Hey Exohydra! Cleaning is partly random, but there are ways to tilt the odds in your favor. Having a larger team (of 8 characters, say) makes cleaning more likely to occur, as does keeping characters in good health. (Characters who are hurt tend to rest, which means there are fewer chances that someone will clean.) Cooks, jokesters, imaginative characters, and musicians also have activities that raise group morale and counteract the effect of nights where cleaning doesn't occur--if you can find them, they're valuable to keep around.

If all else fails, you can use One-on-ones to order a character to clean each night. (It's a trade off: guaranteed -1 morale for one character vs. a chance of every character getting -1 morale.) If you rotate the cleaner, by the time you get through everyone twice you should definitely be able to afford a gathering (or simply beat the next league qualifier for the universal +2 morale bonus).

If you find a character with the compulsive trait, ordering cleaning basically becomes free, as cleaning will actually raise their morale; at that point, the -1 morale penalty ends up a wash.

I see, thank you for the information. I think I did have a cook but he ended up confessing to someone who rejected him and then left a bit later which made for a bit of neat emergent storytelling.