"Demystifying the awesome phenomenon of MH San Francisco; A behind the scenes look." How's that for an academic-sounding essay title?
Ok, moving on to the actual answer. Teamwork and communication are essential to having a successful Moishe House, especially one that puts on 7 -8 events a month! No one person could do it all, obviously. It definitely takes a bit of coordination, shopping, emailing, and cooking to set up our events each month, and it really is so much more fun when we all pitch in together. At our house in SF we currently have a mix of students and full-time professionals, who have differing amounts of free time to contribute to event planning and execution, so we have to plan accordingly and respect each other's differing ability to contribute depending on the date/time of the event and what's going on for each individual that week.
The way it usually works is we start with a short, very informal meeting in our living room right at the end of a month -- to plan events for the next month. Usually each person shows up with a short list of event ideas and their dayplanners, and we also have a whiteboard calendar that we use to keep track of events, money we expect to spend, and money actually spent, as well as any dates we are planning on being out of town in the coming month. Half the time this is also our 'us time' so we get some dessert, order take out, or something else to make it a fun and relaxing time together. Sometimes however our schedules honestly don't allow us to all meet up, and we end up having in depth email conversations back and forth as a house to solidify events. I must say though, it's much more fun (and easier to coordinate) when we actually have time to sit down together.
Usually we come up with the events ourselves, and because we each have our own interests, there is usually quite a bit of variety between sports-related activities, arts related ones, volunteering, and Jewish ritual/religious events such as Shabbat potlucks. I know that in the days before a meeting I try and brainstorm a few fun things I'd like to do, and check out event listings in the city for film festivals, free concerts, Jewish events, or other activities that pique my interest. Occasionally however someone else we know emails us about an event going on in town, and if it appeals to us, we add it to the list of events that we've come up with ourselves. It's great to have other people suggesting things, even if we don't always decide to do it, because there is no way as 4 people we could ever keep up with all the things going on in the Jewish (and just overall) San Francisco community!
We take turns each month being the person in charge of uploading photos and reciepts, and updating the calendar. Someone else usually volunteers to write the big monthly email listing all events, and then throughout the month we just sort of spontaneously rotate who sends out reminder emails before upcoming events, and we all just sign on to the MHSF gmail account whenever we have a chance and respond to any emails recieved. Ari and I (Sarah) both work full time and have basically almost constant email access, so we tend to be the ones doing more of the email response from the gmail account. I know I personally tend to log on when things are slow at work and I'm bored... which is at least a few times a week (don't tell my boss please!). Then, usually we just decide who will buy food for the event, although to be honest this task usually falls to Danny since he is a)our master chef in residence with a very discerning taste, b)the only one with a car -- which is great for schlepping groceries in the city, and c)he has a more flexible work schedule than the rest of us and has had more time to actually make it to the store.
Whomever can get home from work before an event all pitches in to set up the house, do any cooking, etc. and during an event we all usually schmooze with everyone, help out, chat with each other, and clean up afterwards as a team. Dave really enjoys leading Shabbat and is great at being our spokesperson (we do a little welcome to anyone new, have a moment for everyone to share anything from their week, light candles, say kiddish and motzi, etc.) so when he is around that's usually a task that falls to him.
And, I'm spent. :)
~Sarah, on behalf of all of us @ MHSF.
No comments:
Post a Comment