Mid-June on a Tuesday evening every June. My synagogue's by-laws, which a handful of people have read once, requires the congregation to meet at least once a year. Pre-pandemic the assembly took place in person. Once electronic interface became available a Zoom option was added. After perhaps one or two Junes, the in-person option was suspended. I don't remember. But this year we met hybrid, with approximately equal attendance between our sanctuary and the parallel screen. I much prefer being on site with other people who I might poke in the ribs as speakers express ideas that could have been reasoned better. Those always seem plentiful.
The evening's agenda has two mandated items. Our members must formally approve a slate of officers and the coming year's budget by a majority vote, which usually approaches a unanimous vote. A Nominating Committee recycles the VPs each year since a by-laws amendment eliminated term limits for all officers but the President. Some have twelve years experience. Some have two years experience repeated six times. No new individuals added, though minor shuffling of titles. The budget has become predictable. Figures presented, trends noted. As our membership and dues base declined over maybe twenty years, we live off our accumulated wealth much as the seniors who comprise nearly all our membership do. Mostly an evening for the people who occupy many committees to tell the people either not on committees or blackballed from them how wonderful the past year's experience has been for them and therefore should have been for us. Not all of us agree, and each year there are about five fewer of us.
It starts with a welcome from the President, who has led diligently for his three years. The Rabbi offers some words of Scripture and Talmud. Then a list of activities that he did in his official capacity. Then the President speaks. Then we vote on budget and Board Members. For an organization that declines a little each year since I arrived there in 1997, a defector from someplace else, it would have been better to have the VPs each issue a page of what happened under their watch, attach these statements to the email notice of the meeting, and adjourn for pareve cookies. Instead, we heard recycled projects. A list of Torah and Haftarah readers. We have quite a few. A list of people who performed one or more aliyot or haftarot for the first time would have abbreviated that list considerably. I would still be on it. Education Committee. Ample projects. None created by the VP, who still thinks people will flock to signup sheets. Some things do much better when you invite people. A High Holy Day committee. This is rather complex, but it hasn't changed in either format or participants other than our Rabbi's relative newness. We still have designated women's chairs with signs on them usurped by our all-male choir during their break.
I like numbers. Seeing them. Toying with patterns. Playing with them. Imagining how they might be different. What I saw were committees with names of people attached. Mostly the same people on every committee. One VP had the temerity to tell everyone not on them to step to the plate and get on them. First guy I poked in the ribs, having been blocked from two that interested me by the Dominant Influencers who really don't want smart inquisitive types challenging their agenda or process. They don't need or want no help. One of the roles of titled people, one by which folks in my medical world are judged, is the ability to seek out people who can bring knowledge and insight to make each committee more effective. Two Committees have done that, Security and arguably Ritual, with the Rabbi infusing it with imagination and technical knowledge. The rest of what I witnessed registers as Group Think, that invitation to nod last year's activity with nary a what if we did this instead. Nobody challenges anything. Ways & Means, External Communications: No committee, just honcho delegating, and often less than that.
They expressed a desire to reverse our annual membership decline. You do that best by engaging the people you already have. I think I would ask every chairman who they sought out in the last two years to make their portion of our Congregational programming more effective. It's mostly none. Make them each seek out and invite two. Then have the Rabbi and Membership VP get a list of every man, woman, and child, putting a checkmark next to each committee or organization each contributes to. Some will have so many that they should be asked to choose which ones they want. More will have too few. They were never invited, and a few shooed away. Invite them. And then give the VP who chastised those with too few checks next to their name another deserved poke in the ribs to broaden his understanding.
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