Moishe House Portland's Lessons Learned

Please describe an instant where your house has had an issue (e.g. trouble with events, house dynamics, logisitics etc.) and discuss how the house resolved the issue, and what was learned.

Hi Moishe Houseniks Int'l--

At Moishe House Portland, we need to work on our coordinating, among other things, so this is Becca here speaking and not the Moishe House collectively. The last couple times we pooled ideas, but this end of summer and approaching High Holiday time is a little crazy. Anyhow, if we switch off over time, you'll get all of our input, and I hope my input is still valuable!

Here are some of the obstacles we've run into:
* Coordinating: scheduling conflicting events, struggling to find times to meet
* Teamwork: overall is pretty positive, but we've had trouble supporting each others' events and working styles
* Recruiting: for a while we had a gender imbalance, and we've had lulls in our recruiting, although overall we do pretty well
* House management: cleaning, accountability for various chores and tasks, working things out with Landlord, etc

I'm proud to say that we are working on all of these issues. We know we have trouble syncronizing our schedules, so we try to get ahold of each other in advance. This also involves understanding each other as leaders. For example, I know Jodi needs advance notice for even a 15 minute discussion. Or we can talk about it while lounging on Shabbos. :) I know Jeremy's available in late evenings, and that Rachel usually gets home around 5pm at which point she is fine with talking about anything. My roommates probably understand that I'm good with email. Since there's only 4 of us, it helps to approach each individual according to what they respond to best.

Our teamwork has come quite a ways. Although I don't have the luxury of this perspective, the current state of Moishe House is bliss compared to even a year ago, but times have changed. Yay! Throughout our meetings, we've each been very honest with each other about our strengths and weaknesses. I'd say we all impress each other with our strengths, and yes, we may be a little disappointed with our weaknesses, but we promote a healthy sense of self-awareness, I believe. Like, if I said, "Rachel, I thought we talked about this over email," and she said, "Oh, I thought we talked about this at the meeting with the calendar," we'll both just realize our lackings and resolve it. From there I learn to be more aware of the calendar and be more concise in my emails and she learns to try to track the Moishe House emails better. I think we're able to talk about things in a constructive way without getting defensive.

This self-awareness has grown organically between us over time, and from our efforts at bonding. We had a bonding weekend and that was a lot of fun. We played games aimed at trusting and just had a great time. Although we've had conflicts, that's natural. I'm impressed that we're really able to resolve them in a healthy way.

I think I've addressed a couple of the most important ones. Gotta save something for the next blog. ;) I'm proud of us as a group and hope we keep moving forward!

L'shannah Tovah to you all!

Keeping the Russian Moishe House Clean

So far we've been off to a good start, but one issue we had to deal with was keeping the house clean. We have a fairly big house and it was practically brand new when we moved in so we decided that it was important for us to keep it in good condition. Of course four guys living together not to mention having frequent events with a large number of people does not quite make it easy to keep things clean. So we spent many a meeting trying to figure out a system to make things work. Here is what we came up with:

We create a weekly matrix spreadsheet designating what everyone's responsibility is for the day. Responsibilities are divided in three categories - trash, dishes and wiping. So the person that takes out the trash also sweeps the floors. The person who wipes, dusts and disinfects the kitchen area. And finally the person who does the dishes makes sure there are no dirty dishes left overnight. These tasks only concern the common area, our personal areas are up to each one of us to take care of. We also decided to pitch in to have a cleaning lady to come twice a month to clean the bathrooms and do a more thorough cleaning of the entire apartment. Between the four of us that only comes out to $50 a person a month. Cleaning up after events is designated to the person who is responsible for that event (which is a whole another topic for another time maybe). The person is responsible for either cleaning himself or delegating cleaning tasks to others. To make things fair we agreed that at least two of us should be cleaning at any one event. Finally things such as cleaning supplies and common household items such as toilet paper are bought by taking turns. For example, if I buy supplies this month, someone else in our house buys it the next.

I hope this is helpful to some of you who are struggling with similar issues.

   

Lesson Learned MHCleveland

Lesson Learned:

One recurring problem that we have had here at Moishe House Cleveland is people outside of our age demographic attending events. We feel that Jewish adults in their early thirties that are unaffiliated with a Jewish community pose no problem and we welcome them at Moishe House events. On rare occasion over the course of the last year we have had a few people come to events that were in their mid-forties. Often they claimed that this was exactly the type of community that they had been searching for and expressed their joy in finding us. Further, a few individuals expressed that they are trying to relive their twenties, that they get along with younger Jewish adults in their twenties better then their peer group, or that they wish something like Moishe House existed for their age demographic. At a larger party, we may not realize at first that there is an attendee who is drastically out of our age demographic by about 20 years, but at smaller or more intimate event, such as a Shabbat dinner, their presence can make other guests who are in their early to mid 20s feel very uncomfortable. It has been surprisingly difficult to ask these middle aged Jews to leave. One person wrote me numerous messages on Facebook regarding how excluded they felt upon realizing that they had not been invited to Moishe House events.

One way we dealt with this problem is by blocking individuals from our MHCleveland Facebook group (so they would not be able to find out about events). We also stopped publicizing MH at the local Jewish college and graduate school (as it turns out that is where most of these individuals learned about us), as well as at a few local temples. Although infrequent, these occurrences definitely put an uncomfortable spin on a number of events.

I have learned that we primarily must use word of mouth to publicize events because fliers attract a different generation.

peace,

n

Lessons Learned: MH Oakland

This generation of Moishe House Oaklanders is relatively new. Three of us are living together while learning to work effectively together. We want to be a well-oiled machine, but there are missteps on the way to achieving that goal. Living and working so closely with one another can be a lot like being in a relationship: the key is communication. Sometimes, its difficult for all of us to find time to talk in a group about anything other than the bare bones of Moishe House (planning events, paying bills, uploading receipts, whose gonna take out the trash, etc.) Because of this, I feel our group spirit, our interconnectedness, suffers. Group month-planning sessions can get kind of monotonous without talking about why we're all here to begin with, about what drives us in Moishe House. In response to this, we've started weekly Monday meetings to talk, share ideas (even if they are hypothetical), and generally recharge one another. My hope is that once we've all hit our stride, we will no longer need to meet each week, but perhaps just twice a month. I have a feeling that by just cheering each other on we can get through any more missteps.

Lesson Learned - MH Cape Town

Hey guys,

August was a great and packed month, so it's time to share... ;)

We had guest speakers, quiz, activities, ideological talks and lots of good time.
I think the best night we had was 'The amazing race'! We planted riddles all around Cape Town and the goal was to get all of them. was so fun and such a great turnout.

We had an issue,
Like I said this month was packed with events and lots of people came to the bayit, but as you guys know when everybody leaves the house look like a mess.

We didn't really like it and it's annoying to clean after people all the time.
So we decided that every time we having an event we get some people to stay for 5-10 min and help cleaning.
It's actually turned to be such a nice culture.
We put some music , chat with the moishehouse guests, bond with them and it's an opportunity to get feedback and to grow.


well, that's it for now.

Enjoy life,
MH Cape Town

Communication, Water for the Soul

Moishe House Los Angeles is in the process of entering our second blessed month of living together and providing a public hermitage for a large, dynamic, and progressive Los Angeles Jewish Community. Needless to say that we are still going through the growing pains of learning to live together, learning to learn together, and learning to work together. As much as we portray and evoke the imagery of a happy village, this definitely isn’t Smurf Village (although we do sing a lot of songs and continuously elude Gargamel with success). One of the bigger challenges we have faced is the delineation of tasks before, during, and after an event, as well as the tasks associated with daily house upkeep.

What we have noticed is that there has been a natural/organic creation of roles in the house. For instance, whenever we have an event at our house that involves cooking for a good number of people, it’s safe to assume that Leo and Benjie are going to be cooking. Why, they love to cook, are much better at it than me, and always cook up something marvelous…I mean these guys actually use measuring cups to make sure the appropriate amount of ingredients are included in the recipe, whereas I just throw stuff in a pot until it smells good. Other roles that have just been naturally taken on include correspondence, like writing a blog, preparing a calendar, and reaching out within and outside of the community, house maintenance, and internet support.

A potential challenge that may arise from the delineation of natural roles is ensuring that the person undertaking a said role(s) does not become burned out with it. Sure Benjie and Leo love to cook, but maybe they might not want to for one Shabbat, and maybe someone else does. There are certainly other examples when a certain member may feel that they are taking on a role too frequently, or not frequently enough. To this I say, the only entity on the planet earth more necessary for human survival than water is communication. A simple question or inquiry goes a very long way, especially when living with four other dynamic, overt, and very “Jewish” personalities. A potential adverse effect resulting from the lack of communication is passive aggressive resentment, one of the worst poisons afflicting an otherwise healthy social cohesion. Having regular meetings to discuss house dynamics and to air out grievances in a controlled and honest setting yields open communication and the chance to ask each other questions about our roles and if we need help with them, or need them altered. That being said, it’s imperative to be conscious of the modus operandi of our communication, especially when communicating conflict, lest we potentially find ourselves dealing with the conflict of communication rather than the conflict itself. For instance, it may do well to avoid “bi-conditional” statements such as, “if this continues then this will happen,” rather than statements that leave a more favorable aftertaste, such as the aftertaste of resolution. Bi-conditional statements may have the effect of sounding enjoining, rather than offering variables for conflict resolution.

The natural, organic delineation of work roles in the house is a blessing. That said, even blessings need maintenance in order to remain positive elements of our daily lives as individuals as well as a collective with an individual mission. As we enter the Holy Chagim when we are charged with asking ourselves some rather epochal questions, perhaps a reoccurring question should be one of communication. How effective have we communicated with ourselves and our community, and how can we perpetually improve upon personal and social communication.

From all at MoHoLA, L’Shana Tova and Gemar Chatimah Tovah

Love and Light

MoHoLA

Moishe Nola Ice Cream Truck

An issue we've been working with at Moishe Nola is how to connect with the local community. Our house mission includes programing and engagement with the Broadmoor neighborhood. The difficulty we find in connecting with the neighborhood is that our programs are typically timed for the evening which is the best for our regular group of young professionals, but inaccessible for families with children.

Moishe Nola Ice Cream Truck!!

Our solution has been to meet the community at events sponsored in the neighborhood by other organizations. By providing ice cream and partnering with the Broadmoor Improvement Association and the citywide Night Out Against Crime, we found a space to meet the community. Ice cream also offered an opportunity for the neighborhood kids to get involved as servers, and parents a chance to ask questions about the mission and programs of our house.