Present: Neil and Pamela Pearlman (Chairpersons), Dov Cooper, Kobi Ableman, Tzvi Ariel, Penina Arbit, Yoni Hammer, Randi Garber, Warren Burstein (taking minutes).
The auditor’s financial report for 2002 is ready, and will be sent to to the vaadat bikoret, who will meet to consider the report together with our bookkeeper, in order to give their approval, which is necessary before the report can be presented to the AGM.
After additional approval by the general meeting, the report will be sent to the NIF, which will allow it to release donations made to the building fund from 2003.
The meeting will start after Maariv at 7:30. Committees and working groups will be asked to send a member to present a written or oral report on past activities and future plans. A search committee for the next Yoshvei Rosh, comprised of past Yoshvei Rosh, has been formed. Members will be invited to send suggestions for other vaad members (from people who want to who wish to join the vaad themselves, or want to suggest someone else as a member) to Neil and Pamela.
The temporary addition to the walls around the reader’s table (which was originally added because some people felt it was too low, creating a gap in the mechitza) was taken down for an event, and was not put back. Tzvi Ariel will take care of replacing it.
The interior designer has suggested two permanent options, smoked glass or wood, at a cost of NIS 4800 or 8280. As no budget exists for this, the design committee will be asked to submit sketches to the vaad, and the option chosen will be purchased when we can afford it.
In addition, members will be invited to send other suggestions for a temporary or permanent addition, to Tzvi Ariel.
Marc Render was present for this part of the meeting and summarized the situation as follows;
1) Our outstanding debts are for:
a) Remaining payments to various suppliers of services for the building
b) Repayment of loans, over a number of years
2) Our present funds are:
a) What we have in the bank
b) Expected income from committed pledges, (And considerable follow-up work needs to be done to ensure that these pledges are received)
3) The gap between 1) and 2) is a shortfall of approximately $50,000.
It was agreed that in order to raise this amount there is an urgent need to broaden the membership of the fundraising (Capital Campaign) group and to involve the whole membership in fundraising activities.
The new fundraising group will need to carry out the following:
- follow-up on members who agreed to extend their horaat keva but for whom arrangements were not yet made to do so,
- recruit new members,
- ask members who have joined in the last two years to consider taking out a horaat keva
The wider membership will be asked to become involved by proposing and organizing additional fundraising projects (such as a Torahthon, book dedications, asking members to send letters to friends and relatives (past letters for this purpose will be reviewed and revised), etc.)
More details will be presented at the annual general meeting.
In the future, the agenda for vaad meetings will be emailed to the members a week before the meeting, so that they can send comments on the agenda items, and suggestions for additional items, to the Yoshvei Rosh, who will bring the information received to the meeting. There will also be four open meetings each year.
Concern was expressed about the fewer numbers attending on Shabbat (both services) and the fact that the hall only starts to fill up at Torah reading. The following was agreed:
- to start a discussion on Deut Yedidya to try and determine the reasons for this new trend
- To consider having a babysitter from the start of Shacharit (or shortly thereafter) until the beginning of tefillat yeladim to make it easier for parents of small children to attend.
-
To
consider having an occasional short shiur or other activity from
- Possibly starting 15 minutes later when summer time is in effect.
Members should be asked to make an effort to come on time so that people saying Kaddish can do so. Just as we try to ensure that there is a minyan during the week for this purpose, there should also be one at the start of Shacharit on Shabbat.
The vaad will review this at a future meeting.
Dov Cooper presented a preliminary budget for 2004. The vaad began to discuss it, and will continue the discussion at the next meeting. Suggestions were made to finance the Yedidion by ads and to increase the scope of the Mishloach Manot project (sell gift baskets, and take orders from non-members, to raise more money for both the shul and the charity fund).
The next vaad meeting will be on Sunday, January 11th at 7:30. The annual general meeting will be on Monday, January 19th at 7:30, and not as previously minuted on January 12th.