dinner groups, the logistics

I have had several requests to explain how we do our dinner groups. So, here you go.

Last year my friend Sheila and I decided to start dinner groups. Another friend, Robin, had told us they used to do it in our ward years ago and it sounded like fun. At the time Lucy was a little nursling and date night was not as exciting as we had wanted. Also DH complained that we didn't socialize with others as much as he'd like, and by complain I don't really mean complain but more like mentioned or talked about or whatever, and Sheila's husband was very busy (he's a surgeon finishing a long long residency) and they rarely had date night so dinner groups was born.

We passed out flyers at church inviting anyone to participate who would want to. After a couple weeks we sat down and made a few phone calls to make sure that everyone who wanted to had the opportunity because people are notoriously bad at responding to anything, I don't know why. We had a good response and ended up with about 25 couples. Our plan was to rotate so that everyone would have dinner with everyone else. Each couple had one turn to host and we'd have 4 other couples go to their home. The host does all the work: plans the dinner, games, dessert, whatever they want. The guests bring $5 (making it less of a burden for those who might not participate because of budget reasons). It was a lot of fun. I know one couple who hosted in Oct who had a pumpkin carving contest, some who picnicked outside, some who made homemade pizzas, others who had candle light dinners, it was creative and nice and I think people got to eat with and know some people who they might not have known before.
It was not entirely without problems. Rotating couples was hard. It turned out to be harder than we could do so then we had to change our expectation to simply have a good random mix and trying to not duplicate couples but some did.
Some people didn't like the $5 part and we had other small complaints along the way.
My only complaint was when people didn't show up where they were supposed to. The host didn't know who was coming to their home, we called it "guess who's coming to dinner" and the surprise was supposed to be part of the fun. We would tell the host how many couples were assigned to them a week or so in advance and we'd tell the guests who's home they were going to the day or so before. So if someone didn't show up everyone else ended up waiting on them for a long time. I think this is SO rude and I don't know how to fix it.

We ended with a big pot luck dinner the last month. It was a lot of fun and over the summer several people asked if we were doing it again. It was a lot of work and I wasn't sure, and Sheila had moved, but then I was called as Ward Activity Person and was asked to do it again so we did. This time my friend Nikko is helping me. We have about the same amount of couples although not all repeats from last time. I think it's going well again. The people who go enjoy themselves, the ones that cancel frustrate me but I get over it.

So that's it, it's fun and a lot of work. I will not do it next year, although I would participate in a heartbeat if someone else organized it. I think for most people it seems effortless and only fun. Some stress about their turn to host but bravely do it and I always cross my fingers and wish for them that it will go well.
So that's it in a nutshell. Very fun, a little stressful, but worth doing once :)