Planning the Pinning Ceremony in Dec. 08

light4Him · May 31, 2008

Hello all! I am wanting to get some input for the Pinning ceremony that I am in charge of planning for our class in December. First I want to give you some background...

I was the President for the Pinning Committee for August 2008, but because I failed my Adults II class, I am repeating it and now I won't be finished until December. I went to the faculty advisor to turn in everything that I had done up to this point. She was distraught that I was resigning and asked me to reconsider. I told her that I didn't see a reason for me to continue in the planning because I am not graduating until December. She understood and I told her that the vice President could take over. (She wanted to take over the planning and do what she wanted without ANY regard to the other 147 students that would be attending the ceremony.) A few days later I found out that the December class wouldn't be getting their own pinning and if they wanted one, they had to do it with the August students.

That was when EVERYTHING went haywire!!! Everyone knew that I was in charge of the pinning, so I had the August students complaining that the December students were "invading" their ceremony, and then I had the December students coming at me with "We deserve our own ceremony." So... I went to the Department Head and asked her if we could have one for December. I mean... the students have to pay for it 100%, we have to plan it and arrange EVERYTHING... the school helps us NONE. But she wouldn't go for it. So the August pinning went from 147 students to 194. When the committee got wind of that, there were 3 people out of 5 that quit the committee. Needless to say, this thing got REALLY NASTY!!! I had started a website that everyone knew about so that they could see what was going on with the planning. I had polls that were posted so that the students could vote on the instructor whom they wanted to pin them, all the information that was being handled through the committee was on there so that the students could give their opinions. Well... I recieved some NASTY, UNPROFESSIONAL comments on that site. I ended up closing it because everything just went NUTS!!! :banghead:

So... I get this email from the Department Head stating that she was going to let us have our own pinning in December. :yeah:Not only was I HAPPY, but so was everyone else. Now, here are my questions that I need some help with. I have never been to a pinning ceremony and I just need to know how this thing is suposed to flow. There are some people that are interested in helping me, but they don't know either. I have everything taken care of as far as the place, the decorations, the pins, the lamps, the slideshow, the music, and the reception afterwards. I am not sure how to start the ceremony.

What do we do first?

Should there be special speakers? (this was brought up in previous meetings with the Aug. class, but no decision was ever made on that)

If there are speakers, what should they talk about?

At what point to we actually light the lamps?

Do we say the pledge as we are lighting the lamp or after we light them?

I know the significance of the lamp, the ceremony, the pin... I actually took time to research all that. I even went to YouTube and tried to find some ceremonies to watch, but they were all snipits...and I KNOW WHAT NOT TO DO as a result of watching some of those.

There are only 47 students in this class... we are all the ones that failed Adults II this past term and are repeating it, and I think that there are a handful that were able to jump ahead because there were spaces that they needed to fill. The good thing about that is that now, instead of an instructor pinning us, we have the option of having whoever we want to pin us.

I would appreciate ANY AND ALL comments. I just want to make it special... We are a special class. There has never, and never will be, another December pinning... so I am looking for anybody's :twocents: !!!

Thanks guys!!! :wink2: