trip to LA [Sh'liach K'hilah]

[cellio]

I'm rethinking the trip to LA. The Sh'liach K'hilah program is important to me, but the cost of this particular session is winding up higher than I expected (perhaps higher than the summer session), which is leading me to do the cost-benefit analysis.

The cost of the session is $500, which includes the hotel for Friday and Saturday nights. (We just got this figure.) I would have to fly there (add transport to/from airports), and because it's in LA I'd need to fly out Thursday evening (so there's another night of accommodations). My choices on Sunday are to miss a bit of the final session or take a red-eye back, and the red-eye has a layover (not a direct flight). I'd consider it without the layover, especially as that would give me Sunday afternoon to potential spend with friends in LA. (I've got some of those.)

I spent $1000 (plus 1.5 tanks of gas :-) ) for the week-long session in Cincinnati, and that had tons of classes crammed into it. For a comparable amount, at the winter session I'd be getting 8.5 class hours and Shabbat. I'm sure it would be rewarding (Cincinnati was fantastic), but I'm not sure it's $120/hour of rewarding.

Here's the schedule they sent us:

Principles and Practices of Reform Jewish Education
HUC-JIR Los Angeles
February 11-13, 2004
SCHEDULE

Friday, Feb. 11
12:00 - 12:30   Lunch
12:30 - 1:30    Orientation/Mixer/Introduction of Faculty
2:00 - 4:00     A Vision for the Educated Reform Jew:
                The Commonplaces for Jewish Literacy
                Professor Sara Lee
5:30            Dinner (either at HUC or back at hotel)
6:30            Board bus for Temple Sinai
7:30            Friday Night Live Service

Saturday, Feb. 12
??              Breakfast at Hotel
??              Board bus for Temple Emanuel
??              Emanuel Minyan
??              Lunch at HUC
2:30 - 5:30     Encountering the Jewish Adult Learner: What Do We Need To Know
                Dr. Diane Schuster
5:30            Havdalah
6:30            Dinner
7:30 - 9:00     Jewish Learning for Jewish Families
                RHSOE Students

Sunday, Feb. 13
8:30            T'filah at HUC
9:15            Breakfast
10:00 - 12:00   Re-imagining Jewish Learning in Your Congregation
                Dr. Isa Aron
12:00           Box Lunch and L'hitraot

I'm still thinking about it. Not going won't endanger my standing in the program; it'll just be a disappointment. On the other hand, the education per dollar is looking a bit off. If it were in Cincinnati and thus half the price, I'd definitely go.

I think I'll look harder for a direct red-eye and investigate the time-with-friends-Sunday-afternoon option.

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

In some ways, looking at this, it seems they are spending more energy on the regional biennial, which is the following week. If you do come out, however, we'd love to get together with you whenever you can work it. However, contrast that schedule with the biennial (http://urj.org/psw/resources/biennial/).

[cellio]

Y'know, that's a good point -- biennials seem to have more program packed into about the same time. I wonder why that is. (I've never gone to a biennial, even the regional one that was in Pittsburgh last month. I'd rather spend an intense weekend with a small group of people, not thousands -- and even though the one was in Pittsburgh, I would have had to get a hotel room downtown at least for Friday night in order to fully participate. And the fees for the sessions were surprisingly high.)

If I do go to LA, I definitely want to get together with you folks, either Thursday night or Sunday afternoon if that works for you.

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Either would work for us, as things look now.

[goljerp]

Huh. It's a tough call. There's only so much formal class time you can fit into a Shabbat, but I'm sure the shuls they're taking you to are good ones, and that can be a learning experience, too. If the same program at the same cost were in NYC, I'd say, without hesitation, go for it -- but then again, I'm guessing it would be easier (and cheaper) for you to get to NY...

[cellio]

True, I definitely enjoy visiting new-to-me shuls to see how they do things. I guess I expected them to have something Friday night after services (I imagine they'll be over by 9), but I hadn't considered the possibility that close to an hour each way would be taken up in transportation. That's two hours that could have been spent on education but won't be. I guess I just assumed that HUC was closer to the local Reform synagogues. :-)

I might still do it, because it would be a good experience in a lot of ways (especially if I can put Sunday afternoon to use). Getting to NYC (or Cincinnati) would certainly have been cheaper.

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

True, I definitely enjoy visiting new-to-me shuls to see how they do things. I guess I expected them to have something Friday night after services (I imagine they'll be over by 9), but I hadn't considered the possibility that close to an hour each way would be taken up in transportation. That's two hours that could have been spent on education but won't be. I guess I just assumed that HUC was closer to the local Reform synagogues. :-)

Remember: Los Angeles.

HUC is downtown, sharing campus space with (ugh) USC. The only nearby Reform congregation is Wilshire Blvd Temple (original campus), but I think most of WBT's congregational activity is 45 min away at the Irmas Campus in West LA. Most of the other congregations, during rush hour, are at least an hour away, either in the valley (such as our congregation, Temple Beth Hillel), on the Westside (such as Emanuael, in Beverly Hills), in the South Bay, or Orange County.

You're spoiled by living in Pittsburgh. You don't realize how good you likely have it, traffic-wise.

[cellio]

Oh, I know that LA traffic is horrible compared to Pittsburgh. I just figured that with all those people, there'd be more shuls too. The idea that everyone drives an hour to services rather than instantiating another (local) shul hadn't occurred to me. But it should have; at some level I know that in LA everyone drives everywhere.

(I don't have much direct experience; I've only visited the city a couple times and tried to drive there exactly once. I spent the first three years of my life in Santa Monica, but my only memories are of the inside of the house. So I'm going by what other people have told me.)

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Its not that everyone drives an hour to services (we're about 10-15 minutes away from our current cong; we were 10 minutes away from our old cong.). Rather, it is that HUC is no longer near the center of Jewish life in Los Angeles, so the new and innovative congs are distant from HUC.

If you lived in WLA, you might even be in walking distance!

[magid.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it make sense to have the program shifted to the shul area, then? I mean, there must be hotels not far from where the davening is going to be, which would save a lot of transportation time.

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Los Angeles is *big*. There is no one "shul" area. I can drive for four-five hours, and still be in the Los Angeles urban area. That's part of the problem. More likely, however, is that they want to take advantage of HUC and the facilities and faculty there. In other places, they would likely have to rent meeting rooms or classroom space, or interrupt other shul activities, creating a major congregational relation problem.

[cellio]

I wonder if the two synagogues they're using are anywhere near each other. They might not be, in which case if they want us to see multiple places there'd be a problem anyway. But yeah, I think the main thing is that they want to have the program at HUC because there's where the facilities and teaching staff are.

I wonder how many people will actually be arriving Friday (for a noon start) rather than Thursday. We're scattered all over the country; people either flying or driving for more than a couple hours will probably need to come in Thursday. I'm wondering if an earlier start on Friday would have been feasible -- sucks for the people driving in from three hours away, but would have worked for the majority, I think.

[goljerp]

This is a bit of an aside, but I wonder what they [will/would] do for NY: the HUC capus are in the village, but I suspect they'd want to bring the participants out to at least one of the large Reform congregations in the 'burbs... so the same kind of thing might end up happening...

To get a bit more on-topic: Monica, just because you're on a bus doesn't mean that you can't do a program! :-)

[cellio]

To get a bit more on-topic: Monica, just because you're on a bus doesn't mean that you can't do a program! :-)

That depends on the style of bus and the type of program. This summer they bused us a couple places and they used something resembling a school bus with high seat backs and a very narrow aisle. This made discussion -- or even having everyone be able to see and hear the person trying to address the group from the front -- hard. On the other hand, not all buses suck that much. :-)