We Are the Champions: 20's & 30's Library Advocacy: Speed Dating Basics

Genre X at the Oak Park Public Library presents

Notes on Shaken and Stirred

a 20s and 30s mixer

The Basics

Our event was held at the library, after hours. We had originally planned for 36 attendees, and expanded to 44 due to high demand. Time was the factor in limiting participants. Out of 44 registered participants, 41 attended the event.
Registration
Participants registered online, uploading a photo and including their relationship preferences.
All registrants were placed on a waiting list. After the registration deadline, we began confirming participants. We accepted Oak Park residents first, then took participants from surrounding areas to create a gender balance and favorable age distribution.
Information collected from the registration form was compiled into a booklet distributed to all daters on the night of the event.
The Event
The night of the event, doors opened at 8. Daters signed in, visited the bar, and mingled until 8:30. We explained the rules and the format of the evening before dates started. The booklet compiled during registration was distributed to daters to be updated throughout the night.
Everybody met everybody in a round-robin-style setup, which allows for an LGBTQ friendly event, as everybody in the room will meet everybody else. Furthermore, it gives rise to the opportunity to meet new friends, adapt the event for networking purposes, etc. See figure 4 for more details on how to set up the round-robin seating.
Our event had 2.5 minute dates, with breaks one- and two-thirds through the evening. We built in a cushion of time at the end for people to mingle and make plans for leaving the library.
We had three staff members at the event. One was responsible for timing the dates and breaks, and signaling the end of dates using a xylophone. The other two staff filled in empty seats (we had an odd number of daters), assisted the bartender, and refilled snacks. At the end of the night, all staff collected the match booklets.
We had a low LGBTQ turnout, three bisexual women. Two gay men registered, but did not attend.
The night of the event we were missing a step in the movement pattern of the daters, and could not resolve the problem quickly. As a result, we switched formats to a traditional speed dating model, in which men sat in the outer seats and women in the middle. Given the low LGBTQ turnout, it was not a major problem, but it was a disappointment.
Matches were compiled and sent to participants in the days following the events. It was somewhat time consuming, and one dater suggested automating the matching process in the future, which we have not yet investigated

The chairs are arranged in two circles. Imagine that the daters in the outer chairs are assigned numbers and the daters on the inner chairs are assigned letters.
Dater 1 never moves. After the first date, the outer circle, starting with Dater 2 moves clockwise, with the dater in the last seat (Dater N) moves to the inner circle by taking the seat of the person with whom they just had a date (Dater X).
The inner circle moves counterclockwise, with Dater A moving to the outer circle to take the seat of Dater 2. his setup would work for any number of participants. In the event of an odd number, one participant could be assigned a “bye.” At Shaken and Stirred, staff on hand took turns filling the empty seat.

Sample Interior Page of Match Booklet

Back and Front Covers of Match Booklet

 

 

 

 These notes are based on the event “Shaken and Stirred: a 20s and 30s mixer” held at the Oak Park Public Library on February 11, 2012.
For additional information on this event, contact presenters Jennifer Czajka (jczajka@oppl.org) and Rebecca Malinowski (rmalinowski@oppl.org).
For more information on genre X at the Oak Park Public Library, email genre-x@oppl.org.