Family reunions

There comes a time when people need to gather to celebrate being family, and to ask questions of older members while they are still able to remember family facts and stories. People don't stay in the one town all their lives anymore, and it is easy to lose touch with all your cousins and aunties and uncles.

Family reunions are a perfect chance to catch up with all those relations you haven't seen for years.

Once again, social networking and the internet are there to help.
 
In order to to invite your relations, why not send out a group email to multiple recipients? Any email addresses you don't know can be added by those relations who have kept in touch. Ask everyone to hit "reply all" on emails as the suggestions and plans roll in, as using that same group emailling can save a lot of phone calls.

If you are lucky, someone in the clan will have already developed an interest in family history, and may have a family tree that they can bring along. Before the day, if you are able to email the family tree to all your guests (using a spreadsheet or Word document or pdf file)  you can ask them to check the family tree and make any corrections before the day. That way any new babies or new partners will not feel left out.

Be sure to use name tags if you are thinking that you will hardly recognize some guests, due to the fact it has been years since you saw them last.

Have a time where clan members can talk about their memories of grandparents and fun times  they shared as children. Perhaps you can ask each guest to bring a photocopied baby photo and shuffle these up and hand  them a different photo to go find the person whose photo it is - a handy icebreaker that will get shy relatives mixing and asking questions.

Afterwards, why not set up a blog where any photos taken on the day can be posted for all to see and comment on?

 Picasaweb is one photo host that allows multiple people to add their photos to the one album. Just have one person set up the album so that any others from your set of email addresses can contribute.