Day 425: Farewell Dinner Retrospective

personal

last saturday, i had a really gr8 farewell dinner gathering where i got to spend my final night in taiwan with many of the lovely people i’d met during my 3 months there

on my flight the next day, i wrote some notes on things that i wanted to work on / remember for the next time i organize something like this

overall, so happy that i followed my fear in doing this and that it worked out as well as it did~

Areas for improvement

  1. Collecting payment

    • The morning of the event, I posted in the Facebook event reminding people to pay upstairs at the register before coming down to the basement.

    • Most people didn’t do this

      • Lesson learned: Assume people won’t read or remember

    • Restaurant cashier directed people to the basement instead of asking for payment

      • Lesson learned: Set up a better protocol with the restaurant
      • Arranged beforehand with the restaurant that people would pay at the register, but next time, explicitly ask them to ask people who are going downstairs to pay first

    • An hour or so into the event, the cashier came down and told me that only 13 out of the 35 or so attendees had paid

    • Ended up being stressful where I had to go around asking people if they’d paid; couldn’t fully relax and be present while talking to people

    • (In the end, everyone paid and it all worked out)

  2. Handling last-minute requests to invite guests

    • Two constraints: food and space

    • Had planned enough food for 40 people

    • When people asked last minute if they can invite their friends, it was stressful because I wanted to tell people yes but I wasn’t sure if there’d be enough food for everyone

      • Lesson learned: Next time, set up a clear model for attendees (e.g. say yes if confirmed attendees * expected turnout (90%) < max capacity; otherwise no)

  3. Setting clear boundaries / telling people no

    • One attendee said she didn’t know about the food being catered and the NT$500 fee and asked if she can just order food separately
    • I said yes because I’m bad at telling people no, but in retrospect it would’ve been totally fine for me to tell her that this was how the event was set up

  4. Public speaking

    • Even though these were all my friends, I still felt uncomfortable getting everyone’s attention and making announcements (e.g. telling people to go pay, telling people where we’re going after the dinner, setting up a group photo)
    • Think this one just comes with practice; put myself in more public speaking situations

  5. Negotiating

    • Didn’t negotiate at all when planning the event
    • In this case, I don’t feel too strongly about this because Mai, the owner, is a friend and I’m happy to support vegan establishments
    • At the same time, it definitely stems from a discomfort with negotiating in general
    • Want to shift my mental model around it and recognize that it can still be a win-win where the restaurant still gets a lot more business than it otherwise would