Set the stage for magical gatherings
The best gatherings start with a really good intention.
Happy Friday Friends,
Recently a friend’s daughter mentioned how much she missed the holiday craft party I hosted in December and begged for a repeat. I joyfully agreed to organize a New Year, New Crafts crafting party with our large circle of friends. Coincidently, a member of the friend group had a brand new baby, and I suggested we use the party to create a unique handmade gift for the family.
I brought the paper, the TomBow pens, and a few ideas. My friends brought the spam sliders, the beers, and the energy. The result was a magical night of creativity, brainstorming, and connection that had us drawing, laughing, telling stories, and creating a gift our friends will hopefully treasure for years to come, or at least until the gluestick comes apart.
A creation from Sue’s Craft Night Collective
Our Next Episode: Taylor Swift Cinematic Universe
In our next episode, our guest talks about his own experience setting the stage for magical gatherings. Nathan Yan shares his journey pivoting his life from a nomadic reliability engineer chasing photos and outdoor adventures to a visionary event producer creating unique and joyful musical experiences in a small mountain town and beyond. Nathan shares his love of the Taylor Swift Cinematic Universe with other Swifties and builds a new life creating meaningful connections for himself and others through their shared admiration of celebrated pop stars.
Nathan’s rendition of Taylor’s Time Magazine Cover
Useful Framework for Retrospectives: Framing Experiences as Gatherings
Many of the experiences we want to learn from include a gathering of people. Whether it’s a family reunion, camping trip, or DJ house party, we bring people together to have a shared experience. My sister knows I am an extrovert and that I love to host get-togethers of all kinds. One year for Christmas she gave me the book The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker and I learned some tips about bringing people together with intention.
Before sending out an invite, group chat, or Zoom invitation, I now consider the following:
Intention: What is the goal of the gathering? Even if it’s just to socialize, clarifying your intention helps you focus on what matters and eliminate distractions.
Setting and Location: The stage on which people gather is an important part of the preparation. Making sure you have the right environment, ambiance, and space for your gathering is essential to manifesting your intention.
Guidelines: I’ve been at gatherings where either chaos abounds or the guests need to keep a cheatsheet in their pocket with the house rules and detailed itinerary. To be honest I’ve probably been a host of both types at some point. Hosts should seek balance between spontaneity and control and consider what if any guidelines for the gathering are needed. Maybe your group needs a no politics at the dinner table rule, or a meatless potluck menu, or instructions to bring the dogs through the back gate to avoid freaking out the cat. Aim for just enough rules to keep things fun but not so many that fun is squeezed out.
Embrace Drama: Perfect harmony can be boring. When added thoughtfully, drama, controversy, or conflict can add spice to your gathering and elevate your guests' experience. Do be thoughtful and be ready to help if things get a little too spicy.
The art of the closing: Celebrate the wrap up of the event in a way that highlights the intention, acknowledge the connections made or strengthened, and send your guests back out into the world happier and content that their time was well spent. And of course, all the lessons learned from the gathering can be captured in a simple retrospective to help you with the next one.
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