Scott & Rachel’s Party Policies
Please read all of this. We welcome your questions and comments.
Beginning of Summer, End of Summer, Hot Foods. We love doing these big parties. They’re a huge amount of work but feel like a very worthwhile community event. We really, really appreciate the help that people give with them and are constantly looking for ways to make them a better experience for everyone involved.
This is an update to some parts of our practices and rules in order to keep things running well at our parties. This is not all the party information, just the things that we’d like to emphasize.
Party Invitations:
We invite a large group of people through a number of lists, including some people we do not personally know - and we love to meet new people. However we respectfully ask you to regard this as an invitation to you and your significant others and children. Our parties are by-invitation events at a private residence.
Please don’t forward the invitation. If you’ve received an invitation and have never been here before, please RSVP. If you’re hoping to bring someone from off-list, ask us in advance and, assuming we say yes, introduce them to us as soon as you arrive.
Please discuss any specific concerns about the invitation list with us, privately and preferably ahead of time.
Getting Hold of Rachel or Scott:
Our phone numbers will be posted in the main party areas. We’ll have our phones with us and can be called at any point during the party.
General Party Safety and Wellbeing:
If you think there’s a situation at our house that may require calling the police, tell us so we can evaluate the situation, decide whether to call, and work with the police if necessary. If it’s an immediately life-threatening situation, then call 911 but notify us at once. For anything other than an immediately life-threatening situation, calling the police to our home and property without our permission is completely unacceptable. If you feel that somebody at the party is acting inappropriately, please let us know at once and we’ll deal with it.
Swimming Pool and the Pool Area:
Children under the age of 13 in the pool area (this means anywhere inside the pool gate, not just in the water) must be watched by a parent (or specified adult, with their consent) at all times.
If that adult is not in the pool area, the child must not be either. This may occasionally feel difficult, but it’s a fundamental rule of pool safety.
Please do not bring glass into the pool area. This includes any bottles or glass cups or containers. Breakage is rare, but any broken glass in the pool area becomes an immediate serious hazard.
Food:
Our parties are pot-luck events and we’re very grateful to the people who bring food and drink to share.
Grilling:
Storage for to-be grilled foods is in a cooler under the grill table; please put your name and a list of ingredients on your food.
If you brought something that you are waiting to eat, stay nearby when it is grilled so you get some. (Effort will be made to find you if your name is on it.)
People get cooking, queues of food to be cooked get long, be patient and check frequently.
If you have a special dietary need (e.g. vegetarian, vegan, celiac, specific ingredient allergy) let the grillers know and if a section of the grill needs to be scraped clean, they’ll do the best they can, when they can.
General notes:
Label all items with the ingredients or keep the packaging.
We can’t guarantee complete ingredient lists or freedom from cross-contamination. People with food allergies or other dietary requirements must use their own judgement.
Use disposable containers and/or label your container. (Please be responsible for claiming containers.)
Alcohol:
Yes, we have alcohol. Yes, you must be at least 21 to drink at our parties. We welcome your alcohol contributions, and they can go directly to the designated alcohol table inside the house. Please enjoy responsibly. If you’ve had too much, let us know and we’ll arrange safe transport or crash space.
Lost and Found:
We post a lost-and-found list after each party. If you’re missing something that we didn’t list, please contact us. If we have something of yours, arrange with us to get it returned. We’ll hold things until the next party if we haven’t identified the owner, after that they may get disposed of.
Addendum:
The main purpose of this post is to protect the parties and our ability to keep holding the parties. Just about every line in the original post is a response to real issues that have come up.
Codes of conduct are necessary for organizations. What we have are large but still private parties and we don't think that we need a party code of conduct for our guests. (People are free to disagree with us about that.) What we'd like to see is people self-regulating their interactions as responsible adults, and telling us when that is not working out.
There are people to whom we have not replied directly or addressed their specific concerns. Responding to this situation has taken up an incredible amount of time and energy, and both roozle and I have needed to focus on what we saw as the core issues here. Other issues certainly exist, and may be addressed at another time.
Edit: Comments to the party-related posts have been locked since the threads are beginning to attract outsiders and spambots.
Beginning of Summer, End of Summer, Hot Foods. We love doing these big parties. They’re a huge amount of work but feel like a very worthwhile community event. We really, really appreciate the help that people give with them and are constantly looking for ways to make them a better experience for everyone involved.
This is an update to some parts of our practices and rules in order to keep things running well at our parties. This is not all the party information, just the things that we’d like to emphasize.
Party Invitations:
We invite a large group of people through a number of lists, including some people we do not personally know - and we love to meet new people. However we respectfully ask you to regard this as an invitation to you and your significant others and children. Our parties are by-invitation events at a private residence.
Please don’t forward the invitation. If you’ve received an invitation and have never been here before, please RSVP. If you’re hoping to bring someone from off-list, ask us in advance and, assuming we say yes, introduce them to us as soon as you arrive.
Please discuss any specific concerns about the invitation list with us, privately and preferably ahead of time.
Getting Hold of Rachel or Scott:
Our phone numbers will be posted in the main party areas. We’ll have our phones with us and can be called at any point during the party.
General Party Safety and Wellbeing:
If you think there’s a situation at our house that may require calling the police, tell us so we can evaluate the situation, decide whether to call, and work with the police if necessary. If it’s an immediately life-threatening situation, then call 911 but notify us at once. For anything other than an immediately life-threatening situation, calling the police to our home and property without our permission is completely unacceptable. If you feel that somebody at the party is acting inappropriately, please let us know at once and we’ll deal with it.
Swimming Pool and the Pool Area:
Children under the age of 13 in the pool area (this means anywhere inside the pool gate, not just in the water) must be watched by a parent (or specified adult, with their consent) at all times.
If that adult is not in the pool area, the child must not be either. This may occasionally feel difficult, but it’s a fundamental rule of pool safety.
Please do not bring glass into the pool area. This includes any bottles or glass cups or containers. Breakage is rare, but any broken glass in the pool area becomes an immediate serious hazard.
Food:
Our parties are pot-luck events and we’re very grateful to the people who bring food and drink to share.
Grilling:
Storage for to-be grilled foods is in a cooler under the grill table; please put your name and a list of ingredients on your food.
If you brought something that you are waiting to eat, stay nearby when it is grilled so you get some. (Effort will be made to find you if your name is on it.)
People get cooking, queues of food to be cooked get long, be patient and check frequently.
If you have a special dietary need (e.g. vegetarian, vegan, celiac, specific ingredient allergy) let the grillers know and if a section of the grill needs to be scraped clean, they’ll do the best they can, when they can.
General notes:
Label all items with the ingredients or keep the packaging.
We can’t guarantee complete ingredient lists or freedom from cross-contamination. People with food allergies or other dietary requirements must use their own judgement.
Use disposable containers and/or label your container. (Please be responsible for claiming containers.)
Alcohol:
Yes, we have alcohol. Yes, you must be at least 21 to drink at our parties. We welcome your alcohol contributions, and they can go directly to the designated alcohol table inside the house. Please enjoy responsibly. If you’ve had too much, let us know and we’ll arrange safe transport or crash space.
Lost and Found:
We post a lost-and-found list after each party. If you’re missing something that we didn’t list, please contact us. If we have something of yours, arrange with us to get it returned. We’ll hold things until the next party if we haven’t identified the owner, after that they may get disposed of.
Addendum:
The main purpose of this post is to protect the parties and our ability to keep holding the parties. Just about every line in the original post is a response to real issues that have come up.
Codes of conduct are necessary for organizations. What we have are large but still private parties and we don't think that we need a party code of conduct for our guests. (People are free to disagree with us about that.) What we'd like to see is people self-regulating their interactions as responsible adults, and telling us when that is not working out.
There are people to whom we have not replied directly or addressed their specific concerns. Responding to this situation has taken up an incredible amount of time and energy, and both roozle and I have needed to focus on what we saw as the core issues here. Other issues certainly exist, and may be addressed at another time.
Edit: Comments to the party-related posts have been locked since the threads are beginning to attract outsiders and spambots.