ĺňă îđäě éůéáú February 23rd 2011áń''ă
MINUTES:
In Attendance: Noomi Stahl (emeritus-Chair), J. Rosenberg (co-Chair), Linda Gradstein (co-Chair), Gary Ginsburg (Treasurer), Danny Gottlieb, Daniel Rohrlich, Eudice Winer-Harris, Dana Goldberg, Penina Arbit, Koby Ableman, Esther Edell, Stephen Edell, Dov Cooper, Randi Garber, Bruce Rosen
Carol Fuchs (Va’adat Bikoret) Debbie Greniman (Va’adat Bikoret)
Apologies: Gary Heller, Michael Stahl, David Gleicher, Deborah Kalker, Miriam Fine
The minutes were approved.
Policy is officially that the language of meetings & the Kehilla is Hebrew but that everyone should speak in the language in which they are most comfortable
Jay concluded that we will continue in English when Gary Heller is present but that the official language of the meetings & of the kehilla is Hebrew.
Carol raised that would be a problem for Gaby to take minutes in Hebrew.
a) Updated Budget (attached below)
Gary reported that nothing had changed YET in the amounts for the items: Building Use & Children’s Programming. We have already set aside 8000 Nis for an Av Bayit & if one does not get hired until April or May, that should be sufficient for this year. Eudice has a potential candidate for 5 hours a week. We could then redefine the job description in 6 weeks time & extra hours will be for events.
Eudice & Gaby had raised the rates 16% to reflect market rates about 8 months ago.
Esther questioned the amount allocated to “Purim Kupat Tzedaka” (18000 NIS) which is reasonable based on the actual of 2010 however the actual does not reflect what actually happened, which Gary was not aware of. Due to accounting system glitches there was more money recoded as allocated to the budget category of Purim income than was actually raised. Esther suggested it should reflect the rule of fundraiser income less expenses & then 50% of the net goes to kupat tzedaka, which is 15% of 29,00 i.e. 14,500. We also have a contingency fund of 3500.
b) Moving bank accounts.
There are 3 options:
1. Stay where we are (Hapoalim)
2. Move to UBank where some fees are higher but there is no monthly service fee and we would have our own account manager as they have a non profit rep at Ubank (Shuey) & Yedidya member personnel (Kobi)
3. Bank Yahav, which is cheaper than all the others
If we do move we will have separate bank accounts for building fund and general fund.
Esther queried what is happening with the electronic key that would enable us to do some of our bank work online & eliminate bank charges (we were waiting for new signatories). Noomi explained that it sounds better than it is & that it does entail work.
Gary raised that kupat tzedaka is also paying hapoalim 62 nis a month (Around 750 nis a year) in bank fees
Eudice explained that we need to increase alarm fees because the basement will be using a different alarm system to the ground floor
Eudice asked if there is a new computer in the budget – Gary said it is a capital expense
a) Basement Opening: Noomi & Gaby gave an overview of the planned program.
Linda thinks that a shiur/dvar torah needs to not only be one of the programming sample options but also a central part of the ceremony.
Stephen: do we have a guarantee that the basement will be ready?
Eudice: ground floor capacity is 160 & downstairs is less
Noomi: It will be tight & crowded but have to dedicate the downstairs facility downstairs
We will screen a movie to occupy the kids
Linda will invite tfilat yeladim personally nd hand out a printed invitation/flyer to parents to invite them to join
Noomi: We see this as an in-house event & will therefore not be inviting dignitaries
Linda: This is a great new membership driveopportunity. Many say it is a difficult process to become members so we should print blank membership forms to hand out & have a stack out front
Gaby raised issue of mezuzot:
Donna G volunteered to take care of purchasing the batei mezuzah after consultation with the aesthetics committee.
Daniel Rohrlich will take care of figuring out how many & purchasing klafim.
c) Purim :
· Linda said music would be great & Eudice suggested square dancing after the spiel
· There was a suggestion to have an evening event.
· Daniel Rohrlich expressed his concern about buying products from the territories. Penina offered him a "virtual budget" of 2000 shekel to see if he could buy the mishloah manot without any products from the territories. Daniel agreed to do this but was unable to due to a trip to the US
· Gaby brought up year round programming – that a committee still needs to be formed to take care of programming events such as Purim and that representatives need to be at a volunteer recruitement table at the opening ceremony.
· Gabaim have to have someone ready to daven each time & this has not happened so far – Kobi & J will speak to the gabaim
a) Toranut Kiddush and the early minyan
Some of the early minyan want to know why they have to do Kiddush duty for the late minyan. The answer is that it is an agreed upon social contract of the community. Some want to break that social contract – they already have a heavy commitment to the Kiddush of the early minyan and then have an additional commitment to the late minyan. It is hard to go home & come back if you are an early minyan regular. They could unofficially work it out privately with Warren –can work it out for 2-3 families but it cannot be policy. Deb will announce that the VM is working on an arrangement for them to do toranut more often at times when they are in shul anyway e.g. Yom Haatzmaut
b) "Nativ" disruption (army giyur program) & summer groups
Nativ is good about coordinating in advance that they are coming and when, but they do leave in the middle so we will coordinate with Bobbie & ask them to come later & stay until the end e.g. 9:45 -10:45. Linda will follow up with Bobbie because leaving in the middle is disruptive. But if we ask them to stay until the end members should make an effort to greet them & speak to them.
It was policy a while back is to limit non Jewish groups with meals to once a month. Now we have non Jewish groups who members are hosting for meals and this brings in more members. Even when we are not organizing hosting, we have many more visitors, especially on the women’s side. This is fine once in a while but recently it has been almost every Friday night (e.g. Ophir & Debbie’s groups). Linda does not find it intrusive & think it’s great that non Jews can come here but Kobi think every week is overwhelming.
c) Membership issues: Pnina – Deborah K & Pnina are putting together the list for Mishloach Manot & identified around 20 people who think they are members but are not. Every member from the year before automatically becomes an ‘expected’ member in the database and their status changes to paid when their membership form & cheque comes in. Some who have not paid are still on Kiddush duty, get Yediot & Deot etc & some got seats for Yom Kippur. Gaby sent out reminders. Deb Kalker made some follow up calls. Gaby, Pnina & Warren are to redesign the membership forms & database. Donna suggested making the volunteer sign up in section in the membership form more useful for the database & programming. Stephen Edell will receive a list from Gaby of who has not paid so that they cannot post on Deot
d) Moral/Political programming issues: Bruce Rosen was invited by Gaby to a meeting on moral/political programming issues. The initial meeting aimed to discuss what could be & who could be involved & came up with a concept to set up a task force to bring proposals to the vaad & to develop a set of principles that 80% of the Kehilla could agree with. Pnina & Bruce thought they could come up with a wide enough task force that all in the Kehilla would feel represented. Bruce brought this proposal to the VM for approval . There were questions regarding the identity of the Kehilla - how much is this a community & how much a social action group? Deb. Greniman raised that most of this is really about how do we talk to each other & less about what are we going to do. Bruce raised that the VM has to give an ishur to this mandate and ensure that group selected is truly representative of the Kehila. This was passed by the VM. The Vaad Menahel agrees that task force should go ahead & form, meet & come up with proposals to bring to the VM. Pnina said that issues of this nature permeate everything that we do so instead of reinventing the wheel we need agreed upon guidelines. Dov raised the question of what will happen until the task force presents its report.
Linda invited J Street U to come & make a presentation to the Kehilla. It was queried whethere there is clarity that J Street U is not a political organization. Daniel: Miriam Fine checked - there are different branches of J Street & J Street U is educational only.
e) SOCIAL JUSTICE: Randi updated the Vaad that the Social Justice working group is having an open meeting for the Kehilla on Sunday 13th March starting with a Dvar Torah by David Golinkin. She also raised the Issue of Yedidya having a Fair Trade outlet through which we would be a discount outlet for fair trade goods & the kehilla would receive a share of the profit. Esther brought up issues of legitimate accounting – they must issue receipts, not us – we cannot sell products. Randi will take responsibility for goods & how sold – Eudice just has to assign space.
Arabic course: Noomi explained that we can do at Yedidya as a 10 meeting shul activity. It was agreed to go ahead & find an appropriate night for the class.
6. DONM Wednesday, March 23rd at 8pm
BUDGET 2011:
|
Final Budget 2011 |
||
|
Income |
Expenses |
|
|
Dues |
180,000 |
- |
|
High Holiday Seats |
10,000 |
- |
|
Shabbaton |
60,000 |
60,000 |
|
Donations |
50,000 |
- |
|
Fundraising |
- |
- |
|
Purim Kupat Tzedaka |
- |
14,500 |
|
Purim General |
33,000 |
4,000 |
|
Events and Programming |
2,000 |
30,000 |
|
Art Exhibits |
- |
4,500 |
|
Building Use |
65,000 |
- |
|
Bank |
- |
3,000 |
|
Kiddushim |
- |
8,000 |
|
Children's Tefilah |
- |
15,000 |
|
Yedidyon |
- |
- |
|
Books & Sifrei Torah |
- |
5,000 |
|
Library |
- |
4,000 |
|
License Fees |
- |
1,300 |
|
Maintenance - General |
- |
11,000 |
|
Maintenance - Special |
- |
20,000 |
|
Cleaning Materials |
- |
10,000 |
|
Alarm |
- |
6,500 |
|
Building Fund |
50,000 |
- |
|
Insurance |
- |
16,000 |
|
Travel |
- |
500 |
|
Telephone & Computer |
- |
5,000 |
|
Electricity |
- |
40,000 |
|
Water |
- |
4,000 |
|
Audit |
- |
8,200 |
|
Bookkeeper |
- |
30,000 |
|
Office & mail |
- |
5,000 |
|
Personnel |
- |
151,000 |
|
Beit Midrash Erev |
8,000 |
8,000 |
|
Contingency Fund Reserve |
- |
3,500 |
|
Azvanot Fund |
10,000 |
- |
|
Repayments |
- |
- |
|
Total |
468,000 |
468,000 |