Here is the Chair’s report of 12th July 2009 - reporting back on the last year:
Chair’s AGM Report - 2009 
This has been my first year as Chair and a busy year it has been. Here is a round-up of the life of our community over the past year, with apologies for anything I’ve missed out.
Our High Holy Day services were led by student Rabbi Lea Muhlstein, who also led two Shabbat services for us in 2008. Lea’s reflective and relaxed style won her a lot of praise, and I think we all thought she was unobtrusively exceptional. We celebrated Sukkot and Chanukah with the help of our Cheder children. We also marked Tu B’Shvat and Passover with Seders (thank you to Cath Platt and Michele Saffer) and Shavuot with cheesecake!
Very sadly, three of our members died during the year: Zena Boxer, Harry Brooke and Bernard Rosenberg. Thanks to all who helped to give them all a fitting farewell, especially Howard Saffer, Keith Sayliss, Penny and Tony Kay and Cath Platt. Their families remain in our thoughts. We had beginnings as well as endings, with a Shabbat service to bless Ruth Mason and Richard Fletcher’s lovely baby Hannah. I doubt any of us had ever seen so many babies at one of our services!
The fitting out of our newer scroll advanced in the year with the completion of a beautiful new breastplate by Katey Felton. We met with Katey to talk over her unusual and elegant designs for the rimmonim which she is now making and we hope to have with us in time for this year’s High Holy Days. Meanwhile we have replaced the atzei chaim (rollers), which not only do the job better but are also a lot more pleasing on the eye. We have also found that the scroll needs a lot of repair work. Our thanks to all those who have made donations towards this. So far we have raised more than £1000 towards the expected bill of £3500.
The Cheder has gone from strength to strength under the leadership of Barbara and Abbie Blumsohn. I don’t want to go over the same ground as their report, just to thank them and their team for their work with the cheder, children below cheder age and our young people.
A group of us went to a film about Hannah Senesh at the Showroom, and had a meal beforehand. A few of us attended a wonderful story telling evening by Shonaleigh Cumbers. And a hugely successful weekend away in Derbyshire, led by Lea Muhlstein and organised by Howard Saffer, gave some members a chance to reflect, learn, walk and get to know each other.
Omer, our newsletter, has been issued four times in the year. We aim for more, but it is a truly enormous task. Thanks to Jon Colman and his helpers and to everyone who has written for it, often unbidden. It is a great read and gives an excellent account of our community.
After consultation with members at a special meeting last May and then at the 2008 AGM, we proceeded to recruit a part-time worker. To be honest this did not work out and we decided after much careful thought not to confirm our employee’s contract at the end of her probationary period. It’s also true that some members have been unhappy with the course of events. The overall purpose of this exercise was of course to increase the volume and range of activity in our community; there are of course different ways of trying to achieve this, but the key difficulty is that we are short of volunteer time, and (more so than this time last year) of income, as you will see in our Treasurer’s report. So there are no easy answers. The 2009 AGM will include a discussion about what to do next, which I hope will help us all to reflect and reach a consensus. I suggest we first ask what we ought to do, and then consider how to pay for it.
The committee has spent time discussing and planning new activity for our community, including a programme of evening courses, better provision for older or ill or isolated members, quarterly special services and more cultural events. A key aim is to provide things for people outside our known circle, especially non-religious activity (a community as opposed to just a synagogue, as it were). Over the next year much of this should certainly become more visible. On the other hand the shortage of volunteer time, in and out of the committee, simply slows this down.
Behind the scenes, we proceeded with the incorporation of our organisation, agreed last year to protect committee members from personal liability. Aside from some small final steps this process is now complete, and we are operating now as a charitable company, a robust structure for any future developments. Next year’s AGM will be its first. We also concluded the review of our investments (see the Treasurer’s report), with the invaluable help of Jeremy Loeb, Alan Buckley, Sue Vice and Howard Saffer. A meeting of service leaders looked at our use of the new Siddur and at how to vary from time to time the content of our services. Our burials sub-committee met to review how we deal with this important and delicate area of our work.
The Movement for Reform Judaism provided a Shabbaton in Lincoln and an education day in Manchester, which a number of members attended. We have lost (due to funding problems) the MRJ Northern office, but have maintained strong links with people at the national office and with the network of Northern congregations, and attended meetings in the region and in London.
As for links in Sheffield, the old Sheffield Jewish Representative Council has fallen into disuse recently, so lines of communication with the orthodox synagogue have not been at their best. Both synagogues’ committees have now agreed to look at reviving the SJRC with a slimmer structure more suited to current conditions. I am working on this with Sir Irvine Patnick, one of their Vice Presidents, and we will continue to report back to our committees as we progress.
Meanwhile we are well connected to other faith communities in the city: Cath Platt remains the Jewish representative on the Sheffield Faiths Forum, and the late Bernard Rosenberg and I have been involved with the Faith Leaders Group. A shared concern is the electoral advance of the British National Party. I believe this is a key issue for our community, which it is time to take very seriously. A discussion of this will be held at the AGM – please come and take part.
There are quite a few very busy people doing their bit to keep this Congregation in good shape – my deep thanks to you all, and apologies to any I have failed to mention by name in this report. I particularly want to thank the Committee for doing an absolutely sterling job in what have not been easy times. There is always more to do than time to do it in, but the committee has worked very hard indeed and has done some careful and astute decision making on difficult issues. Thanks especially to Cath Platt, who is standing down after a heroic 12 years, Ruth Mason who after 6 years is now going to concentrate on growing our community instead of running it, and Jeff Popkin who has kept a clear grip on our finances in a year which has been far from routine.
In January we celebrate our 21st birthday. We have already booked a place for a special service and a special ‘do’ on 30th January, so please keep the date free and watch this space!
John Speyer
Chair - SDRJC
|