When I worked in Stillwater, planning the Men’s Advance meals was like planning for a World War II battle. We had charts and graphs, purchase lists and runner routes, restockers and servers galore. It seemed like every man in our church was enlisted on the food team.
And it worked. It worked well. It worked efficiently.
The guests ate hot, good food.
And it was fast. Really fast.
Have you ever tried to herd 1,700 men? Even if there’s food at the other end, it still takes a lot of time to move that many people anywhere! One of the most amazing feats of all the Men’s Advance planning is the speed of the food line.
All 1,700 men were dismissed, served, and seated in 17 minutes. You do the math. That is 100 men per minute (which is a LOT!).
Dismissing For Meals
Seeing how efficiently the Men’s Advance food lines ran, I wanted the same for our Preaching Rally. Overall, I wanted hot, good food, and I wanted the people to be served fast.
Over the years, we have developed a system that runs as smoothly as possible. Our biggest hindrance is the exit doors–double doors at the back of the sanctuary–which creates the biggest bottleneck.
To relieve the “hurry up and wait” problem that the bottleneck creates, I dismiss churches one at a time through a game. It might be sword drills, a “Simon Says” variation, or a “Bring me _____ item,” and the first church that wins might be dismissed to lunch first. Or, I may use that time as a chance to introduce each church, dismissing them in the order that they pre-registered.
However they are dismissed, one church is sent through the doorway at a time.
Inside the Gym
Once they leave the sanctuary, people are directed down the front steps and toward the gym, a walk of about 100 feet. Any bit of walking distance will instantly spread out and speed up a crowd. People walk quickly when there is open space in front of them.
The guests enter the gym to walk through four lines of pre-plated pizza. They grab a napkin and a plate, and continue through the line to where cans of soda and cups of water are laid on each table. Every table contains every choice of chilled soda and water, so guests do not have to choose a table or overlap each other to get where they want to go.
Seating
We place rows of back to back chairs in the gym so people can sit and eat, and we have our picnic area and courtyard area open for anyone who sits outside. As long as it is not raining, we put rows of chairs outside, and the young people sit there, or in the grass to eat.
Food Chief
After designating the food chief, he or she takes the previous years’ notes and coordinates the workers and the day’s meals. The general guidelines I try to reiterate are:
- Make it fast. Get people through the line as quickly as possible.
- Make it smooth. Remove as many decisions as possible. Keep people moving.
- Make it good. For teens, pizza is our go-to food. It is filling and appeals to the largest number of people. Make it hot and ready to eat.
- Make it plenty. Order enough pizzas that we do not run out. Put contingencies in place in case more people show up.
The food chief makes the following plans:
- Setup. The chief coordinates and sets up all tables and chairs. For us that means feeding and seating about 400 people, and arranging the tables so that the lines flow smoothly. We have table diagrams from previous years, and on the Wednesday before the PReaching Rally, volunteers from the church set up according to the diagram.
- Team Meeting. The chief coordinates his teammates into various jobs. Each person has a job, and each job as a person (or two, or five), listed below:
- Napkins – restocking and straightening
- Pizzas – plating on tables and restocking supply
- Drinks – restocking tables and running to refrigerator to restock supply
- Taking out trash
- Handing out chips (not letting them choose. They can trade later.
- Traffic – directing the crowd to know where to go, making sure no one returns to the sanctuary with food
- Food and Goods Purchases. The food chief coordinates with the pizza places (we use Little Caesar’s) to schedule 100 or so pizzas to be delivered on time. The chief makes drink purchases in bulk and plans out the paper goods that will be used.
Our Schedule
We have three sessions with breaks between each. The first break comes around 12:30 pm, so we distribute one bag of homemade cookies to each young person. This tides them over until lunch at 1:30 pm. This break should include tables with water cups, and trash cans spread around.
Our workers are dismissed after the preaching and Plan Page time is done, but before the church dismissal times start. Our workers need only a few minutes to get in their places. The food chief and a few adult workers might miss some or all of the sessions to prepare for the break times, but the teen workers do not miss anything at the Preaching Rally.
Preparation Timeline
Our general timeline is as follows:
- 2 months. Review food notes. Communicate with chief about upcoming Preaching Rally.
- 1 month. Church meeting signing up food volunteers.
- 1 month. Also at church meeting, sign up volunteers to bake cookies (2 dozen each line they sign up on).
- 3 weeks. Cookie postcard sent to all volunteers reminding them about how many they signed up for, and how to bag them.
- 2 weeks. Purchase drinks and paper goods. Schedule with the pizza place.
- 1 week. Set up gym. Collect cookies. Meet with food team.
- Day of. Execute food. Fill everyone’s bellies with good food! Clean up.
Our Food Notes
Here are our exact notes from one year’s Preaching Rally food team:
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* Planned for 400 in 2014 & 2015.
Pre-Saturday Preparations:
- Obtain necessary supplies:
o Individual bags of chips (in the past, purchased from smart-n-final)
o Cans of soda (We buy Shasta cola & put in fridge Friday night before the rally…Orange, Lemon Lime, Root Beer, Dr. Thunder)
o Use Ryan’s church CC & turn in receipt to him
o Communicate with Mrs. Wendy Rench the needed paper supplies to purchase from Costco:
- Plates (450 in 2015)
- Napkins (450 in 2015)
- Cups for water (225 in 2015)
- Set up serving tables and chairs Wed. night after church. Make sure they’re straight. (see diagram below)
- Make arrangements with Little Caesars.
o 29700 Rancho California Road, Temecula 92591
Manager: Rogelio Wences (Roger)
(951) 699-4992
They delivered for free in 2014 & 2015!
o Order 75% pepperoni and 25% cheese.
o Approx. how many pizzas we will need?
o What time we will need them?
o How we will pay for the pizzas?
- Coordinate someone to pick up the pizzas for you, if it’s not being delivered.
- Find out what people on the food crew are involved in other areas of the Preaching Rally (special music, skits, registration, etc.).
- Choose specific jobs for specific people on the food crew to do during prep time and during the actual serving times, keeping in mind the others areas where the people may be involved.
- Send reminder post cards at least 1 week prior (cookie & food crew volunteers). Postcards are saved on the church server.
- Once jobs are assigned, meet with the food crew (possibly Wednesday prior)
- Position many trash cans in easily accessible and easily noticed places.
Improvements from 2015
- Need a rain contingency for seating and serving food, if rain is in the forecast. Suggestion to bring soda up tents for covering if needed.
- More trash runners
- More time after split session for prep
- Meeting with food team 30 min before start
o Had a meeting set, and even sent reminder postcards, but only a couple people showed up.
o Might be a good idea to have a meeting the Wednesday prior…have jobs assigned already and discuss the flow, etc with them then. Should do that at least with “zone leaders”
- Have “leads” over each food zone (soda, chairs, pizza, etc)
- Assign chair straighten person
- Drink station was a little disorganized. Mrs. Jamie jumped in and got it running smoother but no adult was really coordinating that zone before then. That would be solved with a zone leader who knew what to do and made it happen because Daniel (or the food chief) can’t be everywhere at once. J
- Be sure servers know they’re serving from the insides of the tables. Some pizza servers were standing on the outside of tables until told to move. Some drink servers kept getting in front of drink table to get drinks.
- Leave a little more room behind drink serving table so people can serve and runners can still stay behind the tables. We couldn’t move back there so drink runners were going in front of tables & blocking guests.
Saturday Timeline:
10:00 am – Prep anything that can be done ahead of time.
- Put ice and water in big jugs.
- Put out stacks of napkins (see diagram to know where they go)
- Set out chips for each table (front part of pizza tables)
10:00 am – Cookies arrive.
- They should be prepackaged in groups of 2. If some aren’t, package the ones that aren’t into groups of 2.
- Put cookie sets in bowls or whatever so they’re ready to serve at the break.
10:15-10:30 am – Meet with entire food crew and assign their specific jobs. Explain the flow of traffic, and very clearly explain their jobs.
** Jobs list: servers (pizza, cookies, drinks), runners, traffic directors, trash attendant, foyer “police officer” J (possibly talk to parking chief about using parking guys for that…Bill Herhold has led in the past)
** At this meeting, ask all food people to check in at registration to pay and receive name tag.
11:15 am – Receive count from registration coordinator (Chris)
11:20 am – Final pizza order with positive number. (from Little Caesars)…if we haven’t paid in advance
12:15 – 12:25 pm – Cookie Break
- Teens will be dismissed in smaller groups from the large assembly.
- If the weather is nice:
o Cookie servers need to be away from the stairs completely and out closer to the parking lot. They can stand in 4 separate locations or form a long line perpendicular to the gym (parallel with the church). Large groups can then fan out and walk to the servers without bottle-necking at the stairs.
o Don’t let teens choose their pkg. They can switch with others if they want different cookies.
o Set out extra cookies at lunch & give out at conclusion of rally for the ride home. Nice touch!
o Direct teens to remain outside for eating and fellowship.
o Bring out a couple trash cans for the cookie time if it’s outside.
- If the weather isn’t nice (rainy and really cold, like 2011):
o Have a person outside the gym door to direct toward the 1st gym door.
o Have a long line of servers parallel with the door (not lined up at the door). They need to be about ½ way into the gym so people can fan out when entering and then walk past them after receiving cookies.
12:35 – 1:05 pm
- Pick up pizzas from Little Caesars. (if not being delivered)
- Fill water cups. Many cups need to be filled and already on the drink tables prior to teens arriving.
- Set up the rest of the chairs in the “TOAD” shed out in the front yard for lunch break. Line sidewalks, but don’t block doorways or main walkways to and from the gym with chairs.
1:05 pm – Set out soda & water cups
- Set out rows of cold soda from fridge so it’s easy to grab.
- All 4 kinds on each table of the 4 8ft. tables.
1:15 pm – Set out pizzas
- Put slices on plates then on the serving tables.
- All tables should have both kinds of pizza. Too confusing when 1 table has 1 kind.
1:20 – 1:55 pm – – Lunch
- Teens will be dismissed in smaller groups from the large assembly.
- Direct them out the back of the sanctuary and into the first outside gym door.
- Once inside have a person (or 2 or 3) to direct to the 4 serving lines.
o “Directors” should be polite but not pushy.
o They will help keep things moving but without rushing people.
- Have pizza servers at each serving table with plates of pizza to hand to teens.
- Have chip servers.
- Have runners for the tables to get more pizzas or chips when needed.
- Once people have gone through pizza lines, a person at the end of each table should direct them toward the drinks that will be on long tables along the back wall and a little to the left of the pizza tables.
- Drink servers are filling water cups and replenishing the cans of soda. Since lunch goes so quickly, basically all the soda can be put out right away so there isn’t as much running to refill, just making sure each table has all 4 kinds until that’s no longer possible. Keep cans toward the front of the table & turned so people can easily see what kinds of soda we have.
- From there, guests can seat themselves.
- Trash attendants are walking around and checking the trash cans to be sure they aren’t overflowing. Be sure they check all cans, even ones outside and in the picnic areas. Once a can fills, take out the full bag and put in a new bag. Put the full bags outside the back, unused door toward the dumpster. They can be taken to the dumpster after the meal is over.
- Once it seems like everyone has basically come through the line, break down all but one line of tables so that there’s more room for people to move and mingle. The gym gets crowded very quickly.
- Please station someone to stay in the foyer to make sure people aren’t bringing food or drinks into the church building. It was suggested that we use men from the parking crew or at least use a couple of their bright vests for these monitors.
2:00 pm – Clean Fellowship Hall. (sweep kitchen & entire gym, pick up trash outside & inside, dispose of all trash bags, set up Pastor’s class for Sunday, Put all other chairs away, tables down, clean bathrooms)
NEW SETUP (updated after 2014 rally) Loved new setup!! Went GREAT in 2015.
Be sure to leave PLENTY of room between pizza tables & soda tables. We had to move them back a little after the Wednesday evening setup.
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