OpenSeat Playful Feasts help facilitate connections between children and their parents (or caregivers) through playful & conversation-focused meals
"We are excited for you to host a Playful Feast in your own community!" - Callum Oberholzer
There are five main aspects to starting a Playful Feast // STEP 1: If not hosted at someone's home, finding an appropriate venue (30-60 minutes) // STEP 2: Creating your specific Playful Feast on the OpenSeat campaign hub, writing up a description, thinking through the meal protocol that will be followed, and spreading the word through social media (~5 hours total) // STEP 3: Organising food and drink — dependent on whether the event is self-catered or not (30 minutes to 6 hours) // STEP 4: Setting up the table and environment (30-60 minutes) // STEP 5: Hosting your OpenSeat Playful Feast (around 5 hours, including set up and clean-up).
After creating your Starter page on ChangeX, register on the OpenSeat platform by visiting the Playful Feasts Hub (https://www.openseat.co.za/playful-feasts) to start your journey towards hosting a Playful Feast.
Complete your profile with a biographical sketch, uploading a profile picture, and any social media handles in order to show guests who you are. These important details are used whether you act as a host or attend a meal as a guest - so make sure to provide a well-rounded picture of who you are!
If you are hosting as a representative from an organisation, we still prefer that you use your personal name for your profile — you can then mention your organisational affiliation in the bio.
Carefully think through your general hosting approach, the age and ability factors of your target children, the venue and table, the chosen play medium, the food component, and games/activities. Use our guide as the starting point.
To make your Feast really interesting, we recommend using food as the medium for play. There are more conservative ways to do this ("Create your own pizza/burger!") and more extravagant ways to do this, as presented in the guide.
If you would like a 1-hour consultation with the OpenSeat team on your plans, you can reach out to us at [email protected]. The ZAR500 charge for this meeting will be deducted paid from your Starter funds.
We encourage you to workshop the description and event title with your team before you create the event, so that you can copy-paste it directly into the description.
Select 'Host a Meal' while logged in, then compose your event's name, date and short description. Set the visibility to 'Public', make sure to affiliate the event to the "Playful Feasts". All feasts funded by ChangeX have to be free to attend.
Add info about drinks, dietary exceptions (e.g. if there’s meat, will there be any additional vegetarian or vegan options?) and whether there will be on- or off-street parking available. The more details the better.
After you accept the first guest, no more edits to your event are permitted! You can, however, post public updates which will be useful if the venue or menu has to change.
For Playful Feasts hosted via OpenSeat, you will receive a notification when a guest requests a seat (or multiple seats) at your table. Parents who request seats will add their children's names to their booking. OpenSeat’s dashboard takes the struggle out of managing the guestlist. You can always accept or reject requests for seats, giving you control over who comes to your event. As a host, you have responsibility in gatekeeping who attends, so bear this in mind — especially if an individual adult requests a seat without including any details of children who will be attending with them.
If in your specific context, it won't be easy to manage RSVPs via OpenSeat, simply use the event URL as an invitation that can be sent via WhatsApp or another messaging app, and collect your RSVPs manually.
Post about your event on social media, ideally two weeks before you host it, and send a link to the event to anyone who you think might be interested in attending. Ask friends in your community to do the same in their social networks. Remember to tag us on @openseatlife and #playfulfeast
Having developed a plan for the meal, organised the logistics, and found guests, the day arrives: you now get to host the meal. Document it as best you can with videos and media (within privacy regulations, considering children are involved).
Send this media onwards to OpenSeat at [email protected] and upload it to ChangeX as evidence of your feast.
After your meal has occurred, you will have mastered the use of the OpenSeat platform and have some insights into the dynamics of organising the venue and catering, as well as curating both parents' and children's experiences of table conversation, play, and hospitality.
If funding was available for this idea on ChangeX and you successfully completed your 30 Day Challenge, your feast will receive funding for food and venue fees; any subsequent Playful Feasts meals that you host will have to be self-funded. To do this, you can charge guests to subsidise the costs that go into providing hospitality, or approach a third-party funder to subsidise your costs.
Each subsequent event will allow you to improve your ability to be a dynamic and effective host of Playful Feasts, helping you facilitate playful and meaningful connections between parents and children in your community.
