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(I will summarize the conference of DOOM tomorrow, I know you're all on pins and needles waiting to hear about my adventures, but you're just gonna have to wait, because I have to go back tomorrow. Woe.)
Okay, backstory. The last two years I've been on a committee for a luncheon we have for National Public Works Week. I was the person in charge of the centerpieces, and last year was my masterpiece - a fully functional board game called 'The Game of Public Works' (think Life, simplified). Not only was it fun and creative, it cost a whopping $1.18 per table because I'm awesome. So anyway, between the (oh so expensive and 'frivolous') centerpieces and the kick-ass door prizes (the biggest last year was a big screen LCD TV) they higher-ups decided we were spending too much and that it looked bad.
Okay, so we can make the centerpieces decent door prizes, right? Not big-screen TVs, but even if we just break even (based on the price of admission per person) it's $80 per table. You could put together a decent gift basket for that. Well, no. Turns out we can't even just break even, there's a finite amount we can spend on them. About $20-$25 per table. Okay, so maybe we can only do certain types of gift baskets, mostly things like food stuffs (BBQ kits, etc) where we could get things on sale, use coupons, that sort of thing. You could make them pretty and they'd be worthwhile. Or... we could just do gift cards. Problem being, those (even in a bag) aren't much of a centerpiece and really easy to nick. But they are easy... and of course, that's what the committee went for.
My friend is bummed because she was looking forward to being creative. I'm bummed because the best thing I can win now is a $20 gift card to a place I may not shop anyway. And, I think we both think that people will be disappointed.
So here's the question:
1) Which would you prefer: gift basket, or $20 gift card?
2) Even if you got your preference to #1, is it worth sitting through an awards luncheon (as in, would you continue to sign up to go)?
Okay, backstory. The last two years I've been on a committee for a luncheon we have for National Public Works Week. I was the person in charge of the centerpieces, and last year was my masterpiece - a fully functional board game called 'The Game of Public Works' (think Life, simplified). Not only was it fun and creative, it cost a whopping $1.18 per table because I'm awesome. So anyway, between the (oh so expensive and 'frivolous') centerpieces and the kick-ass door prizes (the biggest last year was a big screen LCD TV) they higher-ups decided we were spending too much and that it looked bad.
Okay, so we can make the centerpieces decent door prizes, right? Not big-screen TVs, but even if we just break even (based on the price of admission per person) it's $80 per table. You could put together a decent gift basket for that. Well, no. Turns out we can't even just break even, there's a finite amount we can spend on them. About $20-$25 per table. Okay, so maybe we can only do certain types of gift baskets, mostly things like food stuffs (BBQ kits, etc) where we could get things on sale, use coupons, that sort of thing. You could make them pretty and they'd be worthwhile. Or... we could just do gift cards. Problem being, those (even in a bag) aren't much of a centerpiece and really easy to nick. But they are easy... and of course, that's what the committee went for.
My friend is bummed because she was looking forward to being creative. I'm bummed because the best thing I can win now is a $20 gift card to a place I may not shop anyway. And, I think we both think that people will be disappointed.
So here's the question:
1) Which would you prefer: gift basket, or $20 gift card?
2) Even if you got your preference to #1, is it worth sitting through an awards luncheon (as in, would you continue to sign up to go)?
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