TIPS FOR ORGANISING A BURN'S NIGHT DINNER
If you have a well-heeled clientele, a large room and caterers then you don't need this post.
This is for those who want to organise a rattling good night out as well as raising funds for their Church or society.
THE VENUE
Look carefully at the room you are going to use. You need to seat everyone (the supper is a proper sit-down meal and everyone needs a chair, including helpers and children so don't forget to count them). Then you need space for dancing.
We have a very small, multi-purpose Church building so we have to clear away the tables and chairs to make room for the dancing, without which Burn's Night would not be complete.
Work out the maximum number you can seat comfortably, bearing in mind you need access to the kitchen and you need to be able to serve hot food safely. Stick to that number.
THE PEOPLE
How much can your people afford to pay? We charged £10 this year and included a glass of wine. Next year we won't include the wine. People bring it anyway as well as the whiskey. And some will prefer beer, which they will bring. Don't try and cater for all alcohol preferences... you will go mad. Unless you have a license you cannot sell alcohol. We do put water on the tables.
THE MENU
People want a good dinner so this year we served:
hearty vegetable soup + bread roll
Haggis, neeps and tatties
a good casserole chilli bean pot for the Vegans
trifle fresh fruit salad
cheese and oat cakes humus instead of cheese
coffee
THE COOKING
We have a minute church kitchen, small even by terraced house standards, with a 4 burner electric cooker and a tiny single sink and drainer. We do have plenty of crockery, cutlery and glasses, though if numbers are big then we need to borrow from the Vicarage or use plastic plates and bowls.
I make the soup in my enormous soup pot and a vegetarian one in a smaller pot.
Two of the ladies from church do the haggis course. They use the kitchen. They put the haggis in the oven and the mashed potatoes and swede in serving dishes in the heated hostess trolley, which was given to church for just such occasions.
A friend and I make all the casseroles using every slow cooker we can borrow. We cook a day or 2 before the supper. We plug them in at about 3.30pm on the Friday so they are nice and hot by 8pm.
We get volunteers to make the trifles. They arrive during the Friday afternoon.
We borrow cafetieres for the coffee and use the hot water boiler which is plumbed into the mains water.
SETTING UP
The day before the supper I organise a few strong volunteers to bring the table downstairs from the storage cupboard and set them up, with chairs. Since groups want to sit together there is sometimes a bit of fiddling about to get the room balanced.
Then we lay the cloths and set the tables. I make a note of any extra plates etc I need to acquire. During the dinner people keep their forks for the 2 main courses and their knife right through the meal (for cheese). We have 2 spoons each.
We also set a wine glass and a tumbler for each person.
We have groups who want to sit together...........eg the charity shop volunteers use it as a night out......... so I use place names. You organise however you want to.
THE CLEARING UP
No-one washes up after the meal. It's impractical with our facilities and if we are catering for 60 that's a lot of pots. People have come for a night out not a night at the kitchen sink. So we scrape off the bits and load plates, bowls and glasses into big bags, take them to the Vicarage and we run the dishwasher all the next day till we're done. If we need to use any plastic plates etc they go straight into the bin. The cutlery is soaked in washing up bowls and also goes through the dishwasher. Easy peasy.
We stack the tables after the meal but they get stored away the next day. Otherwise no-one has time to dance.
THE MUSIC
You need music, playing as a background during the meal, as accompaniment to songs, community singsong, and for the dancing. You are unlikely to be able to afford a piper to pipe in the haggis so you need pipe music as well.
DECORATIONS
How you decorate will be decided by your budget and the room. Since ours is actually a small Georgian church we hang flags from the balcony, put out every candlestick the church possesses (they look really festive when lit and add to the ambiance). Then we have tartan paper napkins or napkins with Robert Burns pictures/information on them. There are lots available. And we print a souvenir programme with the menu, the grace, who's doing the speeches and the words for any songs we are all going to sing (if any).
useful websites:
THE PROGRAMME
There are no hard and fats rules about what you must do but some items are always included. I have underlined the essentials. Nor does your evening have to follow this pattern. This was 2011. In 2012 we didn't interrupt the meal after the haggis. We put everything else at coffee time. It's up to you.
1 Selkirk Grace
2 after soup Procession of the haggis and Address to the Haggis
3 after haggis Ye Banks and Braes
4 after casserole Flow Gently Sweet Afton
5 after trifle My Love is Like a Red Red Rose
6 end of meal song Star of Rabbie Burns
7 Immortal Memory (of R Burns)
8 Toast to the lassies
9 Response from the ladies
10 The town we live in
Dancing
Auld Lang Syne
useful websites:
THE HELPERS
Essential the MC. this person must know what they are doing because they announce speakers, songs, etc
the cooks
the muscle to set up and shift tables and chairs
someone to operate the music system or play live music if you can afford it
the caller for the dancing.............. most people did not learn basic dances at school so they will need to be demonstrated and organised
THE DANCES
Usually included.................Gay Gordons
the Dashing White Sergeant
St Bernard's waltz
Strip the Willow
Cumberland 8's (though I think the Scots give it a different name) etc etc
For further information on dances look on youtube.
