The University (Online) (cited 13th Oct 2013) Available from:

Quarrygirl, (2008) Vegan Malaysian Food @ Banana Leaf (Online) (cited 15th Oct 2013) Available from:

Golden Ranch, (2013) The Golden Ranch Photo Gallery (Online) (cited 15th Oct 2013) Available from: http://www.erjcchouston.org/index.php?src=gendocs&link=GR_Photos

Pilato, D., (2013) The Steps for Planning a Graduation Party (Online) (cited 17th Oct 2013) Available from:

References: APU, (2013) Explore APU: The University (Online) (cited 13th Oct 2013) Available from: Quarrygirl, (2008) Vegan Malaysian Food @ Banana Leaf (Online) (cited 15th Oct 2013) Available from: Golden Ranch, (2013) The Golden Ranch Photo Gallery (Online) (cited 15th Oct 2013) Available from: http://www.erjcchouston.org/index.php?src=gendocs&link=GR_Photos Pilato, D., (2013) The Steps for Planning a Graduation Party (Online) (cited 17th Oct 2013) Available from: