|
|
A Behind The Scenes Look at T-Burg Mini Golf's 2nd Annual Easter Egg Hunt |
|
1966 Trumansburg Road (Route 96) Trumansburg, NY 14886 607-387-PUTT |
|
|
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010. Over 6,000 Eggs Hidden! 3 Age Groups. Family Fun Activities. |
|
|
A Behind The Scenes Look at T-Burg Mini Golf's 2nd Annual Easter Egg Hunt |
|
1966 Trumansburg Road (Route 96) Trumansburg, NY 14886 607-387-PUTT |
|
|
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010. Over 6,000 Eggs Hidden! 3 Age Groups. Family Fun Activities. |
|
11:00am 11:30am 12:00pm 1:00pm
|
One question we get asked often enough that we decided to create this page is what does it take to make an event like this happen. So here is a peek into our lives as we plan this event from beginning to end. While most people are stuffing themselves with Turkey and then planning their holiday celebrations, we are thinking, talking and talking some more Easter! We have no other choice; to do it right, we have to start early! Considering the fact that T-Burg Mini Golf is run by Mike and Melinda Cirri, along with our children Catherine (12) and Gina (3 - not much input here!) we have to plan events far in advance to ensure we leave ourselves enough time to get everything in place and still have time for a family life! We are not a 'big corporation' with tons of resources and deep pockets, so everything that we do, we do ourselves! We first look at the last event... what went well, what didn't, what do we want to add, what do we want to leave out, then the planning begins. Take our first Easter Egg Hunt in 2009. We didn't know what to expect, being our first time throwing an event of this size. After considering how we were going to advertise the event, how much we would be able to spend in the worst case scenario if we didn't get any donations, and our best guess on how many people would attend, we decided on purchasing 2,000 plastic eggs. Then came the hard part, what would we stuff the eggs with? We had to consider the age of the kids who would be getting the eggs and the size of the objects, they had to of course, fit in the eggs! Meanwhile, we were actively seeking organizations to donate their services so we would have more than just an egg hunt. We wanted to make it a true family event. So jump ahead to the event, the mini golf course is ready to open, all 2,000 eggs have been hand stuffed, bounce houses are ready, radio station promoting the event, local vendors are set to have their displays open. The day arrives, it's cold, I mean COLD and we are biting our nails thinking that after all this hard work, no one is going to show up. But then it happened, car after car after car after car! Before we knew it, our parking area is completely filled and cars are parking anywhere they can find a spot! We can not believe the turnout! Then the panic sets in, there is no way we are going to have enough Eggs for all these kids! We quickly come up with a plan B. We give away tokens for the arcade, give away rounds of mini golf, temporary tattoos. Any child we find with a sad look on their face gets something to make them happy, but there were just so many kids that we couldn't possibly get to them all. We decide that night that we need to make big changes next year. 2010 arrived and the planning for the 2nd annual hunt went into high gear. We addressed the parking and set ourselves up to handle many more cars that the previous year without having people parking on the road! We increased our eggs from 2,000 to over 6,100. We added a third age category so we can have kids closer in age together. We set aside a specific area for our vendors such that it isn't so hard to get to them if we are extremely crowded. We asked more organizations to help with donations and to setup children friendly displays. We set a budget, an amazing $2,500 worth of eggs, candy and prizes to be given away. We continued to ask for donations, that amount of money for our small company is extremely tough to come up with. But we couldn't wait for donations before we bought everything, most Easter items sell out early, you really need to order items in January! Out comes the credit card and everything is purchased. Then we had to REALLY push for donations! The first week of February 2010 things started to fall in place! We had all our organizations that were donating services lined up. Our cash donations on the other hand, didn't pick up. In total, we raised less that $1,000, despite sending out donation requests to around 200 organizations. We do not look to make a profit on this event, however, we just want to cover our expenses. This is our 'give back' event, we have children of our own and know how expensive it is to attend events with them, so we committed ourselves to make this event free to all. Here are some pictures from our house 2 months before the 2010 hunt. Its getting hard to move around with all the Easter Egg items taking over our kitchen and dining room. Let the egg stuffing begin!
Late February 2010: The excitement is building as more and more vendors are volunteering their services for the day of the event. We now have all our vendors lined up and confirmed. There will be so much to do that day, it is going to be so much fun for all who attend! Our cash donations have picked up a bit, but we are still no where close to raising the $2500. $525 has been raised and we hope that more will come in soon (the credit card bill for all those eggs, candy and prizes will be arriving any day now!). It is still very cold outside, but we will begin next week working at the course to begin our preparations. Until the snow melts, there is not much that can take place outdoors, but we will begin our indoor work. Should be fun with no heat in the building! Advertising the event has begun with facebook, ithacaevents.com, yahoo and google postings. Our event flyer should be completed in the next week and we plan on making around 500 copies to post everywhere we can think of! Things are busy and about to get busier! Here we go! The Day of the Event 2010... Well it is hunt day, 2:12am and oh boy, we are still up and getting a few last minute things we need printed. We finished stuffing all the eggs about two weeks ago, many thanks goes out to the Dawson's and the Nelson's. Another thanks to the Nelson's for helping us clean and prep our facility for opening. We have been blessed by Mother Nature this year, I think she feels bad for what she did to us last season. It has been so nice to prep both the inside and outside in this warm weather! It really looks like we are going to have an outstanding turnout today. With 6,000 eggs, we sure do hope that we are going to have enough for all the kids! Parking, on the other hand, well, we'll just keep out fingers crossed. The weather has been so warm and dry that we opened our grass field to park cars. That is a couple hundred of cars that will not be parked along the road, making the event safer for everyone! It is nice to say that our donations have picked up, but we are still about $1,000 short of our goal. We are going to hold a 50/50 raffle to help raise the remainder of the funds. We will keep out fingers crossed! One difference we are seeing already from last year is that the mini golf course is going to be busy! It was soooooo cold last year that hardly anyone wanted to play mini golf. But today, with a high near 80, we have many groups booked! It really is going to be a fun, busy day. We were interviewed by 97.3 on Thursday and at 7:15 this morning, will have another from WHCU 870. That really helps spread the word. And word is getting around, the traffic to our website in the first two days of April is already more than the entire month of January! Well, it looks like the printing is done, so time to get a few minutes of sleep before the big event. Just wait until you see the pictures of the hunt areas. There are soooo many eggs! One word... WOW! We will update one more time afterwards with our thoughts on how the event went. Until next time... 2011 Welcome to 2011 and let the fun begin! It's early January, and we're starting our preparations for the event. Money is tight this year so we will need to 100% rely on donations for this event to happen. We will be starting to line up our vendors and volunteers and our donation request letter is written and will be distributed shortly. We are not changing the format much from last year, there were many things that worked well. The few changes will be to use even more of our field for parking and to use a new grass area that we cleared last year to increase the size of the hunt areas. We want to spread out our guests as they enter the hunt areas so there is a better chance every kid will leave with a few eggs! We will have a minimum of 6,000 toy and candy filled eggs and would love to see that number increase to around 10,000, but that all depends on donations. Easter is later this year, so hopefully that means warmer temperatures and less mud to deal with! We'll keep our fingers crossed. We're off to make more phone calls and to ask for more donations, so we'll keep you posted here! The weather did not work out in our favor for the 2011 hunt. We've never seen so much rain! Everything was delayed by an hour to let the rain stop and to get the eggs spread out. We held the hunt, but the rain really hurt the turnout. For those who attended, they made out GREAT! They walked away with so many eggs and smiles just as large. I think our Easter Bunny floated away, if anyone finds her, please let us know :-)
2012 A bit of a late start this year, but we'll get back on track soon!
Mike, Melinda, Catherine & Gina Cirri
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
Ithaca Tompkins County Easter Egg Hunt Free Fun Trumansburg Lansing Dryden Finger Lakes Newfield Activities Ovid Sececa Falls Groton cortland lansing cayuga heights south seneca watkins glen ovid seneca falls city of ithaca cornell ithaca college tc3 lodi montour falls south hill groton locke lock freeville moravia interlaken romulus union springs auburn spencer van etten |
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
 |
|
2010