I found that to run a house one is constantly trying to keep a balance. Just as mother nature tirelessly pursues homeostasis so is our pursuit for a "great" house. As I am sure many of you have found it is near impossible to please all members of your community. You will likely find different opinions for the most basic of ideas. Some things that we have had to balance at MHP are: Our monthly balance of Social vs. Cultural Events, The number of Large vs. Small events, and the way that we run our organization; Casual vs. Formal. These are all important questions that we get different responses on from our community. It presents a very intersting challenge to continue to meet the needs of our community while making attempts to provide innovative programming.
MHP recently had a Townhall meeting, where we had an open forum to get feedback from our community about what they like, what they do not like, etc. It is arguable if we can any new clear direction of soemthign we need to do, or need to stop doing. But, there were two very clear goals First, the ability to get many more ideas out on the table for our organization and our programming was a great win, and something that should be done more often. Having 15 people to think about programming, marketing, a board, etc. instead of 5 is very helpful. Secondly, and maybe even more important, I think it was a great step to give some of the ownership of MHP back to the community and was a great step in our efforts to develop leadership. I hope that this is something we can repeat, and I would recommend a Townhall meeting for any house out there that is looking to maintain a balance: a balance of power between the residents and the community.
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