First annual? Never
It’s that time of year when I traditionally
share my outrage regarding the scheduling of Trick or Treat.
To recap, I believe trick or treating should
be held on the day it was intended — Oct.
31, Halloween Day itself, regardless of the day of the week — and
not on a day that’s deemed more convenient for whomever deems those kinds of things.
Regular readers will have read this before, and many people have heard my rant in person. I’m not giving it up but there’s another pet peeve I feel obliged to address in this space.
This one seems more egregious — and its usage seems to be increasing. Or maybe I’m just paying better attention. But whatever — it needs to stop.
What I’m talking about here is the use of the phrase “first annual.” There is no such thing as a first-annual anything.
(Even at the risk of being dubbed a crazy women I wanted to type that last sentence in all-caps. That’s how serious I am about this. You might want to admire my restraint.)
Let me explain: a first time event — be it beer tasting or wine pairings or whatever else — if you are holding it for the first time it cannot be annual. It’s new. It’s first-ever. It’s current. It’s original. It’s novel.
It’s just not annual — at least not yet.
I applaud anyone or any organization that takes a leap of faith to design an execute a brand
new event. There’s a lot of risk in planning events that are unproven. Expenses are high, price points are always debatable, marketing is a tough
call, finding a date without conflicts is near to impossible, finding a location may even be tougher, and audience appeal is often a crap-shoot.
And yet year after year new events are planned to help raise funds to do good things within our
community. Organizers tap friends and family as volunteers, work unpaid hours to get all the parts and pieces in place and then hold their
collective breath to see if they’ll get a return on their investment. And if they do, it’s time to
start planning the next year’s version of the event.
And that, my friends, is when you can call it annual — the second annual whatever. But please, for the love of god, not before.