Gatherings / Dinners
Dinners
The heart of the Society, and its most frequent gathering. A dozen or so members and their guests, a private room, a single long table, and no agenda but the conversation.
The Format
What makes a Dinner a Dinner.
The Table
A single long table, never a floor of round ones. Everyone at a Dinner can hear everyone else, which is the point: the conversation is meant to be shared, not scattered across a room.
The Guest List
A dozen or so members and their guests, chosen for the evening rather than assembled by RSVP. The host considers who belongs at that particular table before a single invitation goes out.
The Room
Private, always: a chef’s table, a members’ room, a private house. Never a banquet hall, never a stage. The room is chosen to keep the table the center of the evening.
The Evening
No agenda, no keynote, no program. A Dinner runs on conversation and good pacing, from the first course to the last glass, and it ends when the table is ready for it to end.
Where Members Meet
Most members first come to know one another over a Dinner.
It is the Society’s most personal tradition, convened often and across the cities where the Society keeps its tables, and the surest way to meet the Society as it actually is.
Also Convened
Two other ways the Society gathers.
Salons
Closed-room conversations on the questions of the moment, led by the members who know them best.
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