2012 - March 3, Family Potluck

Event Captains

Joseph Lee (jclee13@mit.edu)

Eva Yeung (evayeung@mit.edu)

Kevin Hu (kevhu@mit.edu)

A Google form was used for families to sign up dishes and tell us what ingredients they needed ( http://goo.gl/2Pm0W )

30-40 people showed up for the dinner, a lot of people left afterwards

Get the google form out to families early, and remind them to fill it out often
Stress on the form to specify amounts that they'll use for each ingredient
Have families specify on the form which dish is going to be entered in which category (limit each family to a few entries per category?)
Figure out who will be judging (exec? non-cooking exec? only a few non-cooking people? people specially kept ignorant of who's making what dish?)
Figure out how the judging will be done (unanimous decision? majority rules? preferential voting? approval voting? how are ties broken?)
Figure out the categories (meat, vegetarian, dessert, presentation - it might be good to perhaps also do best sandwich, best noodles)
Figure out the prizes (snacks? gift cards? to where, and for how much? separate prizes for winning in a food category, or only for an overall thing?)
Figure out what games and activities there'll be
Figure out how the overall competition will work

Be sure that you have all your utensils ahead of time
Make sure that you get your games ahead of time
Setup doesn't need to be terribly complicated - tables for food to be placed on, and places for people to sit (people don't seem to mind sitting on the floor

We spent $326 on food, and $75 on prizes ($30, $25, $20 to Infusions), plus some jellies as a consolation prize
There were 6 meat entries, 4 dessert entries, 1 vegetarian entry, and 3 entries for best presentation
There were four judges
Each judge voted for 3 meat entries, 2 dessert entries, and 1 best presentation entry
For games there was: Battleship Twister, Taboo, Cranium, Pictionary, finger fencing, the balance game, and the human knot game
Families were given 50 points, plus 5 points per win in a food category
Families could challenge other families for a certain number of points - the winning family would then get that many points from the losing family
A spreadsheet was used to keep track of families' points - the idea was to have one person from each family come up after each thing and report what happened

Give families more time to cook, or strongly encourage them to start early. Figure out what to do ahead of time how late entries will be handled.
Have the board games set up ahead of time
Explain games via email ahead of time
Instead of having families being able to "bet" points, have the winning family get a certain number of points, and the losing family get less points (the fear is that families will collude and just keep trading wins)
Have separate prizes for winning a food category

Best Meat: Seafood pan fried noodles by ATS Gangsters
Best Vegetarian: Alfalfa sandwiches by Funky Monkies
Best Dessert: Hoddeok by >U
Best Presentation: Patrick's Watermelon Hedgehog ( http://i.imgur.com/nhVE3.jpg ) by ATS Gangsters
President's Choice: Hoddeok by >U
Overall 1st: JBAPB
Overall 2nd: ATS Gangsters
Overall 3rd: >U