I had an event in early May for about 75 banking professionals. The age range of this group was broad from participants with their first job, to the more experienced professionals with 5-8 years of experience, to our seasoned instructors, some of the retirement age. In addition, the students came from Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. One participant traveled from as far away as Oklahoma. Having such a wide variety of age ranges and locations can make it difficult to please when it comes to food.
Gluten free means no pizza, but it doesn't mean you can't eat anything!
The Perfect Surprise
Over the weekend, Jerry, Gardner, and I attended a surprise party for Jerry's best friend, Marcus. The most difficult part of a surprise party is keeping it a surprise. I'm usually terrible at keeping surprise parties a surprise. I always manage to forget that the person doesn't know about the party. Lucky for me, we don't see Marcus that much, so there was less opportunity to spoil the surprise. It was worth it!
Tips for Picking Your Menu
I talked yesterday about what can happen when your food selection doesn't match your audience. You can review the post here. In a nutshell, we had a group of people visit the School and served them a breakfast that the vast majority couldn't eat. Here are some tips about picking a menu that suits your audience.
Food Selection and Audience
I've been running a program here at the School of Government this week for new lawyers called Defender Trial School. We have 20 public defenders and 10 private lawyers that do appointed work honing their trial skills through plenary sessions and small workshop groups. Yesterday, they had an opportunity to practice voir dire, which is the term for interviewing potential jurors. We rounded up about 24 people to be mock jurors for the program and provided them a breakfast, but we learned a little something about our jurors yesterday when it comes to food.
Progressive Dinner
Jerry and I had the pleasure of hosting our friends from church this weekend for part of a progressive dinner. The way progressive dinner works is someone hosts the appetizer, then you drive to the next house for the entree, and a final house for the dessert. We improvised on this particular gather since the couple that was making the appetizer didn't have the means to host on this occasion. We offered to physically host the first two courses and make food for the entree. There was a little bit of thought and planning for this and Jerry and I put our thinking caps on last week to make the event a success.
One Whale of a Party!
I am back from New Jersey where Gardner and I spent the weekend visiting family. The main reason we went to visit is to celebrate Fynn's birthday (Gardner's second cousin). Fynn turned one yesterday and on Saturday the family got together to celebrate. My cousin, Heather, did a really wonderful job with the ocean themed party. It reminded me of why I love Pinterest so much when it comes to creative party themes!