We’ve been preparing for the Side-by-Side festival, working closely with Renny from Quarantine on No Such Thing – a project which aims to bring people together who might not have met otherwise. As part of this project, the group will have free dinner with someone they’ve never met, in exchange for a conversation.
Before having a free dinner, we had to create a menu consisting of conversation starters which we would use for the festival. Each menu Renny showed us had a theme which each conversation starter related back to. We talked about what’s going on in the world currently and what’s happening locally in Rochdale before coming to the chosen theme of ‘Smiling’. On the menu, there were starters, mains and afters, as well as today’s special.
To create the menu, we thought about different topics surrounding the theme of smiling. We came up with ideas about memories, peace, people, and more. For the starters, we asked questions based in the past tense, allowing the participant to be able to think back on memories. For the mains, were questions that related to current events. The afters would allow the participant to think about the future. The group bounced ideas off each other before creating the finalised menu.
The group had a practise with the menu they created which gave them the chance to see how the night would run and allow them to feel comfortable and prepared. Everyone had interesting conversations and were able to find questions which suited them well and were comfortable for them to answer.
Before the training was over, we chose the type of food we would like to eat during the dinner. After a group vote (consisting mostly of rice and potatoes) we chose a Pakistani themed dinner with dishes such as biryani, pilau, and curries.