Thoughts and Comments from Year 1

Hope everybody is having a great start to the summer.

As I wind down my first year serving as President I wanted to reflect on some experiences, thoughts, and ideas.

Biggest Surprise- If you are not involved in many of the day to day operations, you miss the fact that we have a very strong group of young developing leaders who work diligently to make our Shul great. I am very excited and energized by all the young volunteers we have involved. Our future looks very bright and strong!

Biggest Disappointment- I feel there are many programs and projects I wanted to get accomplished this past year and just did not get them done. Like a lot of things, I guess you need to be realistic about timelines. I plan to continue on the path of further development of leadership and tweaking our programming to meet the needs of our diverse members.

Changes to Make- I refuse to let those who speak negatively of our congregation (or the Middle Georgia Jewish Community as a whole) suck our time and energy. I suggest all members distance yourself from those who continually suck our time and energy with negativity. We have too many great things happening to allow time to be wasted on negativity. Just as we as Jews stand up for rights of others, we need to stand up to those who try to suck our energy with negativity.

We do have a wide age spread with our members. We try to figure out programming to make all facets of our kehilla feel engaged. To grow and further develop as a vibrant Jewish community, we need to be open to looking at things differently. What are those things you would like to see to enable you to feel more fulfilled as a Jew in Middle Ga?

While I have served as President this past year, I have leaned heavily this past year on our past Presidents to help me. Thank you to Theresa Rosengart, Anne Bayme, and Shelley Davidson.

It also is pretty easy serve as President with the team of Aaron and Sharona. We are so very fortunate to have these two and their family as part of our Kehilla. Thank you both for your dedication and commitment.

Lastly, how many of you knew that we have great bow and arrow expert who used this skill in maintaining the Shul. Brian, you are amazing!!! I will let him explain. It’s a great story! Probably falls under you aint going to believe this type story!