3 Top Outdoor Party Ideas

After we decided with picnic lunch ideas our blanket’s ready, your cooler’s out, and you can’t wait to get outside. Here in the southern hemisphere we’re coming into summer. The temperature is warming, the blossoms have finished, and the leaves are in full force. And particularly in Australia, warm weather means we’re coming into barbeque season!

With that in mind, we’ve come up with some creative ideas for entertaining your guests in the great outdoors.

1. Picnics at the Park

For our family, this was a highlight of last summer. Sunday afternoons would find us packing up the car with the camping chairs, and a picnic basket full of goodies. Nice cheeses, crackers, and a homebaked cake were accompanied by a thermos of tea or a jug of pop. Picnics at the park can be spruced up quite easily and made into a special event for a small gathering or for a large gathering. If you’re planning a party, don’t forget that balloons and streamers are entirely acceptable at a park. Bring along the frisbee or cricket set, and plan a relaxed afternoon enjoying the great outdoors! Some may want to go for a hike, others may want to stick around the base and play table games.

2. Backyard BBQ Party

There’s nothing better than a good outdoor barbeque. Gather your mates around, pull out the citronella candles to keep away the mosquitoes, and enjoy the smells of cooking meat wafting through the neighbourhood. You might even consider watching reruns of the latest AFL match! There are many ways to do a good, authentic BBQ. Use your traditional barbeque unit, or utilize a BBQ spit rotisserie to cook up a lamb or some other roast. If you’re really wanting to get unique, consider using a wood fired pizza oven to give the amazing aroma and flavour of wood fired pizzas. The atmosphere of the evening will be great, and your mates will love your unique cooking style.

3. Kids Outdoor Parties

Along with the previous point, get the kids involved and allow them to make their own personalised pizzas! This can be a great activity for a children’s birthday party, allowing them to make their own tasty masterpieces. You’ll want to have parental supervision of course (who knows how much meat those kids might pile up on their pizza otherwise!).

Another idea would be a pool party. Invite the parents along as well to visit while the kids have a dip in the pool. Make sure there are plenty of party foods and games to keep the children occupied and having a good time. Plan out how you’ll deal with all the water. Keeping the food table, spare towels, and games all outdoors saves on having a mess inside to clean up later.

Themed parties are also great fun. Outdoor party games are so much more versatile than indoor ones, as more running games can be incorporated into the party plan. Attach a pinata to a tree for the appropriate time during the party. For other party game ideas, there are plenty of party games books at the local library or consider doing a search on google.

As we come into barbeque season, lets dig out the BBQ spit rotisserie and host some backyard parties. They’re so much fun and brings your community of friends together! Get in touch with bbq events this summer.

Advice on Corporate Gift Giving

BBQ events is considered to be a serious competitionBuying corporate gifts can be quite a demanding task, particular if the executive that you know is especially hard to buy for. You want to make sure that the gift you select is right for them but you might wonder how you can find this out. Thankfully with a little advice it is possible to buy gifts that will look stunning on desk of any executive and will draw admiring glances.

Firstly you must think about the type of gift you would like to buy. For example do you want the gift to be functional such as a desk set or decorative like a photograph frame? Once you have decided on this you can then move on to deciding if the gift should feature an aspect of the executives role or not – for instance a statue of the Justice Scales for a lawyer or other legal professional.

When you have an idea of the type of gift you want it is time to start searching. If you visit a good gift website you will have so much choice at your fingertips. You will be able to take a look at gifts in various categories which can make your task even easier.

Today gift companies know that executives have many different tastes and will cater for these in their range of gifts. The kind of gifts you could choose from include:

Golf bookends bookends or marble bookends in any other theme like nautical, or classic is an excellent choice for the office. You’ll also find bookends with the medical Caduceus symbol on them which are ideal for doctors.

Business card holders in a variety of finishes and sizes – some for use on a desk and others which can be carried,

Desk sets for organising incoming mail and other important documents are also a nice touch. You will also see stunning sculptures that will inspire.

To find out more about the wonderful choice of gifts for the corporate executive in your life take a look online at gift stores that sell corporate gifts.

Presentation Success Road Map

Good storyboard artist film can be supremely useful when directing big action sequences. Imagine having a simple and memorable 4-step roadmap for presentation success. Would you like to get your hands on it? I bet you would!

I was just looking at The 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report from Marketing Sherpa. (I’m not an affiliate for them or for the report, just in case you were wondering.

But something in their email caught my eye: the acronym of ROAD. And I got to thinking.

You could use similar categories to develop a ROAD Map for your business or sales presentation. These basic buckets work for any type of presentation. Social media. Face-to-face client pitches. Sales presentations.

The four categories spelling ROAD, as outlined by Marketing Sherpa are:

Research

Objectives

Actions

Devices

Here’s my spin on the ROAD Map for presenting. I often use the concept of a roadmap to describe why presentation storyboarding is so powerful. A storyboard is essentially a roadmap of your presentation.

There are many ways to look at the big picture, milestones, and details. Working with a storyboard is the fastest way to see where you are going – and how you want to get there.

Let’s look at how each of these areas can help you get focused and get results.

R = Research

Focus on your target audience. Find out about their roles, responsibilities, needs and history. As you investigate, be sure to also take note of specific language, issues and problems your audience is facing. When you do this, you can use what you’re finding for this audience to get a head start on presenting to similar audiences.

O = Objectives

What is your objective in presenting? Do you want to get your foot in the door? Are you hoping to seal a deal? Do you want to target decision makers or influence influencers?

In every presentation, you’ll want to refine your objectives. The clearer you are going into your talk or speech, the better you can focus the outcomes.

Similarly, it’s essential to understand why your audience is attending. Are they interested in information gathering? Are they coming with an urgent need? By understanding objectives from both perspectives, you can tailor your presentation to match the situation.

A = Actions

A clear and specific plan of action will help you prepare and give an exceptional presentation. This includes a plan of action about actions. Know what you want your audience to do – before you ever enter the room.

This is a lot like goal setting. If you know where you want to go, and what action you want your audience to take, you can organize your entire presentation to ignite this action.

D = Deadlines

I adapted the “D” from Devices to Deadlines.

Nothing inspires action like a deadline! This is true to get that old procrastination habit out of the way. If you’ve been stalling on preparing your presentation, set a tighter deadline. You know what I’m talking about.

There’s nothing, and I mean nothing, like the creativity that comes at the 11th hour.

The same is true for your clients and prospects. If you create deadlines for action, you will ignite decisive action.

If you are looking for a proven ROAD Map for your presentation, this is an easy way to sketch out the milestones to success.