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Community-Building Mystery Dinners

Lesley Bradley

A Recipe for Building Community from San Diego

Mystery Dinner

Ingredients:

· 5 to 25 encountered couples
· The desire to know two other couples at a deeper level
· Two free evenings per couple
· Openness to fun
· Welcoming spirits

Optional:

· A pinch of creativity

“Preheat” the community by sharing the instructions for this event. Ask each couple to come to community with an invitation. The outside of the sealed envelope should state the date and time of the dinner and the proposed menu. Nothing else! The address and phone number of the hosting couple should be included inside and should be kept a secret. (Optional: The get-together could be a picnic or brunch at a local café or … )

In a separate room on community night “combine” all the invitations (trying not to let any couple see who brought which invitation). One couple acts as “head baker”, laying all the invitations out “2 inches apart on an un-greased table” to be easily visible. Couples pick a random number to determine who will have first pick, etc.

One-by-one the couples get to see the invitations. The first couple “reduces the stock” by choosing which invitation they want based on the menus and their calendar, takes it and leaves the room. Then the second couple gets a turn and so on. The couple with the last number gets the last invitation. (Important Note: This is a slow cooking recipe…couples are instructed not to open their invitation until the afternoon of the dinner date! This allows the heat to continue to build.)

Having one couple act as a “concierge” really helps. They keep a secret record of the host and guest couples. Any need to reschedule is called to that couple who continues to keep the secret and coordinates the change.

Including a dialogue question for the evening is a nice touch…the icing, but optional. Tuck it inside the envelope with instructions about when the love letter should be written. The host couple may ask for the letters to be written before the guests arrive or they may decide to have couples write just before dessert, with group sharing over coffee!

Recipe can be adjusted to serve 5 to 25 (and even many more) couples.

Calories per serving – 0
Carbohydrates per serving – 0
New special friends per serving – 2 per dinner/4 per couple
Fun – 110% of the FDA minimum daily requirement

Click here for a printable version (PDF, 6KB)