Okay, so you’ve got a group in mind. You may even have them excited about cooking already! Maybe you have some that are on the fence or maybe you have others that are all in! Either way, let’s move on to the next steps as they are 4 of most common hurdles for groups.
- Location – Members need to have a convenient place where you all can meet to swap meals. Or if you are cooking together, pick a home or place with plenty of counter space.
- Food Type – Members need to share an interest in eating similar foods. Ask about allergies and food sensitivities. (See here for more details on meal plan types.)
- Calendar – Everyone need to have time available to cook and to meet.
- Budget – Ensure everyone is aware of the upfront cost of freezer cooking.
We have developed a series of worksheets to guide you through the planning process. These worksheets include an invite list, an invitation, and survey for potential members, instructions for how to break up into sub-groups if your group is large, how to choose between a Full Meal Plan and a Mini Meal Plan, and how to choose a specific meal plan type. You will also see estimates on how much money and time you will spend based on those choices.
If you have a community in mind that you know fairly well already → Start with the Planning Worksheet, then hand out the Invitation and Survey for more detailed information. Choose a specific meal plan by using the Assessment Worksheet.
If you are just getting started building your swap community → List the names of those who may be interested in the Planning Worksheet and distribute the Invitation and Survey. Proceed to the Assessment Worksheet when they have responded, then complete the Planning Worksheet and choose a specific meal plan.
Downloads:
Once you have chosen a specific meal plan, assign recipes to each member of the group and make sure that they have access to recipe cards and labels. All that is left to do is cook, swap, and enjoy your food and community!
8 Comments
Join the discussionHow many people do you recommend being in a group?
Vickie – If you are doing a group cooking day in your home, we suggest no more than 4 people. If you are doing a swap, 8 would be the most we would recommend.
I am going to attempt again to introduce this idea at our church. Is there an invitation for cooking together at the church on a specific day as opposed to the invitation here that assumes everyone prepares their food ahead of time and then swaps? Thank you! 🙂
There isn’t currently but you could use the same invitation and change the swap to “cook”. Such as- “we will meet monthly to cook on…”. I can definitely add the request to our list and see if we can get one together for you! Want to email me at katie at onceamonthmeals.com so I can followup? Thanks!
I feel like I’m missing a basic step here. If you are planning to swap meals, but not everyone wants the same # of servings, how do you pass that info to the preppers? Do you assign a recipe, and then tell them “make three of these at 4 servings, 1 at 2 servings, and 1 x 6 servings”? Do you give them the different recipe versions for the different qtys? I feel like I’m making this too hard 🙂 help!
Amanda – Group swapping can be an involved process. You could approach this one of two ways. You could customize to each persons serving size, like you described above. Yes you would need to include different recipes versions for each. When I have done group swaps, we did each meal to serve 6-8 regardless of what each person needed for serving size. Leftovers are always great, or the bigger meals are nice for when you are having company. We would love to hear how your swap goes!
I’m 2 weeks out but putting together a “cooking party” so young Coast Guard moms who currently have no income can come and leave with several meals. Praying for donations and support on our army base and would love your thoughts/ suggestions to bless them, so it quietly but with fun and meet their wide range of needs (several nursing moms and moms with kids under 2)
Lorraine, this is SUCH a great thing you’re doing! Thank you for serving in this special way. My suggestion would be to stick to traditional meals, which will likely be lowest cost and have the greatest appeal to the masses (including kids). Dump and Go meals that can be assembled quickly also would probably be best. We also have a post on 4&5 ingredient meals that might work well: https://onceamonthmeals.com/blog/recipe-roundups/101-four-five-ingredient-freezer-meal-recipes/