GWAPA Food Committee - Volunteers Please!

[krisw]

At the January meeting, I asked the membership if there was anyone willing to organize a food committee to work to provide food at the meetings, working within our budget.

I would like to thanks Chris Todd for stepping up to the plate and volunteering to run the committee. He needs your help, however, to help plan, shop, and prepare food for the meetings. The more people that are involved, the less work it will be for everyone.

Even if you can only help out from time to time, please PM Chris Todd and ask him where you can help.

Thank you for helping to make GWAPA great!

[PaulS]

I can help.
Paul

[chris_todd]

Thanks for volunteering, Paul. Cristy also has agreed to help, but more hands makes for less work, so I'm hoping everyone will be willing to do a little bit every now and then.

As Kris mentioned, I "stepped up to the plate" because I like to eat! (Sorry, couldn't resist). Unfortunately, my heart and pancreas have recently expressed their displeasure with what I've eaten for the last 40 years, so cookies, chips and sodas just don't work for me. Plus, I think we can do a whole lot better - we're a creative bunch, and I know from the potluck we have a lot of good cooks.

I'll have more to say tonight (Cristy and I have already bounced around several ideas), but in the meantime, I wanted to get some ideas from you. Our constraints are:
1) A budget of about $40/meeting
2) Our meetings change location every month (so consider transportation)
3) We have a diverse membership, with diverse dietary requirements (vegetarian, meatatarian, vegan, no pork, food must be tasty, etc.)
4) We need to spread the workload (sorry, but if it falls entirely to me every month, I'll just bring a sandwich for myself, and we can go back to chips and soda, LOL)
EDIT (added later):
5) Oh, we have average attendance of 25-35 people

So let's hear some ideas! It's your club, make it into the club you want it to be...

[John G]

What are you trying to do with the food? Are you trying to have enough to count as a meal, or just a snack?

[chris_todd]

Enough for a meal, I think. Given that our meetings range from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, some members will have to drive upwards of 1.5 hours to get to a meeting (and some, like Jim, have an even longer drive). That means leaving at 11:30 am and not getting home until after 6 pm. I think most people usually have a meal in there someplace.

Then again, perhaps it's reasonable to ask the question - do we really need to provide a meal, or are just light snacks acceptable (chips, cookies, and sodas)?

For me personally, that's insufficient, but if I'm the only one, or I'm part of a very small minority, then perhaps we don't need to change anything.

[krisw]

The food committee can also help to provide more organized variety to the food at the meetings. In addition, there should be cost savings to having the club maintain stores of plates/cup/utensils, and possibly even food items (hotdogs, salsa, chips), bought when the price is right. At $40/meeting (with the possibility of this amount growing with some auction/raffle revenue), we're not going to provide a 5 course meal, but can probably supply more than chips/salsa.

I guess another question is how important soda is to the membership? Would you rather have water or brewed ice tea or something like that? These are all the types of things that the food committee will be in charge of deciding...

[John G]

OK, if it is a meal, we're in trouble. You said we had about $40 per meeting. If we average about 30 members, that means we have to feed them a meal for less than a dollar and a half per person. It can be done, but it isn't going to be easy. One way to do it is to have people cook something. But if the idea is to buy a meal for less than $1.50, I'm not sure what to suggest. Perhaps a survey of prepared foods at a place like COSTCO would give some idea of what is possible.

[John G]

I agree with Kris' suggestion that doing away with soft drinks is a good fist step to having a meal within budget.

[krisw]

John, cooking is one of the main things the food committee is looking at. The club already found out that it's hard to buy prepared foods at that cost.

[PaulS]

It may be a stretch calling it a meal, even with hot dogs. I think it would more likely have to be snack and appetizer type foods. However, it could be a step up from just chips, soda, and cookies.