I volunteered for catering, and making notes so I do better next time.
Need to Know
How many people to cater for.
Need to Decide
- Where the location will be – space and parking, price.
- Who will do the catering – local supplier if poss, not volunteers if poss
Book the food
For 30 people:
- 2 dozen scones
- 30 butter pats, and 12 jam and 12 cream pots for the scones
- 3 cakes – all different please, and please could you slice them for us
- 1 vegetarian quiche, please could you slice it for us.
Food Paperwork
- Ask for a quotation
- Confirm the date, time and price
- Ask for the way they need payment
- Arrange payment
- Ask for receipt
- The receipt needs to be formal, we cannot accept anything the auditors won’t have
- Confirm date, time and location of collection
- Communicate with accountant and secretary / chairman
Drinks
For 30 people:
- 40 tea bags
- Instant coffee for drinks
- Milk Full cream 2 litres
- Milk Semi Skimmed 4 litres
- Milk Skimmed 2 litres
- Sugar – white 1 packet
Extras
- Gluten free cake – 1
- Assorted fruit – 6 pieces
Learnings
- 25 people attended
- 3 * cake was far too much, two would have been plenty
- 1* quiche – if it is a good quiche like this was, this was eaten – but 1 was really enough
- 2 dozen scones – 1 dozen would have been enough
- Didn’t take fruit, forgot, but I don’t think we needed
- Didn’t take gluten free cake, but nobody said anything, so not sure it was needed
- There was a diabetic, but she said she could eat scones, so that was a good call
- Coffee – you don’t need a lot – take as little as possible.
- The Brits drink tea – you do want a box of tea
- Brits drink tea from a teapot. 3 * tea bags make a fair sized pot
- Milk – we only used 1 litre of semi-skimmed
- Sugar – don’t buy, you use practically none. You probably need less than half a cup of sugar – nowhere near a kg
- They liked the cream and jam for scones
- Butter the scones, but don’t put jam and cream on
- Put the cakes out for people to help themselves
- Serve the tea and coffee, but let them do their own milk and sugar
- If someone offers to help with the washing up, say yes please
We chose a local café, a small business, and a place with a great reputation for food. It is definitely worth it. Everyone loved the food.