Women get to have babies.  Men get to host a ship's reunion.  There's a lot of similarity of the two experiences.

Those of us who have hosted can vividly remember starting to plan our reunion.  There was very little "how to do it" information to rely on so we just had to "wing it".  Today, both individually and collectively, former hosts are ready and willing to share their experiences with shipmates who are interested the job.  Also there is  a printed handbook to help guide you along the way. 

The very first step in the process is selecting a facility that will meet our requirements.  At this facility, the critical component  is the Hospitality Suite.  The basic requirement for this room is that it must accommodate all reunion attendees along with the specific items in the room.  For the purposes of planning, this room should accommodate 150-175 people with seating. Likewise this number may be used for planning the Saturday evening banquet.

The following link is for a Hotel/Motel Facilities Survey which will allow you to accurately evaluate possible venues for a USS Rich Reunion.  Print as many copies as needed.
 

http://www.ussrich.org/hosting/site_survey.pdf

Selecting the site of a reunion is the most important step in the entire process.

 

It is very important to understand that our reunions are not competitive with each other.  Each reunion takes on a personality of its own.  While planning outside trips, tours or other activities may be suitable for the location it is not an essential part of our reunions. Our primary purpose is to get together each to visit with one another.

 

You are not likely to find a former host who is not willing to do it again. It is a wonderful experience. There's nothing like standing up in front of your shipmates and guests and saying "The city of (insert your city name here) welcomes the USS Rich Ship's Company Reunion!"