Book now 5 Dec 2013

Just a short reminder to encourage you to book now if you’re interested in coming along to the December Social Care Curry Club eat-ups. They’re all taking place on Thursday 5 December, which is just over two weeks away. Most eat-ups start at 7pm, although check your actual booking page on eventbrite or your tickets to double check as one or two are starting earlier or later.

We’re delighted that there has been a similar level of interest as September (over 200 people in the UK and Canada so far) and are even more pleased that we have more locations, meaning that it should be easier for people to access an eat-up closer to them. The criteria remain the same, everyone is welcome providing they love social care and love curry and promise not to sell anything.

You can book all the UK locations on this page. Choose between:  Baker Street, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Canterbury, Dawley, Derby, Dundee, Frome, Hereford, Leeds, Liverpool, Luton, Lye, Newbury, Newcastle, Oxford, Preston, Sheffield, Tunbridge Wells, and Wimbledon. We also have a Vancouver option available for our Canadian friends again too.

If you’re sitting there thinking ‘that’s all well and good but there’s nowhere near me’, then you have two options: one is to grab a takeout on the night and join in via the hashtag #socialcarecurry and the second is to be brave, suggest your local curry house to us, volunteer to host and we’ll see if we can drum up some company for you!! You’re welcome to do that but make sure you act quick.

Getting ready for our December eat-up

Well what do you know, you lovely curriers have surpassed our expectations yet again. Two days ago we received our 100th booking for the December eat-up which is taking place across the country on Thursday 5 December at 7pm. We now have 15 locations in the UK and one in Vancouver and it looks like the December eat-up may prove even more popular than September when we had over 200 people.

In alphabetical order, what follows are the locations, the venues and the hosts. If you click on the location it will pull up the booking page for that curry; click on the hosts names to get their twitter handles if you’d like to contact them directly about anything.

Baker Street at Cinnamon Spice with Jemima and Rich

Brighton at Chilli Pickle with Lucy and Susan

Dawley at Bengal Spice with Pete

Derby at Viceroy with LACDerby

Frome at Jhalmuri with Rachel

Leeds at Aagrah with Elly

Luton at Red Chilli with Age Concern Luton and Beth

Lye at Balti Bazaar with Paul and Kate

Newbury at Nawab with Rachael

Newcastle at Rani with Beverly

Oxford at Chutneys with Burcu

Preston at Kashti with Amanda

Sheffield at Aagrah with Patient Opinion, Care Opinion and Paul

Tunbridge Wells at Turmeric Gold with Graham

Vancouver at Jambo Grill with Ernie

Wimbledon at Ahmed Tandoori with Chloë and Jo

From our perspective it’s the more the merrier when it comes to eat-ups. There are no minimum or maximum numbers, only two entry requirements – love social care and love curry, and as ever only one rule – no sales. So if you’d like to goto curry but can’t travel to any of the ones already organised then let us know where you’d like to hold it and we’ll add you to the list. More on what is involved is in our last blog post here.

We are fairly confident that we’ll open bookings to a number of eat-ups in the planning stages in the next week or so. These are likely to be in: Cambridge, Dundee and Liverpool. There is also talk of at least one in Wales, one in Canterbury, one in Hereford, one in Hertfordshire and one in Leicester – so do leave a comment or send us a tweet if you’re interested in any of these venues and we’ll do what we can to get them happening.

Here’s to a December eat-up to end the year on a high.

December 5 eat-ups

Having just about recovered from the fun and games of #NCASC13 Social Care Curry Club eat-up, we’re now moving on to organising the next curry club eat-up proper. September saw over 200 people come together across the UK and Canada, to talk social care and eat curry. NCASC eat-up brought 80 people together in one place. We can’t wait to see what December holds.

So what’s next:
Step 1: At this stage we’re asking for volunteer hosts and locations.

Step 2: What we’ll then do is get out our map (yes, in case you’ve not noticed already one of us is very geographically challenged) and identify whether we think we can have all the eat-ups that are offered. From our perspective there really is no limit, so as long as there are two or three people interested in an area then that’s a viable eat-up.

Step 3: Once hosts and locations are agreed (if we get too many hosts offering for an area we’ll just arbitrarily pick), we’ll ask hosts to pick curry houses/venues and let us have them.

Step 4: Hosts will then be asked to book the venue and identify maximum capacity. As NCASC13 shows interest does fluctuate, so hosts may need to contact venues more than once between now and December to up the booking, but hopefully they’ll be delighted with that and it’s not too onerous for hosts.

Step 5: The next step is for us to set up eventbrite pages for each event and then it’s all about spreading the word and drumming up interest.

Then there’s some back room organising stuff that goes on, we’ll try to blog about hosts and introduce you to each other. We’ll also set up twitter lists to add to the ones already here. Then on the night people come together, eat curry, talk social care, don’t sell anything including themselves, network in real life and using the #socialcarecurry hashtag and an awesome time is had by all. There is no structure, there are no presentations, powerpoints, or podcasts. There are no seating plans or big introductions.

Learning from feedback – paying the bill!
Based on the feedback received last time the biggest challenge is settling the bill, and there were some people who were concerned about whether they could afford the evening, so where possible we’d like hosts to try and arrange a set price buffet. Don’t worry if this isn’t possible, but if it is then it’s easier to collect money on arrival, and means that people have more or less an idea of what they’re spending.

Who is on the hosting list already?
We’ve received offers of hosting from a few people already, definitely confirmed are:

Brighton @SocialWkBalance and @LucyJMarsters

Cambridge @Patient_Leader and @CookCare

Dawley @Pete62Jackson and @JakeSnr

Derby @LACDerby

Dundee @AnnaFowlieSSSC and @JonBolton

Frome @RachelMason247

Hertfordshire @3SpiritUKNZ

Leeds @Elly01

Liverpool @mdfdisability and @optionsempowers

London @BPotter38 and @Rich_W

Luton @AgeConcernLuton and @HWLuton_Chair

Newbury @WardellR

Newcastle @SparkySW

Preston @AMLTaylor66

Sheffield @PatientOpinion, @CareOpinion and @PaulSheps

Tunbridge Wells @GrahamShaw4

Vancouver @ejbaatz

We also had offers for Cambridge @Patient_Leader @CookCare, Leicester @StigmaArtUK, Luton @AgeConcernLuton @HWLuton_Chair, Lye @PaulJaunzems, Newcastle @SparkySW and Tunbridge Wells @GrahamShaw4 but will wait to have them reconfirmed before turning them into definites.

NB Edit: Cambridge, Luton, Newcastle and Tunbridge Wells now confirmed; Dawley, Derby, Hertfordshire and Leeds added.

So if you’re not on the list and would like to be, or there isn’t a location near you and you’d like there to be, then please add a comment or send us a tweet and we’ll add you to the list. The success of December is up for grabs, come on people, let’s do this.