Three Musketeers. Three Amigos. Three Blind Mice. 

This past Friday I was able to first hand witness what can be accomplished by 3 people after 4 months of planning, countless hours of prepping, weeks of review and revision, days of worry and many a sleepless nights. The result of all of this work was the 15th Annual Eight Mile Boulevard Association Leadership Luncheon.

Now this was by no means your ordinary luncheon. The venue was COBO, the guest list topped 680 people, the keynote speaker was Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley and the panel was non-other than 4 of the biggest names in the region – City of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and County Executives, Mark Hackel, Bob Ficano and L. Brooks Patterson.

There I am peeking out from behind Lieutenant Governor Calley!

The most amazing part about this entire event was the fact that it was orchestrated by 3 people! [That is not a typo. No zeros are missing. There are only 3 people in our office].  This meant that everyone did a lions share of the work. Whether we were running around town to pick up auction items in a blizzard, hand assembling 680+ nametags, sending 15+ proofs to the printer to make sure it was just right; nothing was being left to chance on the biggest fundraising event of the year.

Did I mention there were over 680 nametags??

The craziest part was that this year, despite the fact that this was the 15th Luncheon, everything about this event was new. And I mean EVERYTHING!!

• New Staff: Two months prior to the event, the Program Director was promoted to Executive Director, leaving only 1 person in the office who had ever worked on the event before.
• New Venue: With our numbers expected to grow from last year [and boy did they! 2013: 520 2014: 680+] we knew that we had to find a larger venue, and what better place to look then the new COBO Center.  This also meant starting from scratch with event logistics, including AV.
• New Branding: This meant that ALL of the graphics for the event had to be updated!!
• New Registration Platform: In the fall we upgraded to a new membership management website, which meant that even the way that people registered for the event was brand new and we had to know everything about it in case anyone had questions.
• New Social Media: We just launched our new Twitter account prior to the event and the goal was to add a new interactive level to the event.   @Go8MBA #EightMile

New branding and new venue meant that I was backstage manning the new powerpoint presentation with the new AV crew

So at the end of the day when all that anyone remembers is the friendly banter of the Big 4 and the delicious food [all gluten free I might add :)] what I will always remember is the amazing power and determination that was necessary for three people to accomplish such an unforgettable event despite so many cards being stacked against them.

It is really easy to look at a large project and seem overwhelmed, particularly with such a small team, but what I have witnessed is that with smaller teams, people tend to band together and hold more stake in their tasks, which in the end results in a far more passionate team and a far more exciting product.