Topic: Shanghai sense of community

Wanted to share this quote about a Shanghai slum from National Geographic:

Today eight families cram into Jin's two story home, one per room. Thereis no plumbing. Jin's kitchen is an electric stove erected on a rickety, makeshift balcony. Nonetheless, when Jin's grandson invited her and her husband to move into a modern apartment complex in the suburbs, she refused. "Where else," Jin asks, "could I find this sense of community?"

Quite a testimonial for the power of a real sense of community I would say!

Wow, that's awesome! I wish I could create that sense of community here. I have 130 people in one building and hardly anyone knows their neighbors. I have retention gatherings with a lot of prizes to try and get people together but usually only the kids show up, and they all know each other from school already. For my last retention, we had free pizza, soda, ice cream, and over $200 in prizes. Every single attendee won a $20+ prize and we had a few prizes left over.

My next goal is to try and get the owner to buy a big screen TV so we can have movie nights and sporting events parties. But the last big tv we had was stolen so I don't think they will buy us another one.

Have Movie Night at your pool or clubhouse using a projector, DVD player, speakers, and wall. I just purchased a slightly used projector on Ebay for $200 (re-conditioned one's are going for $599) The projector had about 16 hrs. on the bulb and was previously leased. When I got it, it looked brand new. The remote still had that piece of plastic you have to pull to activate the battery. All of these items can be taken home or locked away in your office. A DVD Player and good sounding speakers can be purchased inexpensively as well.

@Rose

I have a Seniors Community now and most everyone shows up to weekly events. My past communities however were multi-age Tax Credit. One way I found to insure more adults participate in events is to give out food tickets for whatever we are serving. The tickets are only given out to those 18+. My explination to resident questions is: "We want to be sure your child is eating only what they should be. We have no way of knowing if children have a food allergy, dietary restrictions or a religious beleif that would prohibit them from consuming certian foods"
Works like a charm and some residents were even thankful that we were concerned for their childs well being.

Thanks Stephani, Great idea!!

I can't imagine spending my one day off EVERY week hosting a retention. I love my residents, but I really do need to decompress a bit.

Plus, since less than 10% of my residents even come to retention, it would be a waste of time for us to have them so often.

I bet a food event would go over great in a large low income property. I have conventional housing with 20-30% of my residents afraid to participate in any community events. Even though it's against the law for me to discriminate on the basis of national origin, they don't understand this so are very careful to avoid any unnecessary contact.

My next retention project is our community bulletin board. I am going to take everything down and cover it with a shiny metallic paper, a fancy border, and put letters up that say "thank you for choosing Georgetown as you home" I'll also use that board to start a raffle with a note to come by and pick up their raffle ticket. I bought all the supplies for this for $4 at dollar tree. I haven't done it yet because I still need to figure out what to do for the raffle. Any suggestions? I can only spend up to 20 bucks so I need to pick something good that residents will show up for!

Events that tie to emotional traits are very successful, and the thing is you can usually find sponsors to support and even pay for the entire event. (1) How about a "Picture with my pet," where they bring in their pet and you take photos of them. Have Petsmart, Petco, or other pet supplier provide the prizes and sponsor. I have found they are very willing to get the exposure to your residents and their pets. You may also find pets that are not registered, which can increase income. (2) Information seems to be the trend today. Instead of having hot dogs on the grill how about bringing in professionals in travel, nutrition, investments, computers (The Geek Squad, Best Buy, CompUSA, etc., nutrition, Red Cross with swimming and CPR classes, ask the county library to put your community on the stop list for the bookmobile (had a library that provided someone once a week to come to the clubhouse and do a book reading), etc. I bet if you went throught he yellow pages you could find 30-40 ideas just there alone. Contact Home Depot, Lowes, or a local garden center to do a class on "Gardening for Apartments. You will not only provide an activity, but find better looking balconies and patio's. They provide everything, and bring gift cards as prizes for the drawings. Throw everything on the wall and see what sticks.

Great ideas. I really do love my community, but I simply must set limits on how much of my personal time I donate. The steps you take would easily take many days to set up, and since I only get four days off per month, I just have to draw the line with not working those days. Even if it were to be the best thing for my community, I think in the end it would not, because we'd have a burnt out, unhappy manager.

One little trick I started doing was 'team activities'...I have 9 buildings, so each building is a different team...I'll have door decorating contests, flowerbed contests, and camera scavenger hunts - I give each buliding a camera and a list of items and they have to take pictures of themselves with these items...it doesn't have to be every resident from that building in the picture, but it does need to be more than just one family - this has worked out pretty well...it was slow in the beginning, but as we continued to do these type of 'team activities' more people started joining in, so that their building would be the one that would win...we would have a cookout or something like that and announce the winning building...I have a family property, so I try to make the activities something that everyone from young children to my elderly would enjoy and at least attempt to try and do...

I've also found that when we have an activity, I hand out a paper with some questions on them...What's your favorite food, which season do you like best and why...things like that and the 'game' is to ask as many people as they can at the event these questions...then they turn the papers in and they go in a drawing...the form we pull out wins...the person asking and the person answering each gets a prize...

One year - close to the holidays...we created a cookbook...each building is a chapter in the 'cookbook'...the residents turn their recipes in to the office and we type them up and put them in a 3 prong binder to hand out to everyone as part of our holiday gift to them...We've done it a couple ways...one building is baked goods, one building is meat, etc., but I found that it is easier to let them turn in whatever they want...So our books would have 9 different chapters...Building A would have their own recipes, Building B, etc...I've found that residents will say to their neighbors...I loved that recipe you had and this gets them talking...

The best part that I've found is that they end up working together and all I have to do is come up the activity, deadline and prizes...This helps during those really, really busy months...and when it's a little slower, then I can have the events that requires me to be more involved in...

I like the cookbook idea! I think I will use that one!

We are going to start that idea on several of our properties. I will let everyone how it goes. Al barkalow