I chair the Culinary Committee at my senior living community because, of course I’m doing it. I am super organized, have great computer skills, and served on committees on many levels for most of my life. Plus I’m kind of bossy and like to be in charge rather than function in chaos, and I write good reports.
For the past month I’ve been working with my committee, the Culinary Director, and the Executive Director on rolling out a new program called MyChoice as well as the new menu that goes with it. I call it the Points Thing. Instead of paying a lump sum each month for $10.95/day for food, we’re switching to paying the same lump sum each month for 550 points to be used in an A-la-Carte menu for just things we actually want to eat. It’s more flexible and should result in less food waste.
But man, it is a LOT of work, and I’m only doing part of it. The relatively new Culinary Director has, for the first time in years, done insanely detailed cost analysis of every ingredient in every single menu item, and we have lots of items. Figuring out the pricing/points for both residents and guests has involved many people who are fortunately not me. Folks who don’t live here were stunned at the size of our menu and recommended cutting it in half, which would have caused a riot. Rest assured, fellow residents, we didn’t do it.
I’ve gone to lots of meetings to provide feedback and make suggestions, but my biggest contribution has been designing the new physical menus. I’m using Canva and it’s been so much fun using creative juices and tedious attention to detail, which I’m good at, to make it work. In fact, I actually did three menus: one for the Dining Room, one for the Ponderosa Grill downstairs, and another for Saturday Breakfast. That one’s my favorite because it’s so colorful.
A resident asked me last week when I was going to “write my report” on the new system because I always do reports on dining things. Ah, hmm. I hadn’t thought about doing one but of course it was needed. No one thinks they learned anything without a handout to remind them of what they learned. Even though we’ve had a series of informational meetings to go over the new system and how it works, we never got an official handout. So I wrote one. Today is our monthly Resident Council meeting and I will be reviewing it with them during the meeting while printed copies are being stuffed into mailboxes along with instructions on how to access the new Dining Portal app. Tomorrow they’re also getting copies of menus to look over.
I’m excited but I’m tired. And I’m bracing myself for the fallout from people who don’t understand what we’re doing in spite of everything, and from those who understand it and hate it, because there are always people who don’t want any changes at all. We definitely have many of those, but I hope the majority will give this program a chance. I will certainly benefit.
And in my spare time, because I am an organization nerd, I also wrote up guidelines for my committee with a charge, responsibilities, and membership sections. We never had anything before to help new members (and a new chair) know what they’re supposed to be doing. It definitely would have helped me and I’m hoping it will make it easier for me to pass the baton to someone else. I’ve been chairing this committee almost the whole time I’ve been here and don’t want to be stuck doing it forever.
On the other hand, I’m good at it and even when I complain about the work, I enjoy the chance to organize the chaos. Once a cataloger, always a cataloger.
Random Thoughts of a Disordered Mind 