It's Called Courtesy, People

Every year, the non-profit my mother runs has an annual fundraising/donor report/appreciation dinner. It's a nice affair and they have it at one of the better hotels in the area, send out invitations with response cards, and so forth. Since mom's in charge, my sister and I (and everyone else in the family) generally help out - and I've found my niche doing something I really enjoy, which is printing the nametags and making table assignments.

It works something like this: Tables seat 8. We ask our supporters to consider filling a table of 8 (i.e. bring 6-7 other people along with them to hear about the ministry). Many of our supporters do just that. We further ask when they send in their response card that they list who they'd like to be seated with and, if they're filling a table, to list all of the names of the folks who are coming. It's about a 50/50 split as to who lists the whole table and who has the table all respond individually listing the person who organized the table as who to sit with. Either is fine as I can readily put people where they belong.

The cutoff for responses is the week before the event.

The night before the event, I take our spreadsheet of responses and I assign tables to parties of 4 or more. This helps on two fronts: first, I can generally guarantee that none of the prime seats (front and center) will be empty from an incomplete table and second, it ensures that those who care who they sit with get to do so. Once tables are assigned, I print nametags and, if you're in a party that was seated, you get a table number printed on your tag.

When people check in, if there isn't a table number on their tag, they come to me after picking up the tag and I look for where empty seats are and then make an assignment, so I can fill in the onesies and twosies and make the best use of our space. This is also good, since as we get closer to dinner time, I can look at who has checked in and who hasn't and backfill into tables that were previously full.

With an event like this, banquet planners will tell you to expect a 20% no-show rate. That is, 20% of the people who say they're coming will, in actual fact, not show up and not let you know that they're not coming. This is why I don't seat everyone right off the bat. If you do, then you end up looking as if you've run out of seats on paper, but looking at the audience there's actually just about no full tables. In practice, we run closer to a 12% no-show rate, so that's good, but the problem still exists.

What never ceases to amaze me are the people who just can't find it in their hearts to, at some point during the six weeks they have the invitation in their hot little hands, go ahead and RSVP, waiting until 8 am the day of the dinner to call and say, "Oh, by the way, I'll be there with X, Y, and Z. And we need to all sit together." These people are still better (by a hair) than the ones who just show up having never called or in any other way indicated that they were coming.

This is difficult on a number of levels. First, the hotel requires that we tell them the number of people coming on Wednesday before the event on Friday. After they get this number, they decide how much of the ballroom we get and how the tables will be set up. Since they inevitably overbook the space, we generally get crammed into less than we were promised when we made the reservation with them, with the lame excuse that by pushing the tables closer together the number we gave them Wednesday still fits. It just simply means that if the number of last minute folks overcomes the number of no-shows, well...we're hosed and the people who work end up not sitting or eating. It's happened in the past. I suspect it will happen this evening.

Anyway, so far this morning, I've had 4 reservations come in, all expecting to sit with other people who have already been seated. I'm not rearranging them. I'm just not - it looks like they can sit at an adjacent table, so hopefully that will be enough. If they complain, I'm going to have to bite my tongue to keep from asking exactly what they expected when they reply on the day of the dinner.

Please. If you're reading this, make a resolution today to be more diligent about responding to invitations by the deadlines. Maybe together we can make the world just a little bit more polite.