A giant list of events you might want to run in your neighborhood
Add your event ideas below. Later, we’ll reorganize and condense this list to make it more readable/browsable.
Movie Night
Requires large TV or screen+projector
Potluck
Invite everyone to contribute something
Board Game night
Field Games
Game Ideas
Tag, soccer, capture the flag, Spikeball, Kubb, cornhole, bocce, water balloon toss (stand close together, toss and step back, which ever team lasts the longest wins), dodgeball with water balloons
Can also be done tournament-style. Create a bracket and let teams compete.
Set up two 6-bucket beer pong pyramids on the ground facing each other
Fill the buckets 1/4 full with water
When you get a ball in the other teams bucket they dump the water on their own heads
Run this as a bracket-style tournament
Coffee + Donuts
Great weekend morning event. Buy a large jug of coffee and one or two dozen donuts, and invite everyone to come to the park with you. Very little setup or cleanup.
Just had a call w my neighborhood organizer friend, Sam Graf, and @Dahveed and Sam has a neighbor in Minneapolis who hosts “Coffee and Chaos” - an event for parents and kids. The host started roasting his own coffee beans at home and has kids and invites parents and their kids over for the gathering (he brings the coffee and the kids bring the chaos). It’s monthly and people really love it.
Some events on the docket in my neighborhood based on what neighbors at our first gathering said they’d like to host/cohost/attend:
A read-a-thon / reading day where we have a picnic in our park and all bring books we’ve been wanting to make the time to read.
Going on hikes together
Cooking dinner together and listening to music. I’m thinking of asking the hosts to teach us how to make a dish from their home countries / countries where they have heritage so there can be a storytelling dimension. @Charmaine Lacsina in our program did something similar in NYC and it did really well.
Btw, forgot to mention this in our call but very much recommend anyone who’s in the States to host a Groupmuse at their house or neighborhood common area. I’m not much of a classical music fan, but in a home setting it is mindblowingly magical:
A presentation night, where you each write 3 topics down on pieces of paper, put those topics into a fish bowl, and then everyone draws one topic. You then have 10 minutes to make a powerpoint about your topic, and then everyone gets 2 minutes to present