Dinner, drinks, and a debrief — post 2018 Midterm Election
By Samantha Wyman, Political Writer
On the Wednesday after the 2018 Midterm Election, I hosted a dinner amongst friends to debrief and to learn more about the election process. A good friend of mine and her sister had spent the weekend prior to Election Day attending rallies, volunteering, and going door to door canvassing asking people to get out and vote. Having learned about this, I wanted to hear more about how she was able to be engaged this election season.
I used a new application called DinnerParty to help organize the dinner. I set a date, time, and location and provided a brief description of the topic for the night. I asked my friend who had been canvassing to be the featured guest and created a profile for her so that other guests could learn more about her background. I then used DinnerParty to send text and email invitations to several of our mutual friends. A great part about inviting guests is that each invitation has a personalized link. Each guest was able to see the online invitation addressed to them and RSVP.
The guests were excited to hear about the featured guest’s experience and were happy to attend. Having a formal invitation and a set topic for a dinner was really encouraging. I invited a total of 9 guests for the dinner and 6 accepted.
I chose a Spanish tapas restaurant that I hadn’t been to before but had heard great things about. I made reservations and looked at the menu ahead of time to get an idea of the price range. DinnerParty lets you set payment options in advance so that guests know how much to contribute and what to expect to be covered. I set up three options that let guests pay a default amount to cover their meal and a drink, pay a little less if they weren’t able to cover the default cost, or opt in to pay more than the default to help cover the dinner. This worked out well — one guest selected the lower price, while another paid more than the highest option. I used PayPal and Zelle for guests to send payments ahead of time. A couple of guests brought cash to the dinner, which they gave to me prior to sitting down for the meal. At the end of the night there was no controversy about splitting the check or who would cover who! I simply picked up the check, covered the cost with the prepaid payments and took care of the remaining balance.
At the end of the night there was no controversy about splitting the check or who would cover who!
The guests had all met before so we were able to have an open and comfortable discussion about politics. The featured guest started by sharing her experience on how she went from sharing political posts on social media to going door to door canvassing prior to this year’s Midterm Election. She said that after the 2016 General Election, she found herself asking “what can we do and what more can I do?” This brought her to attending the Women’s March and listening to political podcasts. One podcast, Pod Save America, was particularly helpful. During the weekend leading up to Election Day, she used an app called MiniVAN that provided her with the information needed to canvass. In Florida, voter records are public, so by using MiniVAN she was able to see who was registered to vote and who had not yet voted. She went canvassing with her sister and her daughter. They put on t-shirts for the candidate they were supporting, knocked on several doors in their neighborhood, and got a few people to pledge to vote early or on Election Day! The guests were inspired by her experience and looked forward to being able to join her in canvassing for the next election.
After dinner I asked guests what they thought, and they were very happy with the event and choice of restaurant. The next day, I sent a thank you email through the app to thank everyone for a great night and conversation. I look forward to using DinnerParty to help plan events in the future!
