Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Oh, dear. I am an advisor for a student club at the school where I teach, and one of the bigwigs who helps us out from the community said that he could provide pizza for an opening social. So of course I decided to make that the selling point for people to come, and we've advertised it that way to about 200 people...and now my bigwig friend is not wanting to provide pizza since we're not sure how many people we're counting on.

It's my own fault, since I ignored the little voice in the back of my head that said "Don't promise something that depends on someone else to fulfill, and that you're not 100% sure will be followed through with." I hate to disappoint the students who will be coming looking for the free pizza they were promised, but obviously I don't think I can tell the bigwig, "you have to provide pizza because I promised it to everyone!"

I think the best decision is to just suck it up, say "OK" to the bigwig, and let some as-of-yet-undetermined but large number of students get annoyed when they show up to the activity and only find punch and cookies. But that still doesn't mean I'm happy about it. What do y'all think is a reasonable course of action?

Eh, tell him like "well, we know 20 people are coming for sure!" That way you can at least say you had pizza, and then be surprised/horrified when you run out!

If you do that, you can also supplement a bit yourself. If you go the $5 route, you can provide 4 or 5 more pizzas without breaking the bank (I assume) which will feed another 15-25 students, depending on their appetites. You can also tell them to have one slice each until everyone gets some, which will help stretch the pizza, especially if you have punch and cookies, too.

But you're teaching high school, right? And this is a club? Free pizza is a nice draw, but since they're living at home, all their food is free, and they probably don't want to spend more time at school than they have to. I doubt you'll get anywhere near 200, let alone 50. Tell your bigwig to count on enough for 20-30 students, and be ready to buy a few more pizzas yourself, and I think you'll be all right.