For those of you who receive our Sixthman printed newsletters (3 times a year), we set out to create one interactive promotion or contest with each issue. So far, we’ve asked people ‘where you at’ and had them send postcards accordingly, we’ve sent those who wanted a cruise on a ‘Sixthman Scavenger Hunt’ and submit their findings, and most recently, we challenged our community to throw parties across the country on Nov. 8th.
Yeah, we know. Sounds crazy, right?
And it was! November 8th, 2008 will forever go down in history as the first annual ‘Sixthman Throwdown’ competition. Notice I said ‘first annual’…
The idea – get our community together to throw parties.
The process – have each party host send us an invitation. A ‘selection committee’ narrows all invitations down to 10 final parties. Randomly, 5 of those are chosen. And Sixthman crashes all 5 to vouch for whose is best.
The crashers – get teams of 2 from the Sixthman team to volunteer to crash.
The prize – winner gets a cabin onboard cruise of their choice.
It was for sure an out-of-the-box idea that took all of us in the office a while to grasp and be willing to take a risk on. I mean think about it: what we were doing was potentially putting ourselves in a position to show up at a party, with people we didn’t know at all, and have it be that awkward moment when you know something’s about to go wrong.
However, most of us had faith in our community – and for good reason. We found the 10 volunteers (it was just as tough as it sounds) and we divided up the parties randomly. Here is the breakdown.
* Steve and Jana went to a small fishing town in Maryland to help raise money for a fishing boat captain named Ralph.
* Andy and Ashley went to hang on a small island south of Tampa, and participated in an ‘Olympics’ of sorts.
* Lauren and Barb went down the street to Lawrenceville, GA where im pretty sure moonshine and bbq were the hits.
* Melissa and Carla ventured to a block party in Charleston, SC who had managed to get sponsors.
* And Nora and I hauled ourselves to Denver, CO for a backyard, bonfire, tiki bar gathering of more friends than her and I have together.
All I can say is… wow. I would have never imagined that I would get as much out of crashing a party. And from stories in the office today, everyone felt the same.
All year long, our team plans these experiences and invites our community to join us in what we hope to be a few days they will always remember. It is a year long process that we are still trying to get perfect. Our hosts in a way, had the same challenge. And they nailed it.
I have never felt so invited, so welcome, so looked after, so appreciated, and so blown away by a 12-hour time period with people I had just met. I can only hope that is how our community feels the minute the step foot on the ship, walk through the halls, see friendly faces, meet their neighbors, watch that one magical moment happen, and say ‘see you next year’. I can only hope.
To Brian and Julie, thank you! You both (and your friends) hosted an incredible throwdown for us. You have such a wonderful group of friends surrounding you that I can’t wait to see again onboard The Rock Boat Niner. You rock!
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