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03/29/2017 08:30 AMHaving people in for dinner? Jan Taigen is—at least 150. Jan is one of the organizers of Chester Rotary’s fourth annual Longest Dinner Table on Saturday, April 1.
Rotary supplies the location, and the band for dancing. The music will come from CJ West and the Downtown Train, a group that features a mix of country, rock and blues.
This year, since the dinner is on April Fools’ Day, there will be some special hi-jinx for the occasion, including an open mic where anybody can come up and tell a joke—but only one per person, Jan says. And periodically, she plans to give out eight or nine jokes to each table for diners to enjoy. Where is she getting those jokes?
“The Internet, mostly,” she admits.
Attendees form groups of friends to make up a table, bring their own food, drink, utensils, and party decorations. This year, for the first time there will also be a Make New Friends table, for people who come singly, in pairs, or with smaller groups.
To highlight the April Fools’ theme, guests are encouraged to come in costume and to use their imaginations to create table decorations. There will be prizes in both categories. Jan says she has heard of a group planning both circus and Hawaiian themes. The prizes themselves will be in keeping with the spirit of April 1—”Silly,” Jan says.
This year’s party, Giggles that Give, will have some notable innovations. It will be held for the first time at the Chester Hose Company, which is partnering with Rotary. The event will not only be a fundraiser for Chester Rotary’s scholarship program, but also a community fundraiser for the Hose Company and a number of other local non-profit organizations.
Attendees who wish to support one of the participating organizations can indicate that in a space provided on the ticket. A complete list of participating organizations is available at Chester Rotary’s website www.chesterrotary.org.
“My idea to get the community involved was to increase collaboration and leverage, and to get the word out. We give all our money away anyway,” explained Chester Rotary President Cheryl Archer, who has emphasized forming local partnerships.
Jan is not only a new Rotarian, she and her husband Ted are new to Chester, having moved here two years ago, after both had retired; she from teaching 7th- and 8th-grade science and he from the University of Connecticut where he was a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Jan herself also worked at the University of Connecticut, both as an advisor to students in the honors program and as associate director of the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History. The museum, located on the Storrs campus, is a part of the university.
All the while, she had another career in mind.
“I always thought I would be a teacher,” she says.
In fact, as an undergraduate she had taken all the required education courses, but marriage and family had intervened before she could do student teaching.
Jan was accepted into Connecticut’s Alternate Route Program, which trains potential teachers who have left other professions through summer and mentoring programs. Still, Jan maintains that the best training for the classroom is the classroom itself.
“Nothing else really prepares you for teaching,” she says.
Jan taught for 14 years in Manchester, once being selected as teacher of the year at her school. When she retired, more than 100 former students came to a reunion, including some from out of state. Jan loved the age group, though she admits that even in those pre-teen and early teen years, some of her students were already taller than she is.
“I say I am five feet two, but I don’t think I’ve ever quite made the two,” she says.
Size notwithstanding, classroom discipline was never a problem. If there was a behavior issue, she tried to handle it resolutely, but without humiliating any youngster.
“Firm but not too hard,” she says.
“If they said they would never do it again, I agreed with them, because I was going to move their seat across the room,” she adds.
Jan’s teaching inspired her to compile a book based on her experiences—not a retelling of classroom anecdotes, but a volume called The Kindness Spark, filled with exercises on how to inculcate compassion and empathy in students. She recently finished the book, and plans to self-publish under the aegis of a company like Amazon. Meanwhile, copies are available by contacting her.
“It encourages kids to recognize kindness and pass it forward,” she says.
Jan, whose real name is Janith after an aunt, never uses her full first name. When she did, she says, people often assumed she had a lisp. She and Ted spent several years looking for a community in which to retire.
“When we came here, it didn’t take us long to realize Chester was the place,” she says.
They wanted to stay in Connecticut, near a son in Glastonbury and not too far from a daughter in New York. A third son lives in Cleveland. Jan loves the variety of activities in this area, and the time she now has in retirement to pursue them.
“The best part of being retired is having the time to do the things I always wanted to do, but never had time—volunteer work, writing, gardening, or even taking up a new hobby like watercolor, not because I’m good, but just because I enjoy it,” she notes.
As she works to complete the plans for The Longest Dinner Table, Jan is so busy she hasn’t had time to think about what kind of a costume she is going to wear, or what kind of food she will bring. But the food doesn’t worry her too much.
“I am probably going to be much too busy to eat a thing,” she says.
The Longest Dinner Table
Chester Rotary’s The Longest Dinner Table is on Saturday, April 1, from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the Chester Hose Company, 6 High Street, Chester. Tickets are available in Chester at Lark, the Chester Hose Company, and the Chester Package Store; in Deep River at Shore Discount Liquors; and also from participating non-profits (check list at www.chesterrotary.org) or by emailing jantaigen@gmail.com. Tickets will be sold at the door only if there are seats left.