February 26, 2020
7:06PM start
Attending: Sara Serisky, Serena Brown, Aaron Beitman, Ron Serisky, Jeanne Penn, Andrea Lipman,
Jeff Lipman, Emily Levine, Jim Taber, Mark Greenberg, Allison Leonard, Gary Garber, Ellen Shore, Ruth
Greenholz, Liza Weinstein, Yael Mazor-Garfinkle, Hilary Finkel Buxton, Rabbi Jessica Lowenthal
Shout outs:
Anne Starr, Ron, Evans re: phishing recovery.
Membership committee: shout out! Wonderful work all around! Thank you.
Communication alert for flyer, Hilary and Aaron
Shout out Serena for Rabbi Jessica – for baby naming.
Shout out for Ron for Shabbat Across America.
For Serena for mishloach manot!
Notes: Purim bags will be packed on Saturday March 7 at 4:30. Delivered on Sunday.
Reminder about daylight savings. Sara will run facepainting at carnival; Emily will run bakesale.
Board prayer.
Minutes approved from last month.
Nomination of new GC for 2020-21
Sara:
Serena will be nominated to be our new president
Emily will be nominated to be our new VP
Aaron will be nominated to be school chair
We need VP of community affairs
Also open is a VP of finance position. Haven’t had one on the board in a long time.
Not all roles that we have on the board are in the by-laws… but most are.
Ruth is not coming back. Director’s role open.
Once elected, Aaron moving over to his new role.
We need to add a Director of Communications. Discussion.
Elena Clouser will be retiring from shopping.
More on the VP for finance opening:
VP finance. We haven’t had one for a number of years. Discussion of formal relationship.
Finance committee – Rob Gati, Phil Kukura, Dorothy Hoyland, Bob Eskind, possible that they might want
to step up for a nomination?
Julia Chen? Sara will ask.
Then a possible nomination for backup is Bernard De Cunha possibly? He works for TIAA. Serena will
ask if Julia can’t work on this.
Ellen: Offers ideas to collect more dollars – estate planning, etc. That should also be part of this
person’s process.
Yael: Endowments for objects in temple?
Co-Treasurers – Jeanne and Ellen to be nominated.
Secretary – Hilary to be nominated.
Past President: Sara to be nominated.
Directors: Gary, Yael, Andrea, Jim all to be nominated.
2 Vacancies – 1 nomination: Shelly Simons. Jeff has a suggestion of reaching out to Jared Moss for the
other vacancy.
Sara: Community affairs may not have to be on the board?
Suggested: Ana DeCunha to be nominated for VP community affairs
Or Hannah Miller?
Liza: Education committee can be a bit of a “feeder” for the board for nominations.
Communications – discussion of “Free At Last” flyer that had issues.
Discussion of bringing on a VP for Communications to oversee everything.
Discussion of mailing lists. Discussion of moving lists to website and what it will take to clean, move, and
create new lists.
Emily – suggestion of paying someone and farming it out.
Suggested: Rowan Marcus can help.
Jeanne – communications person doesn’t need to be on the board. Need to nominate someone who has
experience in how you communicate widely, and team management.
Ron – Could be a working session. Few steps away from making this happen. Need to identify someone
to oversee it.
Table concept for now.
Conversation continues with succession planning.
Liza: Elisheva G or Josh G. should be nominated to sit on the board, they are so engaged.
Josh G. for Education next year?
Other names to be nominated in the future: Tug Yourgrau, Nancy Kukura, Debbie Kivel, Kate Saragosa,
Elena Clouser. Alana Bortinger. Melissa Curley. Michael Panis. Bootsie Vainer. Rachel Gooze. Jamie
Goudreau. Natalie DeNardo.
(Secretary note: suggestions were being thrown out quickly. Typos very possible.)
Send an email out to school / ed members, general email. Go out within the next few weeks.
Tom Champoux recommended for a nomination for Communications position.
Aaron will reach out to Ana to see if there’s interest in a nomination.
Liza will reach out to the Gregorzewskis.
More discussion about communications piece not being a board position.
Discussion.
Communications group should meet.
- Children at Services Policy Review
Aaron reads the policy (previously circulated)
Sara adds: Possibility to add something about no running in sanctuary.
Discussion.
Jeff: How will we communicate this information?
Sara: Include a friendly, warm version of this in announcements, and post them outside.
Andrea: Add into announcements that start service.
Hilary will update script.
Allison: Send script and get it laminated.
Suggested: using warm words – Intentional community; expectations. Inclusive community, spiritual, we
want children, but they need to follow, etc etc.
Allison: What do we do if people don’t adhere to this policy
Sara: Gently remind people.
Discussion of children and behavior.
Yael: Suggests alternative activities outside of the sanctuary. Conservative temples have “Junior
Congregation.”
Emily: Specifically designate services that are kid-friendly. Very helpful.
Sara: Add a shortened version to the beginning of services. Post blurb?
Rabbi Jessica: Will write about this in the bulletin and this will lead naturally into a posting.
Table topic for further discussion.
- Purchase of a defibrillator
Discussion.
*Yael would like to contribute / donate for paying for this.
Jim: We will need training. Coverage at every service. Rabbi Jessica should be trained.
Board member training. On the bucket list. Three skills are coupled together: CPR, Defib, First Aid.
Action: Jim to research training. Jim – perhaps CJP would help?
Start with Rabbi Jessica being trained. And then the rest.
Jeanne: Prioritize purchasing. Jim will research purchasing. - TBS Green Committee
Rabbi Jessica – committee will examine how we can make TBS more sustainable.
Jim: Mission is to raise awareness at TBS of environmental challenges. Promote sustainable practices.
First thing – single use plastic—eliminate. Proved a little more complicated than expected. Making
progress.
Stopped buying plastic plates, bowls, cups. Converting to 100% paper. We have a budget item for
papergoods/supplies. Same budget.
Use up what we have and convert over.
Additional – buying flatware. Tablecloths. – $500
112 sets eventually needed. Purchased 24.
Goal is to do this by the new year. Will submit a proposal.
Discussion of finances and how to accommodate. - Annual meeting dates proposed
Best date seems to be June 14. 5PM.
Fun activity. Speed Dating as an ice breaker.
Meeting adjourned: 9:10PM
ADDENDUM – COMMITTEE REPORTING (Sent via email) - Families with Young Children – Aaron
TBS Children at Services Policy
February 2020
• TBS is a welcoming and inclusive community
• Children are encouraged to attend services with their families
• With children at services, there will be some level of background noise
• While children are in the sanctuary, please ensure that they are sitting quietly and respectfully in
order to not disturb service attendees
• Children are not permitted on the bimah, unless explicitly asked by the rabbi or a designated TBS
member
• For children feeling a little restless, please assist your child in going to the lobby area to play
quietly with others
• Parents with children in the lobby are expected to monitor their children, including adhering to
TBS security protocols
+Treasurer’s Report – Jeanne and Ellen
We continue to be on track with budget, nothing notable to call out as a concern this month.
(Secretary’s note: details saved and shared upon request.)
- Financial Report – Jeff
Here is my financial secretary report.
Close to an A report.
We are slightly behind on collection for Shalom School versus this time last year. Slightly.
We are ahead on dues collection versus last year.
The goal I set forth for new members during our budget meeting last year was ten. I am happy to report
that based on Feb 2019 (89 members) to 2020 (101 members) we are up 12 membership units to prior.
GREAT NEWS!!!!!
We also now have a VENMO account. This allows us to take membership payments without fees to us.
People can use this method for anything. Temple events, dues, Shalom School, donations and I can use
this method with payment plans instead of using a one time credit card payment that we are forces to
because of administrative fees. I would like to do a constant contact email with this information and
include our QR code for payments. The one challenge here is that we are not the only Temple Beth
Shalom. I set us up as Temple Beth Shalom – Melrose, MA. We just need to make sure members know
to look for the full name when sending payment that they do not scan with the QR code. - Community Affairs – Emily
No new business for VP Community Affairs report this month
Conversations about Whiteness started this past weekend. - School committee report – Allison
Purim Carnival is March 8th.
Jeff, is there a way we can pilot using Venmo for the admission fee?
We asked teachers for feedback and got some housekeeping requests.
- Who ever is in contact with the cleaners please ask them to not erase the white boards or put things
away that are on the table. This was specific for Mitch who teaches in the first classroom upstairs. He is
asking that they just clean the floors. - It was pointed out that the way the door opens to the first classroom upstairs is a fire hazard. When
leaving the room, you have to close the door to get around it before you can go down
the stairs. Opening that first classroom door blocks the way to the stairs.
Aaron has agreed to be nominated to serve as co-vp of education next year!