Co-Presidents Corner ~ Georgia Churilla & Rachel Calmas

Last week you received an email asking you to participate in a community-wide survey that will inform our strategic planning initiative. This process is truly a community-wide effort. We need to hear your voice! Please take 10 minutes to complete the survey before the deadline THIS THURSDAY! *

An Ohabei Shalom team has been established to work closely with our CJP Leadership Development Institute consultants to lead us in our strategic planning. The strategic planning work is entirely separate from our clergy transition although both of these initiatives are on-going. The following individuals comprise the strategic planning leadership team:

Rabbi Berkman
Rachel Calmas
Danielle Dykeman
Mara Goldstein
Naomi Gurt Lind
Andy O’Connell
Josh Paradise

This team of thoughtful and committed individuals will facilitate this process and are taking care of a lot of logistics and planning behind the scenes in order to ensure that the process goes smoothly and that we are able to incorporate your input into our vision and strategic plan. Once this team has compiled all of the survey results we’ll come together as a community to share the survey results and hold focus groups in order to dive into deeper discussion. The community meeting will be held on January 28, at 2 pm.

At the same time that our strategic planning work is under way we are also proceeding in our clergy transition. We are pleased to report that Rabbi Berkman will continue to be with us in the years to come and that we’ll be centering our clergy leadership around her. The board has had many fantastic discussions regarding our clergy needs and will soon determine what additional clergy role we need to fill in the coming interim year. While the strategic planning work is entirely separate from our clergy transition work, we are excited to see the results of the strategic planning in order to inform our long-term clergy transition.

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions or thoughts that you would like to share.

b’Shalom
Georgia Churilla and Rachel Calmas

* The survey can be completed anonymously if desired. Regardless of whether you sign the survey, the only people who have access to the information in the survey are the members of the leadership team listed above and the consultants we have engaged through CJP. Please speak freely as your input is important and helpful!