As part of your ASI experience you will be designing, preparing, and serving a farm-to-table dinner. Farm-to-table dinners are extremely popular and have been used as businesses in and of themselves as well as fundraisers and a way to build community around food. In your Crop & Soil Management class you will be evaluated on your ability to plan a seasonally appropriate meal, harvest & clean the ingredients, and prepare the dishes. In Food Systems we will focus on (i) how you tell the story of the meal (menus, photos, etc.), (ii) the invitation process, (iii) decor and ambiance (shade, flowers, tableware, etc.), (iv) general planning, and (v) measures you take to build community around food at our meal (a farm tour, etc.).
People to work with during this process:
Your goals for your dinner will help you establish the target attendees, the ambiance, the structure, etc. A single event may encompass several goals at the same time.
Deliverable - Goal Sheet[5%]
An on-farm dinner is a lot of work, involving careful organization. When considering the work involved in putting on a farm dinner, don’t forget to include the pre-dinner farm clean-up (see other section), meal set-up, marketing, menu-planning, harvest, preparation and serving, guest hospitality, and clean-up and managing of all these logistics.
Deliverable - Task List & Schedule[10%]
Guest lists have to be balanced between achieving the goals of the dinner while also not having so many people attend that it becomes impossible to pull off the event. We can provide you with the categories of folks who have normally attended these events in the past - it is up to you to determine who to invite, likely numbers attending, and to prepare and send out invitations in a timely manner - getting RSVPs will be important to make sure we know how many to plan for.
Categories of Attendees
Deliverable - Guest List & RSVP management [10%], Invitations [10%]
Tables, chairs, shade awnings, plates, cups, and cutlery need to be located, staged, and cleaned. The numbers needed are highly dependent on your guest list. Will you use reusable tableware or sustainably-sourced compostable alternatives to cut down on clean up? Where will the dinner be help? Will there be adequate shade? What about biting insects? What about an alternative space in case of rain? Restrooms must be very clean and well stocked. You must make sure your guests know where the restrooms are.
Regarding parking - many guests will usually arrive in couples or groups, so you don’t need a parking place for each guest, but you will need dedicated parking for your dinner guests. Rieth Village has a moderately sized (though ill-defined) parking lot. The other option is to have folks park at the farmstead and shuttle them over and back. The parking area should be clearly marked, with a designated entrance and exit. Remember to mow any tall grass for fire safety, and keep parking areas as flat as possible. Lighting is helpful if your dinner will end after dark
Photographically documenting your event is critical. You will coordinate this job with the ML Communications Manager to ensure you don’t miss the opportunity to showcase what you are doing. The photographs should focus on the quality of the food, the setting, signage, guests interacting with each other, and the details that make your event unique. The images should be high quality and capture the look and feel of the event.
Deliverable - Facilities & Equipment Plan[10%], PR plan [10%] developed between ML Communications Manager and ASI students
Bringing people to your farm is a powerful way to build relationships and cultivate interest in what you do. Before the dinner, your efforts will naturally focus on sending out invitations and recording RSVPs. It’s important not to lose sight of the opportunity you are creating at the dinner to expose folks to the mission and vision of the farm, ASI, and what you would like to tell them about your experience.
There are a number of ways to effectively communicate these things to your guests. You will do this through both the design of the menu and providing small group farm tours.
Deliverables - Farm Tour plan[10%], Menu[10%]
Remember that while your farm may work well as a farm, those coming as guests to an on-farm event may have a different image of what a "farm" should look like. Can you meet those expectations currently? Does your farm give off a generally neat and tidy impression? You might want to get rid of any old equipment that isn’t intended to be decorative, and make sure all storage areas and shelves appear uncluttered and clean; or minimize what your guests can see by closing barn and shed doors as needed. Fresh flowers, tablecloths, and good lighting can also help create an elegant feel.
The last minute checklist encompasses all categories of preparation and is meant to make sure everything is moving smoothly a couple days out from the actual dinner. If progress is inadequate in some areas - now is the time to get additional people working on those areas to be ready by the day of the dinner.
Deliverable - Farm Inspection[10%], Last Minute Checklist[5%]
Every year the entire ASI cohort provides some sort of unique contribution to the dinner. This could take any form (i.e. a small gift, a painting, a poem, a song, a presentation, a sticker design, etc.) and can reflect whatever the cohort wants to communicate to the dinner guests.
Special Contribution[5%] to be provided during dinner,