Enhancing Communication at Congregation Shalom

Keeping Connected – February 2025

Keeping a synagogue running smoothly requires many moving parts. I always knew that, but it becomes even more apparent when in the role of President! All these parts are interconnected, even if they don’t seem so at the surface. An important part of keeping things moving and these parts all connected is how information is communicated to members and to the community outside the temple.

This past month, the board of trustees had an opportunity to hear from Eileen Hirsch about temple communications and how we might improve how we interact with our members as well as how we interact with visitors to our website. A huge thank you to Eileen and the committee who worked on this as well as Lisa Lyman, our amazing school committee chair for her part and support! It was an excellent presentation and gave us an opportunity to see how we might move forward to help improve how people see us on the internet as well as improve communication through better access for our members to forms, ability to make donations, improved school registration, and maintaining member data and an improved calendar. On February 13th at 7pm membership will have an opportunity to hear from Eileen about a forward-thinking plan to help us move ahead to modernize our website and our communication strategy. An invitation to attend this special congregational meeting was sent on January 29th.

At our recent board retreat, I mentioned a quote from Pirkei Avot that says, “Rabbi Tarfon said, it is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.” How we communicate is an ever-evolving challenge, and technology moves so fast that it is important that we continue to work and improve on it; otherwise, it becomes neglected.