BJ Long Term Planning and Steering Committee (LTP) Meeting Minutes – Thursday, December 12, 2013 IN ATTENDANCE: Pauline Levy, Karen Burke, Jessica Brown, Arlene McDonald, Joe Ravitz, Gail Cohen. Michael Brown could not attend as he had to make a bereavement visit. Meeting goal: To establish a leadership group who will act as the central decision-making body and its visible leadership. The purpose of this group is to synthesize data, membership and community recommendations into a strategic plan of action that will define who we are as a congregation, who we want to be, our strengths and weakness, our ideas and dreams that will secure our future as a vital Jewish community of the 21st century. The group briefly reviewed what took place at the last meeting. Arlene, Jessica and Joe shared their reasons for coming to the meeting, their expectations, synagogue experiences and expressed some thoughts about what an ideal synagogue might be like. Discussion followed concerning the committee’s tasks and responsibilities which included a strong commitment to the process without bringing a personal agenda to it; availability for meeting and work sessions; research and insight into the congregation’s past and present as well as its strengths and weaknesses; organization and participation in engaging the congregation in “visioning” out loud in structured, meaningful ways; and synthesizing data, membership and community recommendations into a written strategic plan of action. The committee then reviewed and discussed the two approaches in structuring the planning process. Approach #1 was committee style where committee members created the strategic plan with very little input from the community. Approach #2 involved broad community input. The committee voted for a process that involved broad community input because they felt that community buy-in was very important for successful implementation. We then talked specifically about the ten step process of our strategic planning which included getting started, data gathering and analysis, visioning workshop, establishing focus groups and workshops, goal and strategy development, community feedback, action plans for each focus group, putting together the actual plan, implementation and lastly, the yearly monitoring, evaluation and revising of the plan. Everyone at the meeting pledged their commitment of time and energy to produce a strategic plan for Beth Judah. It was decided to work on gathering data and organizing the community visioning meet in the months of January and February and holding the visioning meeting sometime in March. The committee discussed names of the process and for the committee. It was voted to name the process BJ KEHILLA 2014 for the following reasons: • •

BJ is a shortened form of Beth Judah and captures the promise creating and implementing a new vision. Kehilla (according to the United Synogogue of Conservative Judaism) “is a sacred community, a group formed by Jews who have joined with each other to seek God, to explore and live out their understanding of Jewishness, to offer and to get support, to

share joy and sorrow, to learn and grow together, to explore the meaning of their lives and the wisdom of their ancestors.” The committee will be called the Long Term Planning Committee or LTP for short. Pauline Levy was voted chairperson of the committee. Gail gave everyone an “Are you Ready for Change” exercise to do privately that will help to identify personal leadership skills. The committee discussed the next steps which included the following tasks: • • • • • • • • •

Pauline/Karen will talk to Brian as President of the Congregation and fill him in on the specifics of the committee. Gail will mail meeting documents to Brian and Larry. Pauline will give meeting documents and overview of what was decided to Michael who was unable to attend the meeting. Gail and Pauline will draft congregational letter to explain the committee and the process of long term planning and send it to all LTP committee members for input and approval. Someone must start compiling addresses and emails of current members so that the congregational letter can be sent out efficiently. Karen will look into this and she and Gail will make time arrangements to work on this. Arlene will put together information on paid advertising as well as a listing of free media sources. Jessica will work on coming up with some logo examples of BJ KEHILLA 2014 as a branding start. Gail will put together minutes of the meeting and distribute them and start working on the agenda for the January meeting. Joe will start to compile a list of non-member people who are Jewish. Everyone else will try to do the same. Everyone will do their homework: fill out the “Are you Ready for Change” exercise to see where they fit and what they have to work on. This is a private exercise and the results do not have to be shared.

THE NEXT MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2014 at 6:00pm at 6306 Seaview Avenue (off Wisteria), Wildwood Crest. Since people preferred an early meeting, it will be a dinner meeting and we will order food accordingly. BOOKS TO READ:

Revolution of Jewish Spirit by Rabbi Baruch HaLevi, DMin and Ellen Frankel The Spirituality of Welcoming: How to Transform Your Congregation into a Sacred Community by Ron Wolfson Sacred Strategies: Transforming Synagogues from Functional to Visionary by Isa Aron, Steven Cohen, Lawrence Hoffman and Ari Kelman