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Dear Kol Haskalah community,
I hope you are all having a nice spring, and that all this rain will leave you with some beautiful flowers. I write today with an update and a request.
First, the update. It is now time for our Annual Meeting to choose Board members and Officers and approve a budget. This would be the first meeting since our Special Meeting on November 8, 2021, where we elected Board members and officers. For those who weren’t there:
- Marcia Gumpertz agreed to handle membership coordination and was subsequently elected to the Board by the Board to fill a vacancy.
- Anne Gordon agreed to be the Board liaison to the Sunday School.
- Karen Century agreed to be Treasurer.
- I agreed to be President, hoping that Covid was waning and we could regroup and grow.
- Later we identified an accountant to help with financial management and Karen has been working with her.
- Due to your support, our financial health is good, and the board members at the Special Meeting were excited to re-start the congregation as well as the Sunday School.
Unfortunately, there was no “post Covid” as we were hoping. The virus mutated and people again stayed home; programming was sparse, our Community Seder had to cancel due to an exposure in the host’s family, and we had only limited response to an online program about Humanistic Passover. The Sunday School, too, has had issues due to health complications of staff and students, and the classes ended up meeting only sporadically, often cancelling last-minute. There are only about 3-4 families enrolled, not enough to break out into age-appropriate groupings, and at present we have no way to recruit new families. The Mitzvah class is faring slightly better, but thus far we have no mitzvah students in next year’s class. In the past, we have relied upon school enrollment to be the entry point into the Congregation, but we do not have enough infrastructure to expect that to happen this year.
Looking forward to the fall, we attempted to assess the interest in High Holiday celebrations, but received only limited response, leaving us hesitant to pay a non-refundable deposit or enlist Dan Zachary’s help to do the music if we aren’t sure anyone is going to attend. We understand that it is hard to predict what will feel safe.
At this point, there is growing uncertainty about continued programming. Even my role as President is uncertain; due to increased vulnerabilities in my family, I have limited activities and I am not in a position to attend any public events, meetings, or Sunday School gatherings for the foreseeable future.
All this leads us to my request: What we need now is your participation.
Response to our Special Meeting in November was terrific, so much so that finances are no longer a problem. But now we need more than money:
- We need someone to write and distribute an e-newsletter.
- We need someone to update the website.
- We need people to take charge of organizing the high holidays celebrations and other holidays using the checklists for each holiday to assist in the planning.
- We also need help with the Sunday School; prior Sunday school families would need to recommit, help revise the curriculum, and help us find other families to join.
- We need new families and individuals. If you know other humanistic Jews (or any other Jews, really) who might be interested in joining the congregation and/or Sunday School, please let us know so we can reach out.
- We need a new President who can do outreach, and at least one more board member to meet the minimum required by the bylaws (but preferably three more to share the work).
I know we are all tired of this pandemic and feeling over-stretched, but without the help of everyone in the congregation, Kol Haskalah may be another casualty of Covid. I am attaching a copy of the Minutes from the Special Meeting and the Notice of the Annual Meeting on June 12, 2022. I hope that you will each think about what you can do to sustain Kol Haskalah, and log into the Annual Meeting with ideas, inspiration, and a plan for action. While we have not developed a budget (because we don’t know what we will need, if anything), we will have a better sense after we gauge interest at the Annual Meeting.
I hope we will keep this congregation alive; I know there is a desire to have a humanistic congregation in the community, and it has such potential to be a source of Jewish cultural awareness for our kids and a community touchstone for the adults. But I also know we have to be realistic, and if there isn’t enough interest (and elbow grease) to keep this going, it might be best to put things on indefinite hold or dissolve.
I hope to see you at the Annual Meeting to talk about these issues and support each other as a community; in these times of climate change, election uncertainty, reproductive injustice, and more, it is that much more important to come together to be here for each other.
To join the Annual Meeting, please email cathylynnmoore@gmail.com to request the Zoom link. Any other questions about membership, community involvement, or board interest, please also email cathylynnmoore@gmail.com.
All the best,
Cathy Moore
President, Kol Haskalah
cathylynnmoore@gmail.com
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE NOVEMBER 2021 MEETING MINUTES
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ANNUAL MEETING NOTICE - JUNE 12, 2022
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