Cooking up a storm: lessons from dinner for 2,000 people

Becoming digital banquet specialists wasn’t initially on our to-do list. But when the lovely folk at Belazu gave us a call to ask for our help with their three hour banquet, we were only too happy to help. It featured a dozen chefs and entertainers and nearly 2,000 participants, all armed with the ingredients to cook a 6 course menu.

We made sure the event was designed and delivered without a hitch, something we do a lot of – if not always alongside Yotam Ottolenghi and Thomasina Miers.

How did it go? Hundreds of beautiful dishes were created all over the country and shared on social media. The #BelazuBanquet hashtag trended on UK Twitter. 98% of participants agreed they’d recommend it to a friend. Best of all we raised over £55,000 for the wonderful Chefs in Schools. All done without a technological hiccup.

So what did we learn about connection and cooking?

Joy, and learning, and joy

We’ve been banging the joy-in-work drum for a little while now. We think it’s key not just because of its value in and of itself, but also because of the strong evidence linking it to better outcomes and faster learning. The banquet could have felt like a prolonged home economics lesson –  but the most frequently mentioned word from participants about the event was ‘fun’. And learning happened too: 97% of participants saying they would use what they had learnt in the future.

Apart but connected

At its most basic, the banquet was 2000 strangers on a webinar with the odd look at twitter alongside. But what was striking was the level of intimacy and community that emerged. This was partly because of the features we built in – polls, shoutouts, wonderful photos, professional chefs chatting to amateurs. But above all it was the shared endeavour of everyone doing and learning at the same time.

This is why we’re such fans of building partnerships at Kaleidoscope – the ability for people to be working on similar issues over an amount of time that you can start to see the impact of what you’re doing. It’s what we’ve been doing in Lambeth and Southwark with dozens of groups working to reduce childhood obesity. It’s what we’ve seen happen to great effect in improving outcomes for young people with diabetes.

Generosity

The banquet was built upon generosity and sharing. It worked because so many people cared about the same thing, and were prepared to do something to help. The beauty of working for sectors such as health and care, is the strength of the shared purpose for a majestic goal.

Yet so often we lose our way, putting up barriers which obscure what we’re really here for.

If we took anything from a night of virtual cooking, it was the reemergence of an old truth: let’s start with what unites us.

Find out more about the project here.