Blog

Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a nice break over the winter holidays with family and friends.  Last month, we initiated a long-range strategic planning process which looks forward to CBE’s 50^th year Jubilee anniversary in 2024. I wanted to provide an overview of the process, describe the goals of the plan and solicit your participation.

The purpose of the strategic plan is to promote the relevance, growth, and sustainability of Congregation Beth Evergreen. This endeavor will outline a path for CBE’s future and define time-based, supporting objectives and actions. The planning process is inclusive, garnering participation from various CBE constituents (congregants, staff, board and other leaders), community representatives and outside resources. When completed, it will guide planning, decision-making and resource allocation over the next five years culminating in CBE’s 50^th Jubilee Anniversary in 2024.

The goals of the plan are to:

1. Offer opportunities for lifelong learning, meaningful worship and Jewish rituals for the mind, body and soul (Personal Transformation)
2. Generate meaningful communal connections (Community Transformation)
3. Create an environment of tzedakah and social action (Social Transformation)
4. Ensure effective leadership and efficient operations (Organizational Transformation)
5. Foster long-term financial health (Legacy Transformation)

We assembled a core team to work with the Board to oversee the process over the next 5 months. Rabbi Jamie, Lilia Gerberg, Eve Mills, Tara Saltzman, Alan Rubin, Susie Speer, Laurie Walowitz and I will serve as core team members. We are scheduling 6-8 focus groups in January and February to garner your input and really need your participation. These focus groups will be hosted at CBE and in the communities where our congregants reside. Please sign-up for a focus group at a time and location that is convenient for you. Besides a time to provide your input and opinions, it will be a great opportunity to socialize and meet others in the CBE community!

We will be reaching out to you; we need and value your input, feedback, and creative ideas! In early January we will be distributing a survey that can be completed electronically in 15-20 minutes and be conducting 1:1 interviews with external resources in the communities we serve, respected leaders in the broader Jewish community and congregants if a personal interaction is desired.  The purpose of this outreach is to gather information about the community’s goals, needs and wants in order to inform planning, decision-making and resource allocation over the next 5 years.

Please keep an eye out for focus group sign-ups, the survey, and personal reach-outs from Board and strategic planning core team members. We plan to complete the data gathering process by the end of February in preparation for a leadership retreat in early March. Our goal is to complete the plan by the end of April and communicate the outcome to the CBE community in May/June prior to the end of our fiscal year.

We very much look forward to meeting with you and hearing how CBE can best serve our members and the community in which we live for years to come!