The "expat" dinners are an exercise in futility and need a bit more structure to them. The people attending two successive dinners can be very different (as they're largely transients and not really expats), with only two or three people in common."pedroC" said:
I'm a "transient" myself and so perhaps not the best person to pontificate on these weighty matters. The purpose of the dinner is to encourage social interaction; this occurs rarely and serendipitously. It does occur to me, en passant, that the format doesn't encourage this: everyone is seated around a large table and occasion to converse with those not immediately contiguous very circumscribed indeed. It would make more sense to convene at a watering hole, as this encourages fluid interaction. The group could repair to a restaurant after a couple of hours."gracielle" said:
