Steps for setting a date for a family gathering - contacting several generations and combining phone calls
The first thing to decide for a gathering of relatives is not the candidate dates. It is narrowing “who decides” to 1 person. If each sibling brings their own family’s schedule and everyone checks with everyone, the same conversation goes back and forth many times while the days pass. Choose 1 coordinator, and have that person offer the candidate dates and collect the answers. This one point alone gets most family scheduling moving.
The best coordinator is not “the person who is least busy” but “the person who has everyone’s contact details.” For gatherings that span generations, the means of contact split between text messages and phone calls, so you need someone who can reach people through both.
What you can move depends on the type of gathering
Gatherings of relatives are not all one type. First sort out what is already decided and which things the organizer can move.
| Gathering | Already decided | What the organizer can move | Whom to check with first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday homecoming gathering | Where the long weekend falls and how crowded transportation is | Which day of the long weekend / start time / who stays where | Families traveling from far away |
| Buddhist memorial service (hoji) | The timing based on the anniversary of the death, and the temple’s schedule | The place and time of the meal / how people gather | The host of the service and the elders |
| Celebrations such as a 60th birthday (kanreki) | The person’s birthday | Which weekend before or after / venue / headcount | The guest of honor and family living with them |
For memorial services alone, you need to check before shifting the date on the organizer’s own judgment. Whether to move the date earlier or later is often set by family or local custom, and if you decide yourself and then tell people, the scheduling has to be redone. Consult the host of the service and the elders first, along with the temple’s availability.
The organizer enters availability heard by phone on people’s behalf
At gatherings of relatives, people who can open the attendance poll themselves are mixed with people who can only answer by phone. If you ask everyone to use the same method, someone’s answer will always be missing. Plan on the organizer entering the phone answers on their behalf.
- Narrow it to 3 candidates and read them out. If you list 5 or more out loud, the listener cannot keep them all in mind
- Get the answer on the spot. Ask with 3 choices, “can go,” “probably can go,” and “cannot go,” and map them to ○ / △ / ×
- The organizer enters it on their behalf right then. If you enter everything later, what you heard and what you record drift apart
- Read back what you entered on the spot. Finish by saying, “I put the 9th as yes, the 16th as probably, and the 23rd as no”
An answer of “any day is fine” can be entered as all ○. But leave conditions such as “midday is better because of travel” in the notes. If you drop the condition, after the date is confirmed you will hear back, “That time didn’t work for me.”
Once you narrow it to 3 candidates, create an attendance poll with PickDay. You can enter what you hear by phone right away, so you do not end up managing both paper notes and the screen.
Standardize how names are written first
- Use “household + name”. Even if relatives share a name, you will not mix them up
- Count children separately, by number only. Seats and meals are counted differently from adults
- Decide first whether it is 1 answer per family or separate answers per person. If they get mixed, the headcount will not add up
- Do not have people write contact details in the attendance poll. The person who collects them is left with the burden of managing them, so the coordinator makes any needed contact individually
Lodging and travel set the upper limit for candidate dates
What sets the headcount limit for a gathering of relatives is not the venue but places to sleep and travel time.
- Count first how many people can stay over. The number of futons and rooms is the upper limit on how many can come that day
- For families far away, allow 1 day on each side for travel. If the distance rules out a day trip, place candidates in the middle of a long weekend
- If elderly relatives are coming, hold it at midday. From 11:00 to 14:00, travel falls within daylight hours
- Confirm early on days when some families need to book lodging. Lodging and transportation over long weekends fill up before the gathering’s candidates are decided
Checking where the long weekends fall before offering candidate dates reduces misreadings. Look first at the holiday / long weekend calendar to see which weekends can be used for the gathering.
The order in which to share the decided date
Sharing the confirmation in a set order causes less trouble later than sending it to everyone at once. Tell the oldest relative first, then families far away, and finally families nearby. If the elders are the last to know, it easily turns into dissatisfaction with how the decision was made.
When you share it, use both phone and text. With only spoken word, the date gets passed on misremembered; with only text, it does not reach people who do not open messages. Then fix the contact for changes to the single coordinator. If someone’s plans change before the day, what causes the most confusion is that message going to someone else. The basic process of scheduling is covered in the basics of scheduling.