One of the most important things to do over the next few weeks is to find people to lead the five seasonal teams. Each seasonal team will have, roughly, 3-5 people on it, including the team lead. The people on the seasonal teams don’t do everything, but they are responsible for everything getting done or definitively cancelled with reasonable notice.
The job of the seasonal lead is to coordinate the work of the team, and to communicate the team’s needs and plans with the Outlook editor (and other similar “support” volunteers), Keddem’s staff, the Board, and the members. It’s also the seasonal lead’s job to let people know when a scheduled event is on the verge of being cancelled (and when it is, in fact, cancelled).
The five seasons, and the events on which they focus, are:
- Spring: Purim party, Pesach services and seder, Yom haShoah, Yom haZikaron, and Yom haAtzma’ut (the last three are normally community-wide events).
- Summer: Shavuot* (coordinating with the community Tikkun Leyl Shavuot), Keddem annual meeting an elections, annual picnic, HHD preparatory study sessions (working with the HHD Team).
- HHD: All aspects of the High Holy Days per se, including facilities, services, logistics, leadership, and execution for Rosh haShanah and Yom Kippur services, Tashlich walk, and the Yom Kippur afternoon study workshops.
- Fall: Congregational break fast following Yom Kippur, Sukkot (including building or finding a sukkah to use), Dinner under the Stars, Simchat Torah.
- Winter: Chanukah party, December 25th lecture, participation in and publicizing of the Feast of Jewish Learning (community event), Tu b’Shevat.
Each of the seasonal teams is also responsible for ensure that the logistics for the regular Keddem events—BLL, Torah study, Shabbat services—are handled. My current thinking is that the seasonal teams get assistance from a small group of support teams (e.g., Outlook editor, BLL speaker coordinator). I’ll have more thoughts on the support teams in a future blog.
Are you passionate about Purim, high on the High Holy Days, love to feast on Jewish learning and latkes? Are you a builder, or a budding playwright, or someone who loves trees and flowers and plants, or someone who yearns to share a casual picnic in the park with friends? Volunteer! If you’re interested in leading a seasonal team, please let the Board and me know!
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* Thanks, Elaine, for noting the initial unintended omission of Shavuot. Note that it’s unclear whether this “should” go with the Spring Team or Summer Team: Summer has fewer events, but it’s more of a spring holiday.
Nice idea to place the break-the-fast with the Fall team rather than HHD — since HHD has a LOT to do in a short time.
Please don’t omit Shavuot — it should be on the list. I think it is best placed with the Summer team. This mostly just involves coordinating with the community Tikkun Leyl Shavuot at KE (including doing our service there.)
I continue to be concerned about the need for operations support, continuity of care, and institutional memory.
In addition to the seasonal events and activities, all require support and coordination for facilities, communications and publicity, funding,resolution of food and ritual issues, etc. It seems there is a need for a matrix model so as not to burden the event owners with having to learn about all these details on the fly or find the tasks overwhelming.
The lack of consistent operations support is what has made recruiting volunteers so difficult. I fear the current plan is just shuffling the deck chairs.
Perhaps we can build out the matrix of seasonal activities on one axis, with a list of operational functions / core competencies on the other. Without individual volunteers to cover the Core competency list the seasonal leads will get frustrated and burn out quickly. If this feels like re-inventing the wheel – so be it. Its still seems necessary.
It is not yet clear to me, maybe I missed it, how Congregational functions such as Ritual, Education, communications and facilities would function in the proposed seasonal structure.
Is there an explanation somewhere, or is this something we still need to discuss? Somewhere this needs to be analyzed and formalized. Are these all functions held by individual on the Board, or will the Board be composed of the chairs of these Committees?
Additional community functions not yet addressed in the Seasonal model are Shalom and Social Support, Library and Torah, Tikkun Olam, in addition to Ritual and Education activities.
These are ongoing year round responsibilities that are integral to the community. While they have seasonal elements they are long term elements of the fabric of the community. They are what define us as a community and congregation and bind us together.
This is offered as a constructive concern, not a criticism. Is this work already in progress? How can I and others help?
And finally, Membership development – both in-reach for engagement and retention, and outreach for recruitment of new members – and re-engagement of former members.
This is not a seasonal issue, but an ongoing challenge. We ignore this at our peril. The Communications Committees activities are the nervous system connecting our geographically dispersed community. The world of the congregation / community gets done in the committees.
When we have accomplished the challenge of bringing new participants in the doors to our Shabbat services and festival celebrations they need to be welcomed and we need mechanisms for follow-up. I’ve experienced the frustration of a six month recruiting effort to bring people to Friday night services, only to have them never return after experiencing a 7 person turn-out. Unfortunately, this has happened with different people on several occasions.
Its all connected.
How will these changes make Keddem warmer, more welcoming and engaging, stimulating and rewarding, a place people will eagerly put their precious limited time, energy and money into?