Preface

This book has been written to help any person charged with the responsibility for setting up the machinery and the program for a major public anniversary celebration and exploiting the publicity and public relations values of the occasion.

The mechanics of organizing a 10th Anniversary, a Silver (25th) or Golden (50th) Jubilee, a 75th Anniversary, a Centennial Year, or any similar milestone may, of course, be adapted to celebra­tions of lesser dimensions and shorter duration.

The material in this book should prove of value to trade asso­ciations, labor organizations, business and management consult­ants, public relations and advertising agencies, business and secretarial schools and colleges, and all individuals and establish­ments in any way concerned with the problems attending pro­duction of a public celebration.

The detailed presentation should appeal particularly to be­ginners in the promotional field. Promotional novices, with little or no professional background, are being assigned to the pro­duction of anniversary celebrations in increasing numbers as more and more organizations reach a birthday of consequence and wish to mark the event in their community.

It is natural for such persons, understandably confused by the puzzling array of responsibilities which suddenly confront them, to look for a book to help chart a course or provide a sense of direction.

Unfortunately, however, libraries appear to be singularly free of helpful information on the subject. Librarians and book­sellers, approached with inquiries, look vague. Or baffled. Public relations books tend to ignore the subject. No manual, hand­book, or guide to procedure appears in any catalog or list.

So each person is finally left alone to retrace anew and by trial and error the route of preliminary research and basic planning, with all the attendant lost time, wasted motion, and unproduc­tive expense.
And so we have prepared this book, designed as a combined handbook of procedure, manual of operations, and source book of ideas for the staging of anniversary celebrations. We have pre­pared it in the belief that it will help the user avoid many a pitfall, that it will point a way over or around many an obstacle, and that it will offer a solution to most standard problems, in­cluding how to come to reasonably satisfactory terms with the ever-too-small budget.

While it cannot be, and is not tendered as, all things to all people at all times in all situations, we believe that a thoughtful reading by any celebrator-to-be will save time, money, nerves, and many a committee meeting.

This is a "how to" book. It is designed to take the reader's hand and guide him in A-B-C fashion from the day he is assigned to set up an anniversary celebration to the day an ap­proved program is accepted by management. There is something here for the Chairman or the Planning Committee of any or­ganization considering, or committed to, production of an anni­versary celebration. The organization may be business, industrial, commercial, civic, religious, miscellaneous, or whatever. The fundamentals of preparation are basically the same, and the man or woman responsible for the success of the celebration will find assistance in these pages.

This is a workbook. It is contrived so that you, the reader, can work from your own choices, plans, and modes of operation, in conjunction with your own notebook. Don't let misguided respect for the printed page keep you from marking it in any way necessary to make it a helpful tool for contriving the finest celebration you or your company ever imagined.

This is a source book. In addition to the plans and ideas which a reading of the text will inspire, you will find in Book IV de­scriptions and discussions of more than 150 activities and events for anniversary celebrations.

The use of the collective "we" throughout is neither an edi­torial affectation nor a tasteless parading of false modesty.

Simple fairness requires that I acknowledge the influence of the many talented persons whose promotional competence—re­sulting in notably successful anniversary celebrations for their organizations—molded my own efforts and inspired the concept of this book.

Only sheer ingratitude would neglect mention of the research help extended by various organizations which opened to me their anniversary files, reports, scrapbooks, and memories. And appreciation must reach even farther back, to the original cre­ators of the contents of those files, reports, scrapbooks, and memories.

To them all, the known and the unknown architects of cele­brations now history, we who follow must ever be in debt.

I am grateful to Mr. William W. Cary, Mr. J. G. Ferrari, and Mr. Fred W. Kophamel for assistance in manuscript revision.

The extent of my obligation to my wife for tactful help ex­tended in a thousand quiet ways is as impossible to measure as it is ever to repay. It is recognized with wonder and acknowledged with humility.

Appreciation is expressed to Printers' Ink Books, a division of VISION Incorporated, for editorial encouragement and for per­mission to reproduce from Portfolio ¢i of their series, Portfolios for Planning, the two articles appearing on pages 287 through 298 in the Appendix and to Changing Times—The Kiplinger Maga­zine for permission to reproduce the article on pages 299 through 301 in the Appendix.

To the members of the Chilton Company—Book Division go my thanks for their boundless patience and their immense con­tribution to whatever freshness, clarity, and distinction this volume possesses.

Together we unite in wishing for you a stimulating and su­perlatively successful celebration.

John Donald Peel Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...