June 2009, MHDC

Hey big dreamers... so the prompt this month was to discuss what makes a moishe event a good event. It's a difficult question because I don't believe there is one answer. We have a number of events with different aims. Our shabbats are very large, ranging from 40 to 75 guests. I have much different goals for large events like these then I do for smaller events. In a large event, I feel it is most important to pace yourself as a host, and to make sure that all of the house stuff is being taken care of. For me, a successful large shabbat has more to do with the successful cooperation of all four of our house members than success has to do with the number of people who show up at our events. Here's the rub, if it feels to one house member that at a large shabbat dinner they are doing more work than other house members, then we build tension in our house. And frankly, that tension effects the way we do business. We often have trouble innitiating house work at large events, which leaves us as a group stressed out. Therefore, as odd as it seems, our ability to handle the work of a large event determines whether I think the event was a success or not.

I am a much bigger fan of our smaller events than i am of our larger events. The main reason for this is that I think the true work of our house is taken care of in our smaller events. One reason is that the community likely to show up at our smaller events are more dedicated to the idea of a Jewish community. The folk that show at our larger events are more likely to care about meeting someone, or even (to be more cynical) to go to a Jewish event in order to satisfy their mother or father's wishes. At smaller events we are able to cultivate actual relationships between ourselves and our community members. We are able to learn more about our members, and figure out what programs they might like to see happen. We also often have people or couples meet other people or couples at our smaller events. For this reason, at a smaller event, say 10-15 non moishe house members, a successful event is one where we have set up an environment in which people can cultivate friendships (and maybe more). For instance, we recently took a trip to Georgetown to go kayaking. It took a lot of organizing. We had to find a place with enough boats, we had to find a place to meet everyone, and we had to do it all at 9:45 in the morning because there weren't any boat houses that had reservations. Anyway, I forget if it was 10 or 12 people who showed up. And it was a whole lot of fun, but the great thing was that people were swapping partners in boats, getting to know people they hadn't ever met before, and having a great time doing it. In turn, as the organizer I could sit back, go boat to boat and say hi, but mostly after the organizing the event ran itself.