PROPOSED MEETING GROUND RULES

1. EVERY MEETING MUST BE FUN.
2. All nagging must be in the form of song.
3. All policy proposals must be written up ahead of time.
4. Always assume good will.
5. Only one person can speak at a time (even though we’re Jewish).
6. Clothing optional.

House Meeting Notes 10/19/08

Midwood House Weekly Meeting Notes – 10/19/08

Agenda Items

Lights – Please turn off the lights when you go to bed, especially in the bathroom and in the second floor hallway. Save electricity when we can!

Food Shopping – Jaclyn : May be unnecessary to shop every week. We could buy groceries for two weeks, but we need to ration our food. We may need to separate some food and keep them in the personal fridge and then move them over to the communal fridge.

Suggestion: Could buy stock items in bulk and then produce from fruit stands weekly.

Suggestion: Shopping seems like a huge task and we may need to go to Costco or buy in bulk every two weeks and every week supplement with produce.

Suggestion: Dairy products should be bought weekly, but other shelf stable items could be bought in bulk every two weeks.

Elissa: If we move the furniture out of the carpark and use communal money to pay for gas to and from the grocery store and pitch in to take care of Erica’s car, especially in the winter, then we could possible keep it around for the rest of the year.

Elissa: Need to determine how much money we would be willing to spend at Costco and how that is affected by the weekly grocery money.

Decision – Start Costco bulk shopping in November and we can fine tune how we will do this in the next two weeks.

Landlord – Erica couldn’t get in contact with the landlord for a couple of weeks, but spoke to one of the brothers this morning. They plan to move the garbage from the backyard this week, hopes to figure out regulation of heat in the house, and the door on second floor can be taken off or fixed if we prefer.

Laundry Detergent – Emily: If anyone wants some detergent they can buy the small tide container on the “tower of chaos” or later on if we want to we can use communal money to have house detergent.

Bathroom Hair – Please be diligent when cleaning up your hair from the shower drains and sinks.

Trash – If the kitchen trash is full please empty it and the weekly trash people will be more diligent with emptying the trash in the kitchen. We also need to buy more trash bags!

Compost – Sasha: Whenever food is put into compost bin we need to add dry leaves to the bin. We also need to buy a new inside compost can so that it doesn’t fill up so fast. Then emptying the inside compost bin can be part of the trash chore.

Kitchen Sink – Sam and Joanna: We haven’t been doing a very good job of washing our dishes. Please dry large pots and pans instead of leaving them in the drying rack. Please don’t leave the sponges wet in the sink. If you’d like to disinfect the sponge you can put it into the microwave for 10 seconds.

Have a great week everyone!

Respectfully submitted by ESaltz

House Meeting Minutes - 10/13/08

Sukkah

-We will make paper-chains and decorations during the meeting
-Josh, Ari, and Briana made part of the sukkah (some walls); we need a ceiling/covering and more walls, so that there’s only one open side
-Anyone willing to be in charge of the rest of it?
-Joanna will be somewhat in-charge
-If you can help, be here at 7pm tomorrow
-Can just hang a shower curtain, extra flat sheets for wall hangings
-Can we use Community Shabbat money or other AVODAH money for decorations?

Community Shabbat (Friday)

-Dessert: cookies and dried fruit
-Appoint 2 or so people to be in charge of singing
-Games as well – Taboo or Catchphrase?
-Sam in charge of organizing games
-We should have a songbook
-Briana and Josh will coordinate singing; people can make requests
-Westminster house in charge of Saturday events, should let us know

Mouse Found

-Do not keep food in your room – keep it in the kitchen
-Put anything not wrapped/canned in plastic bins
-Could we get more plastic bins? Like, one for 2-3 people? And just put all of our dry food in bins?
-Need to tell Erica to talk to Sue to get money to buy more bins – need to sell it as a rodent thing
-Maybe kitchen person can work with people
-May need to use traps and poison
-Poison may be more effective; let’s use both traps and poison
-Need to announce where the traps are placed, so no one gets hurt – usually put them behind doors, in shadows, corners

Chores

-Two people on trash doesn’t make sense
-Could one person be on trash and one on house laundry?

Miscellaneous

-Party at the Neibergs on Saturday at 8 – info on fridge
-Need to go to our non-Schechter neighbors’ house at some point – they’ve invited us many times
-Some people still owe Irina money for Wine & Cheese – she is short $6
-Briana spent $11 on dessert for the Schechters – drop some money into the envelope on her door if you can contribute

shana tova
here's to a SWEET new year!

House Meeting Minutes 10/5

1. The Kitchen Situation

Ari brought up that the kitchen takes forever (at least an hour) to clean. This seems like too much.

Erica suggested that, whereas the first and third floor bathrooms don't take very long to clean, the person in charge of that job might be the best person to help out the kitchen cleaner. That person could be "on call" to help the kitchen cleaner.

Jaclyn suggested that we need some more cleaning supplies.

Sam suggested that that we should ALL be on call to help cleaning the kitchen. Anyone should be ready to help out the kitchen-cleaner if necessary. Elissa thinks that it's unrealistic to expect people to help out.

Vivi red-lighted the proposed plan to have the 1st/3rd person be "on call." She thinks it's arbitrary and weird. On her view we should suck it up. Irina seconds this, saying that she thinks it doesn't make sense because the two people will be doing their chores at different times.

Jaclyn echoed everything.

We decided to move on: everyone will try to be clean and to help out, and there are no policy changes.


2. Bathroom Locks and Knocks

Elissa said that there have been a few instances of people walking in on other people in the bathroom. Make sure that you close the door and lock it when you use the bathroom! If you are showering and you don't care if people come in, leave the door open and it's fine.

3. Erev Yom Kippur

Briana asked what is the plan re: Yom Kippur? Erica said that everyone is welcome at her home in upstate for Yom Kippur. It's a super easy train ride, and she's driving up on Wednesday. Contact her if you want to go up.

Elissa raised the point that we won't have a communal meal erev Yom Kippur because we won't be here. Is there another communal meal time other people would like? No one wanted one.

Sam says that anyone who is in Manhattan on Wednesday night should get together and have a cheap meal out before we start fasting. Ari and Jaclyn said that they might be interested in this.

Elissa is doing soup on Sunday. It sounds like it's going to be minestrone next Sunday.

4. More Questions for the Landlord

Erica is calling the landlord. What issues should be brought up? Joanna says the screen door. Erica also talked to the landlord about the heat. He said that they're going to come and check out the heat situation, and also take away all the trash from the back yard.

5. Locking the Back Door

Joanna says that she got home last week and the door was not only unlocked but also ajar. LOCK THE DOOR WHENEVER YOU LEAVE.

6. Wine + Cheese + Cocktails

People want to have a dance party or cheese/cocktails party at some point. Columbus Day weekend is one option. Sasha has friends coming that weekend, and Erica is psyched because they are cute, straight, single men.

The party will be either this Friday or this Saturday. It will be Friday. It will be classy. Friends need to bring wine or cheese.

The party will be this coming Friday, it will start at 9:00, and everyone needs to bring $2 and bring a bottle of wine.

The next house meeting will be 9:00 on Monday. The positions are:

Leader: Erica
Scribe: Jaclyn
Stacker: Irina
Time: Emily