FAMILY REUNION INSTITUTE - HOME TO FAMILY REUNION PLANNERS

March is National Ethics Awareness Month. And in light of all that’s going on in the world, it might do the family some good to consider creating Core Values to model themselves after.

Core Values can help a family establish beliefs and ambitions; identify principles to guide behaviors and goals; and help to reinforce the difference between right, wrong, expected and respectful conduct. Core values can distinguish ways in which members can support one another’s ambitions and provide assistance to one another.

You can use current events as discussion topics to help guide initial conversations, and  create an ideal list of values for your family. Then use that list to determine which ones you want your family to adopt and work on. The core values can be reinforced and/or added to at each reunion, where family members can talk about how they’ve grown, benefitted—or been challenged—by them.

Common Courtesy doesn’t seem to be as popular today as it was in the past, and prior to covid-19 when reunions were live and in living color, family seniors routinely mentioned the lack of common courtesy at some reunions. So what’s a family to do? 

March 21, 2023 is Common Courtesy Day. If your family reunion is in need of a common courtesy make-over ask family members to identify what courtesies the family is lacking. Use the responses to create a list, and ask family members what they can do to overcome it. Come up with a slogan or tagline about common courtesy that you send out with every message to the family. (Example: Davis Common Courtesy. See it. Be it. Live it.)

Ask family members to practice common courtesy every day until the reunion starting with saying hello and goodbye when entering rooms. Greeting family elders respectfully (Cousin John, Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Fred…not John, Evelyn, Fred). Using family-friendly language (no cursing, harmful slang, dissing). Putting down cellphones when engaging/talking with others.

Make a game out of it. Create Common Courtesy Coins that family members can earn. At the end of the reunion, the person with the most earned coins wins a prize. You can have categories of winners based on age groupings or generations. The goal is to get family members spreading respect, courtesy and love for one another intentionally all year long, especially during the reunion.

"Reaching younger generations, building expectations, creating a sense of worthiness, building up self-esteem and high expectations, offering scholarships, and getting children to think beyond where they are, is highly important. There's nothing better than being able to offer real-life role models that look like you, can talk with you and can mentor you. Children need role models outside of the sports and entertainment world and that's one of the benefits of the family reunion. And that's definitely one of the benefits of reunions being more than just a picnic."

-Dr. Ione Vargus

"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope."
-Barack Obama

"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you."

- Mother Teresa

"There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues…are created, strengthened and maintained."    -Winston Churchill