2011

I was made for this.

Volunteers were greeted as soon as they hit the sidewalk with a red carpet a crowd of swarming paparazzi. Pictures were snapping of every volunteer that walked onto the red carpet in their summer chic attire. Bright colors of balloons were lining the red carpet and continued all the way down the hall to the entrance of the venue.

As volunteers entered the venue they were greeted by our staff who was lining the red carpet going into the venue. Every single volunteer that walked on the red carpet was welcome with cheers, claps and many high fives. They walked into the venue on a red carpet and as they viewed the beautiful venue for the first time they were greeted by a colors everywhere. There were big colorful balloons all around and a huge white material stretched across the ceiling with LED lights splashing beautiful colors on it. There were intelligent lights flooding the walls with color and patterns. The stage was simple and elegant with a screen in the middle with the Volees logo on it and and white balloons making up the wall on both sides of the screen. There were LED light shining on the white balloons to create a splash of color on the stage.

As the volunteers walked in on the red carpet the entrance to the gym was roped off to force the volunteers to one side. There we had a photographer set up to get their red carpet photo with a Volees backdrop. Once they stopped for a second to get their picture taken, they continued into the room.

The room was filled with colors and exciting things to do everywhere. There was a drink bar with 3 specialty drinks to choose from; cherry coke, cherry limeade and raspberry limeade. There were lines roped off for each drink. The drink bar looked like a coffee shop with chalkboards the different drinks on them over each line. There were also old fashioned Coke and Dr. Pepper bottles with fun stripped straws. The tables had white tablecloths with splashes of color with tall colorful flowers and toppers. The tables were already filled with food.

Once everyone came in, we opened up the red carpet photo area into a photo booth with props and all. It was a big hit and had a line for most of the night.

The show began with an announcer introducing our hosts for the evening. The hosts came on stage and and began to start the show, but one of the hosts got to overwhelmed and ran off the stage. The second host follows him off the stage. This set up the video opener. This video was great. It included the whole staff and poked fun at the staff, which everyone enjoys. At the end of the video they end up at Chic-Fil-A. When the hosts run back onto the stage they are carrying Chic-Fil-A cups.

The hosts then introduced the awards. There were 6 awards that represented the 6 mega-ministries we have. All of the ministries fall under one of these overarching ministries. There was a video for each of the awards that had about 5 or 6 people talking about what it is like volunteering in that ministry. After the each video played the people who where in the video cam up to accept the award on behalf of everyone who volunteers. They asked everyone who volunteers in these areas to stand up and we clapped for everyone standing.

After all the awards were given we welcomed a musical guest as he played the keyboard and sang a song that fit perfectly with the night. After the song, Pastor came up and thanked all the volunteers and gave a quick word of encouragement. He talked about how we were in fact “Made for this.”

We concluded the night by opening the drink bar and photo booth back up for anyone who wanted to stay and enjoy the evening.

PROMO FOR THE EVENT
We had twin brothers who attend our church star in the promo. We follow them on their journey of trying to figure out what “Summer Chic” is. We played this video for a few weeks as the event drew near. The Sunday of the event we started to play the same video again…but this time we made it seem like it was messing up. At that point some really exciting music starting playing with the lyrics..”Everybody’s gonna love today, gonna love today, gonna love today, everybody’s gonna love today.” We rolled out the red car pen on stage and had the stars of the video come out in person. They walk out and wave at everyone and do a live invitation to the vent.