- 5:45 - 6:15 - Sally Rainbow's house (132 Pine Street, phone 555-4321) - appetizers and beverages
- 6:30 - 7:00 - Mary Sunshine's house (465 Whitecastle Road, phone 555-9876) - soup and salad
- 7:15 - 7:45 - Suzy Johnson's house (897 Ash Court, phone 555-1029) - main course
- 8:00 - ? - Mrs. Frank's house (1357 Willow Avenue, phone 555-6758) - dessert & coffee
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The Newbie's Guide to Accomplishing a Memorable Progressive Dinner
Start an annual tradition! Everything you need to know to help organize this event
A Progressive Dinner is a dinner where each course is served at a different house, and the diners "progress" to each house en masse. This is a fun event for your Assembly, but it takes a lot of well thought-out preparation and planning. This guideline should help you pull off a fun and successful evening!First off, set a date for the dinner. A weekend is best; probably a Saturday night, as most parents work during the week and do not want to scurry home and throw things together. If you meet on a weeknight, perhaps have the Progressive Dinner be the first Saturday after your meeting; this will remind the girls at the meeting about the dinner, and cut down on the number of people you need to have your phone committee call and remind.
Decide how to provide the food for this meal. You should probably bring this up during new business and let the Assembly as a whole decide. Options could be: 1) the members and their families can buy tickets at $2 each, with the money divided up equally between the "host" houses; 2) the members who are not "hosting" at their house can donate food (either ingredients, or a prepared item) to one of the "host" houses (could be difficult to arrange); 3) the Assembly votes to reimburse each "host" house for receipts up to X-amount (example: $20 for each host). Perhaps there's another option open to you that is not mentioned here.
Take signups from the members and Advisory Board. (optional: include members of your sponsoring bodies.) Members can bring siblings and parents; Board can bring spouses and children.
Take signups for "host" houses. You have the option of asking just for hosts, saying "I will call you and let you know which course you're in charge of", or ask for a host house for each "course". You can have one for appetizers & beverages (the starting point, where everyone meets), one for soup and/or salad, one for the main course, and one for dessert & coffee. (These can be expanded or combined to suit your Assembly's needs.) Obviously, someone from each "host" house will have to miss the stop before theirs, or perhaps just leave early, in order to have everything ready at their house. Confirm the signups with the parents; explain to them what the progressive dinner is and how much you appreciate their help. Remind them that paper plates & napkins, and plastic cups & utensils are just fine; they don't need to go "all-out" for this function. Give them the number of persons who are signed up to eat, and tell them you will call a few days before the dinner with a final number.
Important: When planning out which "host" will serve what course, keep in mind distance between houses. The key to planning this is to keep the destinations close together. You do not want to have appetizers in town, then zoom into the suburbs (or next town) for soup and salad, then zoom back into town for the main course, six blocks away from the house you had appetizers at. If you do not know exactly where every member lives, consult a map.
It's up to you whether you'd like a certain menu used, or you will leave it up to each host to decide. Letting each host decide can produce more interesting results (and be easier on them, if they're preparing a dish they're familiar with).
Create a "map" of the host houses, and how to get there. A line drawing map is fine. Make sure to number the houses on the map, and provide address and telephone for each, as well as what time you will be there, in case someone gets lost. Hand them out at the meeting before the dinner.
Sometime during the week before the event, have your phone committee call your list of signed-up diners and remind them of the date, location of the first house, and who they signed up to go. Get confirmation on how many people are attending, and let your hosts know in enough time to plan their course.
Here is a sample schedule of a progressive dinner (can be adjusted to suit your needs):
Try to all leave at the same time for the next house, rather than one person leaving when they're finished eating or are bored. Carpooling together, and following someone who knows where they're going, is helpful.The extra mile: Doing this in December, when you can tie in an event like an ornament or gift exchange at the final house for this dinner. Each household (either girl's or Board member's) brings a wrapped gift (nothing too expensive; consider setting a price limit on it, like "Do not go over $8") that gets numbered, and then each person who brought a gift picks a number out of a hat, and receives the gift with that number on it.
Bon appetit!
Version 1.0 - 08/08/01
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