Before

Get a flamingo, plastic or inflatable, big or small. It only has to be visible from the street. This is your signal, and it will travel from yard to yard as hosting rotates.

Knock on doors, once. This is the hard part and it's front-loaded: Holst spent five or six hours on the first round and about ten minutes a week after that. Introduce yourself as a neighbor, point at your house, and tell folks the flamingo means come over Friday evening. You can also print your poster in Plurality and put it out around the neighborhood.

Use the Needs tab to ask neighbors to bring something. Maybe make it a potluck or ask for small snacks, like chips or sodas. Use the Volunteer tab to get folks to help out setting up or cleaning up.

During

Put the flamingo out front and open the yard.Introduce folks who haven't met, especially newcomers and old-timers. Try using the “introduce yourself” tool in Plurality and review the intros of your neighbors to make it smoother.

Let kids run the place. They're the fastest icebreakers on the block, and a basketball hoop dragged into the street beats any planned activity. Keep an eye on the clock only to ignore it. Brendmoen's first party was scheduled for two hours and ran until midnight, which is how you know it worked.

If the conversation stalls or you need an activity, try using the Prompts tool.

Take a photo with the flamingo before folks head out and invite them to record any other Moments. Then hand the bird to a neighbor for next Friday. That handoff is the whole engine. When hosting spreads, the gathering stops being your thing and becomes the block's thing.

After

And when someone from a few blocks over asks to join, don't stretch the boundary. Tell them what Brendmoen tells folks: get your own flamingo and start your own. The bird is meant to multiply, not migrate.

When there is an established culture around the Flamingo Fridays, you can start a Plurality Group and organize who will host next.