Blog 2 - Prepping for the Second Week

     I found that I was not all that nervous for the first Chat Cafe until I woke up the day of Chat Cafe. This was of course the day after we met with the members of the ELI. I started making lists of potential topics to discuss, just in case the conversation become slow or weak. I made cookies because I was nervous and that's something I do when I am nervous.
     But all this nervousness was for naught. My first meeting had a few hiccups at the beginning but did quite well by the end. Our main difficulty was finding each other and finding a place for all six of us to sit together. We ended up sitting outside for the first meeting, which isn't exactly what I had imagined but worked nonetheless. One of my members was not able to meet with us as they could not find us. I made sure to send an email after our meeting was over to apologize and explain more specifically where we would be meeting the next time.
      I asked my group if they would be interested in meeting in different places and they quite liked that idea. I wouldn't have imagined this, but this week we'll be going to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. We'll probably try a coffee shop the next week and a noodle restaurant on Liberty after that. My group seemed quite interested in actually experiencing Ann Arbor and discussed meeting outside of Chat Cafe to do things together. And it was only our first meeting!
    All of my members were willing participants and would even break off into smaller group discussions. We would be talking as one group, and then a pair would break off and continue the conversation one way while the other half would discuss something completely different and then suddenly we were all talking as one group again. It seemed natural. And I never had to open up my book of notes. They really liked the cookies (Yay!). And they also seemed earnestly interested in what everyone had to say. Everyone who signed up came (with the exception of my lost member who has assured me that they forgive me and want to meet with us next week).
     I'd say week one was an interesting success.