HiHo, HiHo, It's Off to Work I Go
Every year as I attend the High Holiday services at Temple Micah, I swear that I am going to volunteer to help out the next year. Putting on the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services each year is a daunting organizational nightmare. Those in charge must deal with everything from tickets to moving things back and forth between TM and the larger church space we rent to childcare to ushers to parking to security to food here and there. Those brave souls look like they’ve been through a wringer by the end of the 10-day period.
My husband was quite involved last year because a lot of communication with members is being moved to the TM website that he manages. This past year I heard lots of nightmares about disgruntled TM members who didn’t get their tickets at all, didn’t get the right number of tickets, you name it. He is currently upgrading the website to use Paypal for all forms of payment, which will be a big improvement.
Recently he casually mentioned that they were looking for someone to be in charge of the High Holidays (affectionately known at HiHo’s) this year and asked if I would be interested, noting that my organizational abilities would serve me well in this job. I think he secretly wanted not to have to deal with others in his website endeavors, knowing that we have a long history of working together pretty well.
With my initial response to the “search committee” of “maybe”, they assumed I was doing it. It turns out that they had one other person who had also been coerced into volunteering. So I guess Gene and I are the co-chairs for this year’s HiHo’s. So much for my new policy of not saying YES. I admit to being weak, especially when someone predicts what a great job I will do.
We had our first organizational meeting on Monday night. After about 2 hours of incredible minutiae, my eyes were glazing over. A 2" thick notebook showed up, containing the How To’s of the HiHo’s. I offered to take it away and make copies for Gene and me. The first really encouraging thing was his response that he would just have his secretary do it. I already really like this man.
My initial assignment was to line up White House Nannies to once again provide childcare to be paid for by the members with small children who want to attend services. I did this today, with only a telephone call while I waited in rush hour traffic. So far, this is not such a tough job.
My goal it to create a series of electronic documents that clearly lay out the following for each job: description, time-line, historical persons responsible, budget, additional volunteers they must recruit, etc. – basically a well organized cook book for the whole thing. I have to hope that if Gene and I do this right and delegate the hell out of it, we can stay calm and not look like death warmed over by the end of the HiHo’s this year. It remains to be seen...
My husband was quite involved last year because a lot of communication with members is being moved to the TM website that he manages. This past year I heard lots of nightmares about disgruntled TM members who didn’t get their tickets at all, didn’t get the right number of tickets, you name it. He is currently upgrading the website to use Paypal for all forms of payment, which will be a big improvement.
Recently he casually mentioned that they were looking for someone to be in charge of the High Holidays (affectionately known at HiHo’s) this year and asked if I would be interested, noting that my organizational abilities would serve me well in this job. I think he secretly wanted not to have to deal with others in his website endeavors, knowing that we have a long history of working together pretty well.
With my initial response to the “search committee” of “maybe”, they assumed I was doing it. It turns out that they had one other person who had also been coerced into volunteering. So I guess Gene and I are the co-chairs for this year’s HiHo’s. So much for my new policy of not saying YES. I admit to being weak, especially when someone predicts what a great job I will do.
We had our first organizational meeting on Monday night. After about 2 hours of incredible minutiae, my eyes were glazing over. A 2" thick notebook showed up, containing the How To’s of the HiHo’s. I offered to take it away and make copies for Gene and me. The first really encouraging thing was his response that he would just have his secretary do it. I already really like this man.
My initial assignment was to line up White House Nannies to once again provide childcare to be paid for by the members with small children who want to attend services. I did this today, with only a telephone call while I waited in rush hour traffic. So far, this is not such a tough job.
My goal it to create a series of electronic documents that clearly lay out the following for each job: description, time-line, historical persons responsible, budget, additional volunteers they must recruit, etc. – basically a well organized cook book for the whole thing. I have to hope that if Gene and I do this right and delegate the hell out of it, we can stay calm and not look like death warmed over by the end of the HiHo’s this year. It remains to be seen...
posted by Barbara at 7:34 PM
1 Comments:
Here's hoping that the organizational skills really do pay off!
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