The Latest from BZBI

Summary of January 2022 Board Minutes

February 17, 2022

BZBI Board of Trustees Minutes
January 13, 2022 meeting, 7:00 pm

Israeli-Engagement report from Sheldon Bernick: We are considering being a sponsor with the Polyphony Orchestra which will appear in Philadelphia in late March, with monies from a music fund. Rabbi David Straus from Main Line Reform is spearheading this effort which features Israeli and Palestinian musicians.  On March 18th they perform at Carnegie Hall.

Community Committee report from Eileen Dwell: Our ongoing projects continue: Intergeneration Reading, Mishpahot Group, kiddush committee, mahjongg group, contacting BZBI families who need support, knitting group, stocking up group, and Yesod dinners on the third Friday night of each month. Eileen and Lynne Balaban have met to evaluate our Volunteer Appreciation event and may consider an appreciation Shabbat, without so many competing events. Our ECE students are tending our new tree, Etzie, planted on 18th St.

Human Relations report from Gail Kroop: Lynne and Leslie, our bookkeeper, used the winter break period to organize and discard papers that we no longer need.  They also updated personnel records and placed all employee benefits on our fiscal calendar.  Lynne and Gail have been reviewing employee manuals and will be working on a draft shortly.

Membership Committee from Sharon Greis: The membership Committee has completed contacting non-renewing members. Our results were positive in that members have rejoined and just needed a reminder to submit dues for the coming year.  Lynne B. has also reached out and is now in the process of canceling the membership of eight families who made alternate commitments during Covid, six families on Pandemic holds, and four Household/Individual families who have not responded to our outreach.  We would like to schedule an in-person get-together for new members and their Buddies in the Spring.

Ritual Committee from Larry Kessler: Eitan Kantor isn’t available for the High Holidays. The Committee is exploring other options. The Torah Reading Academy is working well with its first cohort of eight students and plans to build its peer-mentoring program. The Ritual Committee intends to continue funding this program.

BZBI Kitchen project update from Bob Fleischman, Chair: Other committee members are Sue Zeelander, Carmie Levine, Akil Bowler, and Nikki Morris. Our objective is to build a kitchen replacing our 50-year-old structure, with one looking forward to the next 50 years.  Hugh Boyd is the architect of the new kitchen.   Our original kitchen was designed and built to be a catering kitchen, and that has now been gutted, with only the double door convection oven saved for the new kitchen, which will not be a professional or catering kitchen. The new kitchen will have a “mop room” separate from the kitchen. We’ll put in a camera, so we can do courses from there.  We want it to be a community place, bright and lively. We will have only one stove and one door access. However, removing the old stoves revealed four windows that were hidden behind the hood and stove. New stained glass windows, designed by Deena Flanagan,  are planned, which can also lead to major fund-raising.

There will be a central island, with all new equipment (except for the above-mentioned convection oven).  It will be Mr. Gregory’s kitchen so we will want to put up plaques with recognitions and dedications.  We are going to bronze his sneakers and hang them. We will be buying all new pans, plates, etc., and make it easy to distinguish between milk and meat. Cabinets will be separated and clearly marked.

Clergy Report from Rabbi Abe and Rabbi Abi:  We are continuing with multi-access minyan, and in a few weeks we can analyze the data, and move forward.  Eliana Light’s visit, as outlined in our December minutes, was a great success. We now have more distancing on the bimah, with only one gabbai, and lots of other precautions.

Executive Director’s report from Lynne Balaban:  We are looking at updating our COVID protocols in both schools to stay aligned with current CDC guidelines. Lynne is working with our security company to make sure that any former ”holes” in coverage have been addressed and has added a new video monitor which allows her to watch the stream from all our cameras in her office.  She is working with Akil Bowler to renovate the bathrooms in the basement, which is funded by a grant for improvements to the preschool. We hired Liat Kovnator to be our new Community Engagement Director. Lynne is on the board of the ED national organization and is working on its national convention which will take place in Charlotte at the end of March.

Development report from Suzanne Litke: As of this week  (January 13, 2022) Annual Giving (AG) has reached 87.5% of the yearly goal with 33% membership participation. Our monies from Tributes and Memorials are currently lower than last year, but higher than budget.  This means total discretionary giving is currently is very good. The Committee is still working on pulling together a timeline for a large capital campaign, which will be a 7-10 year process to which this Board and future boards need to maintain commitment.

Finance committee report from Daniel Cohen: As noted, we are doing well for AG, and Early Childhood Education is, as expected much higher than last year. Neziner, as always is in the red, but collecting some B’nai Mitzvah fees can help offset that deficit. Income is pretty much on target for this time of year, even in comparison to last year.  Lynne and Daniel are working on a new budget and will be presented at a future meeting.  We are anticipating many operating expenses to increase between 3-5% in the coming year, so revenue will need to grow proportionally.

Strategic plan presentation from Gary Bramnick:  The strategic plan which is implementing the Vision, focuses on “Where we are, where we are going and what we are going to do to get there.” We now need to convert all our work to an action plan, by breaking it into smaller units so we can start to move forward. We need ideas of who should be on the Task Force, as well as subcommittee members.  We need to determine how much money we need to accomplish at least our low-hanging fruit goals. We hope to complete the task by the High Holidays.

Jess Simon, Governance Committee:  All Board members sent Jess the mission statements of their committees and Jess asked to add some vision aspect to it as well, i.e. what we hope these committees can accomplish as we move into the future. These will be publicized as we look for more congregant volunteers to serve on the committees.

President’s Report: We have a waiting list for Early Childhood Education even for the fall ’23.  We will have a men’s club again, reports Matt Whitehorn.

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