Banquet Gift Ideas

Updated: 12/2/23

End of the year banquets are a great way to recognize your cheerleaders, parents and all supporters. It definitely “takes a village”  and a banquet is an excellent way to recognize everyone who helped you throughout the year. 

For this year's Cheerleading banquet, I've been searching the web for some inexpensive gifts to give to my team. I found some cute ideas, most of which are affordable and unique. Check them out! I got 4x6 frames at Joann fabrics, inserted their competition group photo on the front and wrote an end-of-the-year-poem on the back. There are also these really cool pack of five floating frames on Amazon   Easy to do, and very inexpensive! Here are a pack of 12 adorable  bags for the team and so affordable! 

For girls to whom I presented awards, I found these adorable cheerleader makeup bags . They had really cute wine goblets that I thought would be perfect for parents who went above and beyond to help out throughout the year. I also loved these earrings as a cute gift for the team because they are tiny and can't really come out and they can sleep in them! And this big pack of hair ties which you can use in the packaging of your gifts to your team!

Tryout Tips for Cheerleading Coaches

Get yourself organized and have a plan! Make sure you have each candidate complete registration forms and a health history form as well as a waiver of liability. If you feel a Dr's note is required for clearance to tryout, request it. I make sure all forms are in and complete one week ahead of tryouts. 

Also, when tryouts are over, provide feedback to each candidate - start with their weaknesses and inform them on where they can improve. I have found that because of the relaxed and professional way I conducted tryouts, I have girls who come back the following year to re-tryout! By providing feedback to these girls/guys, you assist them in developing skills that are lacking and fine tune those they have mastered.

Good luck!

End of the Year Cheerleader Evaluations

So important to developing a strong cheerleading program is getting feedback from your team at the end of the year. I take the time to meet with each team member for one hour. During that time, they bring with them a feedback form I provided to them containing questions about the program and events we did as a team that year. I also ask them to evaluate such things as their equipment (I discover a lot each year about practice  T shirts - one group likes short, tight shirts, while another year, big and baggy is in!), their personal performance, their choreography, their coaches, conditioning, practices, and more. During that time, I also evaluate them and provide feedback on how I believe that individual performed and offer suggestions on improvement if she plans on returning the following year. I always learn a ton, so I keep three pads handy during each individual meeting: one for things to institute for the following year, one for things that I need to bring to the attention of my AD, and things to think about.