What are your top tips for a street party?

 

Lindsey

I think to keep it simple, so there will be lots and lots of people looking to do big street parties and get their neighbours together but you can do that in a driveway, do it in the back garden. You don’t have to close the road; a few trestle tables on the pavement and keep it simple. Get some neighbours involved would be one of my tips, so knock on a few doors and see who’s up for helping and make sure everyone brings something to the table so nobody is carrying the load of the big spread on the day.

 

Peter

I think the thing is, if you’ve never done it before, you can get a pack, that’s the first thing, at our website. I remember when I did my first one back in 2009 and it was a bit scary in a way - you’ve never knocked on a neighbour's door before. I recall it a bit like ‘Bob-a-job week’ when you were a kid and you knock on a neighbour's door and hope that they’re out, it’s really really weird and for a lot of people it's intimidating so if you’ve never done it before I know quite a few people who’ve pal’d up with someone else.

 

Another tip I would do: you don’t need to start massive, you don’t have to have these wonderful big lunches that start with a long long table of hundreds of people. Do it in a way you can manage if you’ve got three people and you want to pull out a little picnic table and pull up a chair from your lounge and put out the platinum pudding or whatever pudding you want to do you can do that. So, there isn’t a magic formula, the only thing you need really are two or three people and some food and then you can do it.

 

My tip would be to keep it manageable to start with and then just ask what people feel in your neighbourhood. I did a door drop in my street and invited people round to my garden for an afternoon in a small terraced house and about 30 people turned up and I said ‘there’s this thing happening, shall we do it? And they all said, 'oh my God yes', and then all of a sudden we’ve closed the road and things like that; so online there are loads of tips, if you want to go big and close a road there are ways to do that, if you just want to find a bit of greenery in a park you can do that, if you just want to do it in your back yard or you want to do it in a cul-de-sac you can do it wherever you actually live.

 

 

Where can we learn more about the Big Lunch?

 

 

Lindsey

You can go online to our website and you’ll find everything you need to know from where to get an organiser pack for hints and tips on how to do your event, ideas for buntings and decorations, recipes and how to get started.

 

 

What is the Aim of the Big Lunch?

 

 

Lindsey

The Big Jubilee lunch this year is an extra special version of the annual Big Lunch which has been running since 2009 and that’s all about bringing people together to share friendship food and fun and get to know one another better. At its heart, food is a brilliant way of getting people to start conversations about the things that matter to them, where they live and, from that, amazing things happen, people get to know one another better, they feel better about where they live, it helps reduce loneliness for individuals, people make friends and feel a greater sense of belonging. So it’s a party on the outside but it does an amazing lot of stuff on the inside.

 

Peter

The Big Lunch, as it started back in 2009 was just an idea to see if you could actually stop the country for four hours and have people sit down and have lunch for one moment. We want it to be like Thanksgiving Day in the States but a “thanks Giving Day’ for neighbours where everything stops, so over the years people come together in their neighbourhoods to share food. Everybody is connected because we all have our phones and so forth - this isn’t about that, this is about meeting and sharing food with the people who live around you. And what that does and why people like the National Lottery support it is that it builds social capital on a mass scale and it builds happier, resilient communities and if we have happier more resilient communities then we’re all better placed to take on all the scary things like climate change and a whole host of difficult challenges that we all face.

 

 

Are you excited to see the winning pudding?

 

 

Lindsey

Super excited to see the winning pudding and to be able to try it out! I love a practice in the kitchen so I’ll be getting out my apron and seeing what I can make for my own Big Lunch.

 

Peter

God, absolutely ‘Yes’. I think it’s going to be interesting because I think the winning recipe has to be aspirational because it is the Platinum Pudding. It must be a bit of a challenge but also accessible to everybody - and I include myself in that (I struggle with a flapjack). Victoria Sponges have been with us for all these years, the Coronation Chicken and all that. What is 2080 going to look like? And where does the Platinum Pudding sit in there? I don’t know.