Summary of October 2020 Board Minutes

The following is a summary of the Board of Trustees meeting on October 13, 2020.

1. Committee Reports

a. Community Committee – Eileen Dwell: Yesod dinner resumed Nov 5 and new monthly dates will be confirmed soon. There will be a volunteer appreciation event the last night of Chanukah. There will be a Chanukah gift bag for all community members with candles and a frozen box of latkes. We are still delivering emergency meals as necessary. Let the rabbis or Rebecca Krasner know of anyone in need.

b. Building Committee – Michael Radbill: We will be choosing a contractor for our kitchen renovations from “Build Zoom” and hope to find a project manager from within the congregation.

c. Human Resources Committee – Matt Whitehorn: We received a rebate for our health insurance which has been distributed appropriately. The dependent care assistance plan has a discrimination issue for this year which has been resolved. There is a tax-related issue we are addressing.

d. Sisterhood Report – Susan Zeelander: Meetings are first Monday of every month. On schedule are a talk by a local author, Phila. Film Festival, Nov 18, and Challah bake. The Gift shop is opened-please contact Bev Cohen.

e. Tikun Olam – Rosalie Kurz: Lots of projects connected to helping the homeless: Make sandwich lunch packs for the men at Bethesda Project; looking to pursue collaborations with Project Home, Wishing Well, and Welcome Bread and preparing healthy food packets to give the homeless on the street. We are also working with OutVote to help get out the vote in our BZBI community.

f. Membership – Sharon Greis: Of the 87% of renewals, we have 10 new families. Sharon is looking for committee members, not only to help her, but also assist in the transition of leadership, since this is her last year and welcomes any suggestions. On Nov 9, Rebeca Krasner, David Haas and Rebecca Slavin-Phillips will work with film producer and member Ilana Trachtman in producing a membership video, for our BZBI website. We now have a cloud membership for $600- for people who live outside CC and who wish to participate in our community through Zoom. New membership forms are available on Shulcloud.

g. Development – Suzanne Litke shared that our Annual Giving has improved over where it was this time last year. We have received $129,858.31 for AG and $42,101.97 for all other giving so for this fiscal year. Mike Radbill has a building wish list; contact him to see if you want to support some items. A new committee member likes to write grants and can help the ED with that. An anonymous donor wants to contribute toward teacher members to read Torah.

h. Finance committee report – Brian Bushee: Our net income for the first three months of this fiscal year is down ~$300K compared to the same time last year, with most of this loss as the result of lost income from ECE. We will be spending about $22K extra for security this year and may want to increase the maintenance and security fee next summer based on this increased expense.

2. Discussion Items

a. Clergy report – Rabbi Annie and Rabbi Abe: We hope the results of the HH survey will help inform our zoom Shabbat services.

b. Executive Director’s report – Rebecca Slavin-Phillips

1) HH services were a big success.

2) Security Equipment – With our recently installed security system, Security personnel can use a tablet to view the two security systems, ECE and rest of synagogue. We successfully used all the money from the Commonwealth’s grant.

Security company – we switching to a new security company, with guards who wear appropriate uniforms, are highly trained and armed and has been hired by many other synagogues.

Our membership for this season is higher than our targeted goal. We do have a “pandemic hold” group of members who are skipping this year.

Office staff can now buzz in congregants and visitors.

c. Visioning process – We were just about to institute ideas from last year’s survey when we had to lockdown. We should have the results from this year’s survey in Nov. or Dec.

d. President’s report: Nikki gave thanks to HH taskforce, and the clergy for very successful HH experience which felt intimate despite remote participation.

Respectfully submitted by Board Secretary Terry Hirshorn