Coffee Break: Secret Tote

102 Comments

1. Good gift or just a meh filler gift? Our state brewery association issues a booklet for $30 that will get you BOGO beers at any of 54 breweries in the state. We’ve only been to the brewery nearest our new house, so it’d be a chance to explore. Husband and I normally only exchange 2-3 gifts, and I can’t decide if this is worthy of a slot and there’s a deadline to order. Husband does enjoy a good afternoon at a brewery, but maybe this isn’t special enough? Would you/your husband like it?

   1. I like it because it implies many date nights and maybe even road trips trying out the breweries.

   2. How many of them are near enough to you that it isn’t a big production to visit them? Or do you want to prioritize taking longer road trips in your state on weekends?

   3. Would you actually commit to going to all the breweries? Also, how big is your state? Because if you live in Texas and all the breweries are spread out, this is a much worse deal than if you live in Delaware!

      1. Where do you live? My cousin and her husband would love this gift! They like going to breweries and trying new stuff.

   4. What a great gift, that both of you will enjoy.

   5. Sounds fun and it’s $30, not a big investment of you don’t use it much.

      1. Yeah, it might be 5 breweries to break even, and after that it becomes a deal. Not nothing but not a huge burden.

   6. Had to google BOGO (not in the US), but where I live, one pint of very ordinary mass brewed lager beer costs about 12 dollars, so here we would break even at the third outing (well, the scheme itself would be illegal here (as is happy hour) but in terms of costs, even).

      I would think is a very fun gift if you like craft beer. The gift wouldn’t be the booklet, but the promise of going on loads of outings and nerding out.

   7. This sounds like fun! Now I’m checking my own state to see if there is something similar available.

2. How much balance work do you do in your workouts? Favorite moves to incorporate for a beginner with lousy balance?

   1. i mostly do orangetheory and they work it in pretty regularly. i also alternate standing on one leg for 30 seconds while waiting for an elevator, waiting at the micorwave etc which i think gretchen rubin suggested…. i also have one of those plastic saucers with the nubbies and i like to do balance work on that.

   2. I do not do any balance-specific work, but my balance has gotten better as my core has gotten stronger.

   3. I’m working on this myself – while not ‘lousy’ at balance I want to get better, and am starting with standing on one leg at a time while doing routine stuff like brushing teeth, and not leaning against the bed when putting socks on.

   4. None, but mostly because I don’t enjoy it, and mine is not necessarily great – so don’t follow my lead!

   5. Ballet.

   6. Ice skating

   7. Single leg deadlifts, balancing on one leg with eyes closed (can do while brushing teeth), sports that require balance.

   8. Yoga.

      While waiting for things in my kitchen to go off (timers/microwave etc…), I stand on one foot. Usually I balance in yoga tree pose, since my kitchen is narrow. I do modifications of it to make it more challenging.

   9. Lots of yoga, which always has some balance practice. If you really want to balance better, incorporate core workouts into every workout, and then some sort of standing balance. The stronger your core is, the better your balance is.

      Tree is a good standing balance for beginners since you can keep the lifted foot close to the ground and then move up your leg over time. I like Warrior 3 to standing leg raise back and forth – it’s kind of fun. Toe stand, chair pose on toes, and then reach up to tip toes (legs straight) is fun and balance practice with both feet on the ground.

      Don’t be proud – use walls for balance with your other hand and don’t expect your balance to be the same every day or the same on both sides. It’ll be different and that’s okay, but the point is to keep doing it.

      When I started weightlifting single leg deadlifts delighted me since that’s so balancey and sort of like a warrior 3.

      It’s totally worth it to work on core + balance. I live in a snowy/icey area and there have been several times that I slipped and my body automatically “caught” myself because my core engaged and I rebalanced – that only happened because I practiced so much before.

      1. Forgot to add – very similar to those above, I practice balances often at weird time. For example this morning I was on a work call that I didn’t need my hands for, and I stood up in my office and did eagle poses and shiva squats while talking. It actually is helpful for me to concentrate on the call since my computer isn’t distracting me.

   10. My physical therapist taught me to stand on one foot and look right, center, left, center, up, and down. Look in whatever direction until you stabilize, then go to the next. She said this helps to prevent falls as you are mostly used to looking forward and need balance when your gaze is suddenly in another direction. I try to do this a few times every day, it’s challenging but it helps.

3. Favorite flat party shoes for winter? I have very nice flat sandals for spring and summer events. I am tired of my high heeled boots.

   I am a size 10/10.5.

   1. J.Crew Factory always releases a number of pretty Christmas shoes this time of year – satin, rhinestones, etc. Some styles are heels, but they do flats, too.

   2. Boden usually has good options in this category and while I’ve gotten a pair or two of their shoes that’s felt flimsy, they mostly have been well made, comfortable, and durable.

   3. For trousers I like the suede Zooey flats from French Sole New York.

   4. I bought a cute pair of gold metallic maryjane skimmers from Vince Camuto on sale at Rack.

4. How do you decide whether you will stay at home with your immediate family during the holidays vs hosting extended family or friends or traveling?

   1. There are too many factors to sum up any kind of decision making grid. It depends on what other family members are doing, what state everyone is living in at the time, who’s home from college or visiting from out of state— storms, health, travel conditions, who’s aging and needs to be accommodated . . . the list goes on.

   2. Like anything else – we consider our priorities, time and budget.

   3. honestly this has never really been something i’ve felt like has involved an active decision. we dont celebrate christmas, but we celebrate thanksgiving with extended family as that is what my family has done since I was born 40+ years. it used to be hosted by other people, now it is hosted at my parents’ home, though cooked by my sister and me, and now involves my family flying there bc we dont live driving distance and fortunately our budget allows. oh and my kids are off from school the whole week. we alternate between flying to my family and Dh’s family. sometimes I miss 2020 when we just stayed home. but mostly bc i hate airports and flying has become such a pain. i think if we could drive id feel very very differently

   4. Holidays always include extended family. Never a decision.

   5. DH and I always go to our respective parents for Christmas (we don’t have kids). We used to alternate Thanksgivings between our families, but have started opting to stay home from that. We both live 6-8 hour drive from our parents and extended family(in opposite directions) and the traveling was just getting too miserable when you just have to turn around 3 weeks later and go for Christmas. This decision was in part because we both, on separate occasions, had been rear-ended by someone not paying attention in stopped/slowed traffic on the interstate driving the day before Thanksgiving. Flying is safer, of course, but Thanksgiving flying is so miserable. Somehow driving around Christmas doesn’t seem as bad, maybe because the travel days are more spread out.

   6. It just depends on how I feel that year. If I can get a good deal for a Thanksgiving trip, I do like to travel then since other countries don’t celebrate it.

   7. Pre-pandemic we hosted Thanksgiving and invited both families. My parents came nearly all the time, my in-laws came maybe half the time. We usually traveled to spend Passover with my MIL’s extended family. During the pandemic, the extended in-law Passover gatherings fell apart, my parents moved to our city and my in-laws had health issues that made travel harder for them. Now we usually just do a quiet Thanksgiving with my parents here and visit my in-laws at non-holiday times. I don’t like being at my in-laws on Thanksgiving because they don’t cook and refuse to order catering or go to a nice traditional restaurant meal (even if we pay) so we’re usually just eating cheap Chinese/Indian takeout off paper plates at home, which is fine normally but so depressing to me on Thanksgiving. That said, this year we’re going to see them on Thanksgiving but we’re flying home Friday morning and will have a proper turkey dinner with my parents on Saturday.

      We never travel at Thanksgiving except to see family, but often travel for Christmas. We get good flight deals by flying on December 24/25 since we don’t celebrate it.

5. If someone you know personally posts a nude picture of their kids on Instagram (think a baby butt or a distance shot of a 4 year old running through a sprinkler), do you report it so it will be taken down?

   1. No. I think it’s weird, but not my circus, not my monkeys.

   2. nope.

   3. Not if the person who posted it is the parent.

      Look – I realize that perverts will perv, but I reject the idea that we need to take pictures of naked infants off the internet . There is nothing objectively s*xual about that and I doubt a predator is searching the internet for those photos and then hunting down the kid in question.

      1. It’s not that they hunt down the kid – they sell and edit the image.

         1. But they can do that with any image. Clothed; naked; school or sports uniform. And keeping all images of all children off the internet is not practical.

   4. No, of course not.

      But it still amazes me what people post on social media accounts, and let anyone access.

   5. No, that would be weirder to me than the original post, even if it’s not something I would post.

      1. +1

   6. No, and just fyi, that would not likely violate the Community Guidelines anyway (unless there’s some sexualized component to it), so I wouldn’t bother if I were you. Source: I work on content moderation.

   7. No but I’d definitely judge them

   8. Ok, thanks all. Wasn’t sure what the norm is on this.

   9. I guess I’m an outlier but I report stuff all the time. it never gets taken down by meta though. its anonymous but at least tells the person someone out there questioned it

6. Inspired by the thanksgiving conversation is there an elegant or special way celebrated a holiday when you can’t offer a seated dinner? I managed to get 16 adults seated at one table for Christmas Eve last year and that’s about my capacity. One more invitation and I’m into eating on your lap territory. How do I do this? My mom suggested setting a table that not everyone gets to eat at but my dad said that was even tackier. You can’t offer seats like musical chairs. He wants “heavy” appetizers but for the life of me I have never successfully pulled that off; everyone still waits for real dinner even if I try to pull this at a cocktail party. I know this is a thing in other families but my mother always made sure everyone had a nice place set for them. Is my family just snobs or am I doing it wrong?

   1. I would pick up a card table and make a second table.

      1. Thanks! I that’s how I got to 16. That and moving all the living room furniture into the dining room and vice versa. Trust me I’m maxed out.

   2. We’re fancy holiday people too and you’re not snobs. I personally hate the idea of trying to eat a meal on my lap. What we do is use our very large dining table (expands to seat 16) and we set up a few extra card tables in other rooms depending on how many we need to accommodate but we can’t really seat more than 25 total comfortably. When we’re bigger than that, I switch to a cocktail party format. I don’t like it as much because people tend to then leave early for a real meal somewhere else.

   3. My dining room opens into the living room, so I squeeze as many people as possible around the dining room table, and then line the living room with folding banquet tables. We set up the folding tables while the turkey’s being carved so people can relax in the living room before dinner. The folding tables get table cloths and centerpieces just like the dining room table. The trick is to keep the tables co-equal. Don’t make it look like an a-team and a b-team of guests, (unless it’s truly fun to have a kids table — you know your family best).

      Another common-in-the-midwest approach: tables in the well-cleaned and heated garage. It’s not elegant, but it puts the family all in one place which is the real goal.

      1. this is what we used to do at my parents house and what my great aunt did for passover seders with 40+ people. though the tables were set up before the event and connected to the original dining room table so it looked like one very very very long table.

   4. This might be kind of off the wall, but can you do two seatings? Maybe first group eats while the second group watches football, then put on a movie or start decorating the Christmas tree while the second group eats?

   5. I mean, is a kids table an option? Or a couple small tables in different rooms (in front of TV, quieter area etc)?

   6. My best memories involve the franken table – long dinning table, round kitchen table, then garage beer cup tables, all connected in an awkward serpentine, covered in the same colored table cloths likely from dollar general, sometimes with a few people sitting on the camping cooler. There is no elegant way to sit 20 people in most houses.

   7. For Christmas Eve, our family serves heavy appetizers (potluck). When you send the invite make clear that there will be no formal sit-down dinner, so people know what to expect.

   8. I have a fold-up table that I put next to my normal table, to make one giant, long table.

   9. If your dining room table is oval you can add seats by putting a rectangular top on it. My table seats 8 as an oval with all the leaves in, but if we put a sheet of plywood on top we can easily fit 10, and could probably squeeze 12, especially if some were kids.

      1. I know a family that put a table cloth on a ping-pong table.

   10. Things that feel “special” to me other than dinner
       – Fancy champagne and a formal toast; maybe around any other significant traditions your family has for the holiday (ie everyone says something they’re grateful for, or similar)
       – Turn off the lights, light a candle, and sing a few Christmas carols. My family is a mix of good and not-good singers; but there is something intrinsically elegant about singing in the darkness
       – If there are kids, 2 seatings can work really well, with a kids-movie-night in the other room, while parents eat slowly without needing to help anyone cut their turkey up
       – Bonfire and hot chocolate and fancy cookies. I don’t know why, fire just makes things feel special.
       – If you all are generally ok with eating on laps but the nice table setting is part of what feels special for you, maybe set all the food out on the “fancy” table (with decorations and such) and then everyone makes their plate and sits where they can

   11. Do you have barstool type seating, living room options, or a kitchen table? If so, rather than have a fancy table that “not everyone” gets to sit at, have different styles of eating that appeal to different people. Maybe some people like to perch at a bar stool; others are happier with the kids around the kitchen table; some others want the living room to watch football.

   12. My take is that the meal is inevitably less elegant the more people there are, so you just roll with it. I’ve done small Thanksgivings for 4-6 people that were very elegant dinner parties. But my extended family often gathers for Thanksgiving at a shared ranch, with 30-40 people attending most years. It’s potluck, and everyone figures out a spot to eat, whether it’s the table, one of several card tables, or the couch and their lap. Different vibes, different celebrations. Both are legit.

       1. My family is more like the latter and as long as none of the emo tweens try to set up in the tub so that they block use of the bathroom it all works out.

   13. Not an actual solution, but I daydream about having a small house and a pavilion for hosting. (Canvas walls and a propane heater for winter gatherings.)

       1. Op and same. In my area many people have historic properties with large barns. We fantasize about a “party” barn where you could host a bridal shower or huge holiday party. It will never happen because our mortgage rate is a real gift at this point but it’s nice to dream.

          Anyway, I really appreciate all the feedback. I did manage to get 16 adults around one table by rearranging all I the furniture own but I can’t do more without both making everything significantly less elegant; like eating in the children’s bedrooms. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything major but it seems like there really is something lost when these parties are too big.

   14. I have an absolute maximum of entertaining space of 240 sq. feet. This space is my combined open plan kitchen, dining and living room space.

       I can seat 16 adult people. If I use my living area sofa as well, 19. Not particularly comfortably, but I can.

       I use vintage plates. My dinner plates are 8 inches in diameter, that leaves room for more settings.
       I use small chairs and benches. That leaves room for more seats.
       I have vintage (smaller) furniture all round, but still try to seat two people at table ends etc.

       I still keep my Christmas tree in this space, but in your place I’d move it somewhere else if you can. If you have a living room or den in addition to the space you can fit 16 AND have children as guests, I’d make a kid space in a different room.

       The answer is “everybody accepts being a little uncomfortable because you’re an amazing host who very generously tries to accomodate everybody even if it’s a squeeze”.

   15. You can host the main meal at a private room in a restaurant, and then serve an assortment of home-made pies for dessert with coffee and tea (and liquor) at home, with everone balancing their pie plates and cups of beverage on their laps on the sofa. it’s a lot more acceptable to balance the dessert service on one’s lap.

7. Does anyone here ice skate? I used to and I love it. I now live in a city with a rink and a pro shop. My feet . . . no bueno. They run a little wide on one side due to an injury, but not officially wide width. I suspect that a figure skating skate might be more comfortable than the flatness of a hockey skate, but IDK. Are there “40+ adult comfort ice skates” of any variety? Or just bring cushy socks and some insoles? Considering buying because the last rental skates I had had no good edge and I wasted a ton of time getting another pair on a busy night.

   1. The pro shop is going to be in the best position to advise you on which skates to buy. Figure skates versus hockey really depend on what you learned to skate in, or feel most comfortable with. Be warned, new skates are similar to ski boots from a breaking in stand point. It’s better than it used to be, but still expect a bit of time to break them in.

      1. Agree with going to a pro shop, and I will also say that skate technology has improved a lot since I bought my first pair of skates many many years ago. I bought bottom-of-the-line hockey skates at my local pro shop recently and they baked them to fit my feet – after the first two weeks of breaking them in, I found them incredibly comfortable.

      2. +1 to pro shop. I don’t skate as much as I’d like to, but I did buy new ice skates a couple years ago, and the selection in the pro shop was extensive. If you are willing to pay for the good stuff, they can heat mold boots to your foot and everything.

         I’m the token figure skate person in my family of hockey players, because I learned on them as a kid and have never played hockey. If you’re just wanting to skate in circles at free skate, I don’t think it really matters if you get figure skates or hockey skates.

   2. It’s been a while, but I have wide feet and iirc from my college figure skating class that the cheap skates ran the widest. Dominion, if they still exist.

   3. Hockey skates will be wider and more comfortable than real figure skates. Real figure skates are incredibly stiff and tight. They come in multiple widths, but they are still very very tight when fitted properly. Cheap “figure skates” will be floppy and won’t provide enough support. If you just want to do laps around the rink, either get hockey skates or the recreational skates with a hockey-type boot and figure skate blades depending on how much rocker you want (shorter rocker radius and more turning agility for hockey skates) and whether you want toe picks. You don’t really need toe picks unless you want to jump or spin.

   4. Rental skates are the pits. Go to the pro shop.

      1. To break in our figure skates, we used to heat up the inside on low from a hair dryer, tie them on tight, then sit and watch tv and get up and walk around on guards during commercials. Those were legit leather figure skating boots though. It did work!

8. My husband is incredibly smart and amazing at what he does. But I think he struggles a bit with the soft skills. Though in personal life he’s extremely warm and charismatic, I think he comes across as a bit annoyed or low-affect at work. He’s a genuine and direct person, and I think this also makes it so he doesn’t know how to ‘play the game.’ I.e., couching feedback in positive language, trying to affirm people’s input rather than just saying point-blank why it won’t work, being friendly and personable etc.

   He got laid off from his last job in spite of being the top performer on the team, and I think part of it was because he didn’t know how to navigate the toxic office politics and networking culture. It was a huge blessing and he’s in a way better opportunity now, but sometimes when I hear him on the phone, I cringe a little bit because he just doesn’t sound like he is aware of how he is coming across. I want him to talk the way he does to me or a friend, rather than sound a bit eye-rolly. I don’t think he means to, but he is not from this country and I think his “professional voice” just sounds condescending or dismissive.

   Are there any books or types of coaches I could recommend to him? He is the sweetest person and things are already stacked against him a bit being a non-white immigrant. I don’t want these kinds of soft-skills things to hold him back, and I feel like there are some invisible rules / invisible skills he is just missing a little bit.

   1. You could be right and I can tell you really care, but now is the time to rally around your husband with encouragement and avoid bringing up what he could have done better. A layoff is hugely depressing for most people. He needs to know you believe in him, or else it’s like, geez, even my wife thinks I’m missing the mark. Also, a lot of men communicate differently than women, and it works for them. Don’t try to make him communicate more like you. He knows his work better than you do. Wouldn’t you be defensive if your partner tried to backseat drive your career? He might have sounded flat at his job because it was a demoralizing environment (hence, the layoffs), not because he always behaves that way. He might automatically perk up if he’s “re-potted” to a better place.

      1. Thank you for the feedback! That makes sense. Just to clarify, it’s at his new job where some of his calls have made me worry about how he’s coming across.

         He spent two months super depressed while he was looking for a new job, and it was so difficult to watch. He’s been in this new job for 4 months now, and it’s an amazing opportunity for him. The CEO wants to put him as the head of his department in spite of being pretty early in his career, and it’s a super hot startup that he’s joining in early.

         One question I have is, do you think men can get away with being more direct / having a flat affect / potentially sounding a bit dismissive? I only ask because I suppose my image of the men who succeed is more of that friendly, warm, confident vibe. It is definitely different than women, but I feel like even men who lack that warmth tend to get penalized for it. Perhaps I’m wrong though.

         I’m struggling with avoiding giving feedback because he does solicit my opinion often. His CEO was calling him at like 9:30 pm last night, after calling him at 8 pm and 7 pm. He was trying to give feedback on something it’s too late to give feedback on, in spite of my husband asking him a month ago for that feedback when it would have been possible to still make changes. My husband was very annoyed about the late-night call and the disorganization, and I worried about this annoyance coming out in his communication with his boss. I feel like one of the easy work hacks is to always be pleasant even when you are communicating boundaries. But maybe I’m wrong on this front.

         1. Yes they can. So can a lot of people fwiw. Let the company give your husband this feedback if it’s warranted. You’re not his career coach.

         2. I totally get the always-be-pleasant mentality, like a flight-attendant or something. But remember, if you were getting multiple calls from the CEO throughout the evening and at 9:30pm with feedback that’s too late to act on, you might come across as annoyed too. That’s human. Remember your husband was a top performer at his last job, quickly bounced back from a layoff to land a new job, and is now a leader conversing with the CEO regularly. He achieved all that because he’s good at what he’s doing. Let him figure it out. Don’t worry on his behalf. He’s capable.

   2. I feel like condescending and dismissive is a not uncommon attitude amongst men in my male dominated field (and is particularly common in immigrants, both white and nonwhite). It certainly doesn’t make me like these men, but it doesn’t seem to hurt them with other men or their careers in general.

   3. Could you recommend an executive coach? I’ve used one in the past when I needed an unbiased opinion on how to handle certain things at work or when I wanted to work on how I came across and it was always a beneficial experience. You could suggest it in terms of his CEO’s excitement about him and how he’s considering him for higher roles so that your husband doesn’t view it as criticism, but instead as a way to help him get a leg up on that next role.

9. I am new to having to carry around TWO laptops for work. It’s incredibly heavy, and I don’t think a tote is going to cut it. I’m looking for a large backpack that looks structured and polished, but is big enough to hold everything. Preferably leather on it somewhere. Any recs?

   1. I think Corporette did a roundup of backpacks for work not too long ago. I would look for one with a sternum strap to help distribute the weight

   2. At the point it’s “incredibly” heavy, even a backpack isn’t going to be great for your back so you might try a wheeled briefcase. Samsonite makes a few good ones and even has some wheeled backpacks so you can alternate.
      I dislike this look but damned if I don’t keep coming back to it whenever I’m forced to carry too much heavy tech.

   3. Lo & Sons. I like the nylon ones. They have leather trim.
      2 computers + leather back pack is pretty heavy.

      1. I carry two laptops in my Lo & Sons backpack all the time.

10. This might be kind of off the wall, but can you do two seatings? Maybe first group eats while the second group watches football, then put on a movie or start decorating the Christmas tree while the second group eats?

    1. oops double post. sorry!

11. My kids are in scouts at our church. My understanding is that scouts is a separate organization but the church “charters” it and its publicized as one of the church’s offerings in its youth programming. It’s not limited to church members and in fact about half of the kids go to other churches. We get the use of a sunday school room for 2 hours each week but if we want to use a big church hall for an award ceremony twice a year, we apparently have to pay $750 for each time. I get that there is an HVAC cost associated with it and janitorial time (but we have a clean-up crew that tidies up and takes out the trash and vaccuums). When it’s just the sunday school classes having events, there isn’t a fee for say the confirmation class or whatnot. Does that seem legit to you? That’s a lot of $ for kids / families and IDK why we pay or why it’s so much — we’re not like a bunch of realtors looking at meeting spaces that could include hotels or restaurants that are similarly expensive. Is this typical? It just seems so grabby. And it’s not a poor church — it has an endowment.

    1. Is that the standard fee for outside users of the hall? You are already getting a huge break by getting the weekly meeting rooms free.

       Scouts are not the same as Sunday school or confirmation class, which are ministries of the church. And I am pretty sure I had to pay something for confirmation class to cover materials and activities.

       An endowment does not mean a church is rich. It is really a necessity to insure against fluctuations in giving and unexpected expenses. Are you talking about an evangelical megachurch, or a mainline Protestant church? Whether it’s a cash grab or a reasonable request to cover expenses depends on the overall grabbiness of the church. Our midsize mainline church’s budget is just over $1M a year, we have an endowment, and we are barely scraping by. It’s expensive to maintain our aging facilities and to pay our staff, even though they are all incredibly underpaid. I would view a facility charge differently at a flashy evangelical church that is always shaking members down for money and where the pastor drives a sports car instead of a beat-up minivan.

       1. Yeah, I think you have to weigh the hassle/expense of free meeting rooms most of the year against the cost of using the ceremony space. $1500 a year for that kind of access to space seems pretty reasonable to me – using the meeting rooms at our town’s rec center for weekly meetings alone would be more than $1500.

    2. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount on the face of it (ie. compared to what you would pay to rent space somewhere else) — it’s also less than what most churches in my area charge their own members for building space for weddings (just the church space fee, not all the other stuff), so it seems reasonable on that front.

       But if it’s important to the scouts program and the scouts program is important to the church community, it also sounds like something you could talk with the church leadership/financial council about, and see if you all can figure something out

    3. Yes, totally reasonable.

    4. I would also find that weird and off putting, but feel like there was nothing I could do about it. It isn’t normal, IME.

    5. As an active Church member on our finance committee, the endowment is not usually for operating expenses. And hosting an event of that type is expensive. At my church, it requires staff to be on site before the event to unlock the doors, remain on site for security and answer the inevitable questions, and then clean men and women’s bathrooms and make sure their event’s own crew actually put everything away (which they almost never actually do). Plus, hosting events has to be disclosed to our insurance company and increases our liability premiums in addition to HVAC and other expenses.

       They are already letting you use their space every week for free (we do that too for nonprofit groups like scouts and 12-step programs); operating a church campus is expensive and many churches have a rate they charge anyone who wants to use their sanctuary space regardless of whether it is an award ceremony or a wedding (our only exception is funerals – we do those for free). If you feel like that is too much, then by all means see if you can get an appropriate space somewhere else for less money and tell them your organization could not afford it.

       1. Agree, having been on a church board. We also have a fairly new and expensive AV system, so if you want any kind of amplified sound, the AV tech has to be there to run the system (it’s not the Righteous Gemstones-level stuff just “sounds nice when we livestream services”).

          As a Girl Scout leader, there are a lot of community benefits to Scouting programs but at the end of the day, these programs are activities for children and their parents. While my troop has some of the highest dues in our neighborhood, it’s still an activity that is less than $20/mo. That’s about the cost of a single 60-minute dance class in my area.

    6. That seems like a lot to me too – especially for a church sponsored kids program.

    7. It’s logically inconsistent. They advertise the program (so it’s their program?) but they charge the program for use of space (so it’s not their own program?)

       1. It’s not really their program. They are doing the scouts a favor by letting them use the facilities and publicizing the program. Churches frequently support scout troops in this manner.

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