The Honourable Cat Herder Award

{The Honourable Cat Herder Award}

In service and dedication to the wonderful people who have opened their homes, hearts, fridges and basements to hordes of Unschoolers from across the land.

{Awarded to these wonderful and beautiful people:}

Becky for having a kick-ass party!
Becky's Parents for, like Marina's, agreeing to have a bunch of unschoolers over, and actually enjoying it!
Marina's parents for not only agreeing to have 40 teenagers over, but actually enjoying it!
Miranda for hoasting New Years 2001 and dealing with all the things that where flung at you :)
Miranda's pairents for letting take over there houst for 10 wounderful day to drive up places for buying us tickets to see a show...so much more we just had to thank you guys!
Lotus for hosting a few gatherings, such as a late new years partys, so a bunch of us could see people like Tessa. and another party for when Kate came to vist.
Nick for hosting New Years ("a few kids over for the weekend")
Robyn for the most wonderful birthday party for Rachel, and letting us all sleep in her basement
Rosie for hosting the bike trip unschoolers at the end of their journey! (silly girl, you forgot to mention yourself!)
Tessa for hosting ACK, arranging the transport, and not killing the boys when they suggested flying in

Lotus' Parents, who I'm sure, quistioned their sanity, when they saw everyone show up.
Nick's Family, who were incredible with the noise we made.
Robyn's Family, her mother in particular, who fed more than her fair share.
Tessa's Mother, for just helping out with logistics and putting up with us.
Grace, Taber, and Lesly, for putting out more effort than anyone deserves to be saddled with to host The Big One: NBTSC!

(who else?...)

{Survival Tactics for Gathering Unschoolers} (organizing unschoolers is said to be as complicated as herding wild cats)

My humble ideas suggestions and thoughts for hosting more of these gatherings! (yes, yes, everyone come sleep over at my house!) I'm not really the expert on this, but I have a few thoughts. Dawn

consider strange food we tend to eat a lot of, like tea[1], garlic[2], honey[3] and peanut butter

Check ahead of time how things will work with Parental Units, what their limits are by way of such things as:

Hours
Loud music
Co-ed sleeping
Sleeping in

Get everyone's travel plans confirmed before you buy food, or shop as a group.

Always be aware of allergies. it sounds logical enough. :)

Volunteer to get group help for work for the parents. We chopped wood for Tessa's folks, but really much of anything works. The idea is not to be too much of a bother...

Give everyone, or at least the group, a "toybox", a cardboard box where their papers, pictures, books etc can easily be placed during cleanup.

Make as much room as possible in entry ways for shoes and other collected masses of creative crap.

If you plan food, don't depend on so many "dinners" or "lunches" since meals will move around a lot quite frequently. "Lunch" may be at 8:30 pm.

Sleeping in a group is a wonderful experience, but having several places to crash is nice if you are dealing with a varity of sleeping schedules.

Nominate a Dish Fairy[4] to gather workers and orchestrate the process . . . and have some sort of crown for them!

Head cat herders: deligate, deligate, deligate the work around!

Oh, another thought to mention, although it cant really be helped. Consider carefully what plumbing you have, and the effect of going from 4 people to 13 teenagers could have on it. :) Consider useing an outhouse if you have it, or just be aware of the use of the sewer...

Ooh! I like the everyone-gets-a-toybox idea! Heehee.

Rosie says:

incinerate all smelly socks left unattended for more than two days

balance work so that nobody gets stuck cleaning up everybody else's crap/ making everybody else's food. (And especially not parental units! That is a major faux pas and may result in a decreased enthusiasm on the parental unit's part for more visitors)

thank parental units (your own & others) excessively and gratuitously for hosting a gathering (see Dawn's suggestion of helping hands)

tidy constantly (but that makes you sooooooo unpopular!! *g*)

form a plan of action ahead of time if you have personal space issues * grin *

when people leave (NOOOooo!!!) everybody do a thorough search of the house (even in unlikely places, like under couch cushions and the players of stereos) for things they may have left behind. This will be somewhat easier if you have implemented Dawn's suggestion of a toybox, but a full search is still necessary.

if you ask someone to hold something for you right before you leave, get it back. (Wallets, house-keys, backpacks, etc.)

a semi random thought... get extra sanitary napkins before the party. somehow everyone seems to get their period at the same time during parties... plus pads are just a good thing to have. *grin* marina

A few humble thoughts, please brainstorm on. I personally am totally addicted to small and large gatherings of camp people.

Quo Vadis is here:

http://www.quovadis-gathering.org

Other Getting Together Stuff

[1] This footnote was unattached. And lonely. Now it goes somewhere! :)

[2] To ward off colds.

[3] For the tea.

[4] Oh, dear. I really am tired. I read that as Fish Dairy!