Changes in our Newsletter and Weekly Updates

December 2018 Newsletter Article

In our continuing effort to provide the information you are looking for as efficiently as possible, you will be seeing some changes in temple communications in the very near future. A few months ago, we introduced our new website, with its home page designed to show what we’re all about – highlighting our welcoming spirit, the caring nature of our community, and key events. The website home page also gives our members easy access to information on services, events, and more. This was a major first step in a process whose goal is to provide the information you are looking for as easily as possible.

The next steps have been to consider carefully the role of our Newsletter and our Weekly Updates.

For quite a while the Communications Committee has asked the question, “what is the purpose of the Newsletter?” Much of the content of each Newsletter is already being sent to our membership in other ways. This is the right time for us to make a significant change. The Newsletter is being replaced with a much shorter monthly email. No need to worry. Each piece that is being taken out to create a more manageable monthly email will have a new home. Among the Weekly Updates, event-specific emails, and the new monthly email we will be communicating all the same information to you.

We’re still working through the details, but I can give you an idea of what to expect from the new monthly email. It will be the place for our personal connections – thank yous, welcoming new members, yahrzeit dates, etc. It will also be the place where Congregation Shalom business will be posted, from announcing upcoming Annual or Special Meetings to posting the slate of officers to requesting nominations for Congregant of the Year. Our newsletter advertisements will be moved here. We will provide easy links to the Rabbi’s monthly column, as well as to those from the Director of Education and the President. The result will be a much shorter, less labor-intensive monthly communication.

Secondly, our Weekly Updates will be changing somewhat, and the process by which they’ll be created is being revamped.

Starting near the end of this year, the Weekly Updates will be published on Sundays. The Updates will be getting a facelift, including addition of a listing of events for the coming 2-week period so that members can better plan to participate.

For those who are planning events, the Communications Committee is centralizing submissions so that we can give your events the best, most coordinated visibility in our Weekly Update, Facebook postings, and outside publicity. To that end, we’ll be providing a one-stop web-based form that will help you tell us what you need and who your audience is. No more guesswork as to where to send submissions. All committee chairs will be getting more information in the near future from Bob Blumstein when we are ready to make this transition.

Finally, I would like to thank both Katie Ebersman, who has been our Newsletter editor for nearly three years, and Bob Schneider, who has created our Weekly Updates without fail for as long as I can remember. Your efforts have been much appreciated. Going forward the Weekly Updates and the new monthly email will be a collaborative effort of Katie, Eileen Hirsch, and our office staff. I thank each of them for this.

L’shalom