I want to start off by thanking our staff and volunteers for making the kitchen run so smoothly this year. It was incredible watching everyone work together to make each meal service as memorable as it was delicious! Thank you!
I am very pleased with all the wonderful comments, praise, and feedback I’ve received in my first year as kitchen head. I’m humbled by your love and I speak for all the kitchen staff when I say it was an absolute pleasure serving you all!
I’d like to open up this thread as a way to collate any feedback for the meal services this year. I want to hear about what you loved, what you didn’t love, and ideas for what our kitchen crew can do to make next year even better!
Points I’d like to address:
**-**Making sure meal services go off as scheduled has always been an obstacle for us. While we can’t always be prepared for set-backs, I was very pleased with how flexible our crew was trying to meet our goal time.
To remedy this, I plan on alloting at least an extra 30 minutes for prep and look into ideas for streamlining our process. My goal is to not have a service run any more than 15-20 minutes behind schedule.
**-**Protein options for vegetarian attendees during our lunch services were lacking. Our biggest reason for this was a lack of affordable options that weren’t labor intensive. I’m open to suggestions from our vegan/vegetarian campers for how we can supplement more substantial items into our menu.
**-**The dishwashing station was very accessible this year! However, I have heard that there were some hang ups with water supply, cleanliness, and organization. I’d love to hear your ideas on how we can streamline the process!
Again, I had an amazing time working with our staff and volunteers. I’m very excited for what next year has in store! Thank you!
-Beau
First off, thanks for running a great kitchen and keeping us all well fed! It made for a very enjoyable experience.
Regarding the dishwashing station, the biggest clash with water (that I noticed) is when we needed to empty and refill all the wash basins. With CFT’s size and the number of dishes we were going through, it needed to be changed multiple times a day. One -big- thing is to change them all out in the morning, because otherwise the water’s nasty, congealed, AND cold, which does nothing to help clean.
So, if we can have definitive blocked out times, at least in the mornings, for “Please don’t shower right now because we have to refill these!” that would help. It takes around 30 minutes, so hopefully that’s not too hard. Perhaps we can make little signs on ropes or cemented into coffee cans or something to block off the two shower entrances when we need to do that? Easy peasy way to remind anyone so they don’t accidentally get a cold-water surprise.
The other times of high hot water demand was right after chow time, when everyone’s rinsing off their plates before washing. However, we don’t need hot water for that, just water pressure. A cold-water hose would work just fine. We could just scrape instead, but that would probably lead to needing to change out the water basins after ever meal (which is also another option, since we’re changing it twice a day already).
Anyway, I’m just throwing out ideas. I’m sure there are better ways to do it, but that’s what I could think of from my perspective.
One last thing: Astrius and I may bring another folding table with us next year so we actually have a dedicated space to let things dry (or a dedicated space to pile up dirty dishes).
