Free to print
I have been running after-work evenings in Belval for years, twenty-one of them so far. The drinks are the easy part. The hard part is the first twenty minutes, when everybody stands with the people they already know.
So I made these
Print them, cut them, put them in a hat. Everyone takes one on the way in.
Your card tells you who you are tonight. The Espresso Sniper. The Rain Denier. The One Who Stays Till Last. It also tells you how many other people in the room got the same theme. Usually four, sometimes three, sometimes five.
Then you go and find them.
The first time I tried this, at the 21st #AfterWorkNoWork in August, that is exactly what happened. People ended up talking to people they had never met, and nobody had to walk up to a stranger and think of something to say, because the card had already done that bit.
What is on a card
- The name. Who you are for the evening. No two cards in the deck are the same.
- The theme. The thing you have in common with the others. It is the only clue you get.
- The hearts. The filled ones are the people to find. The hollow one is you.
- The back. Black, with a QR code, so anyone who enjoyed the evening can find out where the cards came from.
Pick a deck
Every card belongs to a theme, and a theme only works if everyone in it is actually in the room. So take the deck closest to your headcount and print the whole thing.
A bigger crowd gets more themes rather than bigger groups, because four to six people is a conversation and ten is a scrum. If you have no idea how many will turn up, and you never really do, take the bigger deck. There is a way of handing them out further down that makes the extras harmless.
Getting them printed
Three things and you are fine.
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01
Double sided, flipped on the long edge
The backs are mirrored to match, so a printer set to flip the other way puts them on the wrong cards.
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02
Actual size, one hundred per cent
If you let it scale to fit, the cut marks stop telling the truth.
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03
Cut along the marks in the corners
Each card comes out the size of a business card, so it lives in a pocket for the rest of the night.
Ordinary paper works. Card feels better in the hand, if you have it.
On the night
Sort the deck into its themes before you leave the house. A paperclip round each one takes five minutes and saves the evening.
Hand them out at the door, one whole theme at a time. The whole Coffee Order goes out, then you start on the next pile. Never open a new theme until the last one is gone.
The one rule that matters
If half a theme goes into the room, whoever drew those cards spends the evening looking for somebody who never came.
Everything else you can make up as you go.
If fewer people turn up than you printed for
Nothing to do. The themes you never opened stay in your bag and nobody knows they existed. This is the whole reason for handing out full themes instead of shuffling the lot into a hat.
If people stop arriving halfway through a pile, take the leftovers yourself or give them to whoever is helping you host. One group with a couple of extras in it beats one group that can never be finished.
If more turn up than you expected
Give them a card from a theme that is already out there. A group of seven still works. A group of one does not.
If someone arrives late
Same thing. Hand them a spare from a theme you know is in the room, and point them roughly in the right direction. They will be talking to five people inside a minute, which is a much kinder welcome than standing in a doorway looking for a familiar face.
If you want the hat
Keep the hat, it is half the fun. Just tip in one theme at a time and top it up as it empties, rather than putting the whole deck in at the start.
Saying it out loud
Wait until most people have arrived, then take fifteen seconds:
Everyone has a card. Your card tells you how many other people here have the same theme as you. Go and find them.
Then stop talking. People work it out faster than any explanation you could give them.
The groups will break up again after a while, and that is exactly right. The cards are not the evening. They are the first ten minutes of it.
Who you might be
Some of the themes are about Belval. Some are about the sort of person you turn into at six in the evening. They are all meant to get a small laugh out of somebody before the handshake. Four of the twenty, in full:
The Coffee Order
- The Espresso Sniper
- The Cappuccino Philosopher
- The Latte Romantic
- The Decaf Rebel
- The Double Shot
- The Tea Defector
The Belval Weather
- The Terrace Optimist
- The Rain Denier
- The Layers Master
- The Weather Announcer
- The Umbrella Forgetter
The Aperitivo
- The Spritz
- The Negroni
- The Prosecco Pourer
- The Beer Loyalist
- The One on Water
The Afterwork Personality
- The Aperitivo Pro
- The Round Buyer
- The Silent Observer
- The One Who Stays Till Last
- The Early Leaver
And the other sixteen, which you will meet when you print them.
Take them, they are yours
Office party, conference, welcome drinks, a birthday, the first day of a course. Print as many as you like, as often as you like. The only thing I ask is that you leave the little heart on them, so people know where they came from.
And if you do use them somewhere, send me a photo. I would love to see them out in the wild.