Guides

Meals & food committee

Potlucks, meal trains, and meeting meals with a live headcount.

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Setting up a meal event

  1. Open Meals and click New meal event. Pick the type: Potluck (a single gathering), Meal train (meals over a date range for one household), or, on meeting accounts, Meeting meals (connected to registration for live headcount and dietary needs).
  2. Fill in the basics. Title, date (and end date for a meal train), and an instructions block for the theme: bring anything, or this month is haystacks. Meal trains also take the recipient's name and private notes that only the committee sees.
  3. Add what is needed. Use Add a meal and add items under it: 4 mains, 3 sides, 2 salads, 4 desserts, whatever the event calls for. A recipe (with a photo of the recipe card) can be attached to an item when you want several families bringing the same dish.
  4. Share it. Click Copy sign-up link and send the link by text, email, or the group chat. Volunteers tap a slot and type their name; no account, no app.

Managing the sheet

The event screen shows every meal with a "still needed" or "Filled" badge, so gaps are visible at a glance. When somebody signs up by phone call instead, use Add name to enter them yourself.

Volunteers can bow out on their own: on the public sheet, a volunteer taps their own row to remove it and the slot opens for the next person. On standalone potlucks and meal trains that is the whole story; on meeting meals a drop also notifies the committee so nothing is discovered at mealtime.

Closing and reusing: Close sign-ups freezes the sheet (and Reopen unfreezes it). Past events stay on file, and Use as template starts the next one with the same structure, recipes included.

Meeting meals: the connected part

When a meal event is connected to a meeting, each meal shows an Eating this meal headcount pulled from registration, with the breakdown behind it and an override if you know better. The Kitchen dietary list collects every dietary note from the roster, and Print kitchen sheet produces the one-page version the cooks tape to the wall.

Meals hosted in homes are marked "Guests eat at their host homes," and cooked or catered meals say so, so the sheet always reflects how each meal actually happens.