Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hot Seat

Tonight belongs to one of those rare evenings. Most evenings, its home, eat dinner, work and/or watch some TV, read a newspaper or maybe attend a meeting. The meetings might be on any particular subject or for anyone of a number of organizations. Very normal unexciting and not worth even mentioning. You might even go so far as to frame them as boring, mundane or less than worthy of bothering anyone with much less below the radar on taking time to document in writing. Welcome to my life.

Well tonight, is different. How you may ask? Well, about a year ago, in moment of weakness I said "yes. I have not been a sucker for a while ... so yes, I will accept the position of Treasurer". Seems simple enough. How hard good that be? I mean I am an accountant, I have done the job before and there is a full time excellent bookkeeper. So how hard could this job be anyway? Did you realize that bookkeeper is one of the very few words with three double letters in a row? Well, that would have been a simple answer with a relatively uneventful year. But no, I am a glutton for punishment. So, Doug could you help us with this old constitution ... it needs a clean-up, wax and shine ... could you find a little bit of time ... shouldn't take too long.

Well, how could I say no. I mean simple straight forward. Just take the old constitution and spruce it up ... update it. How hard could that be?

Well, I do not want to bother you with the gory details. We did go through 35 version changes and probably 40 meetings plus numerous nights typing changes and additions so updated copies could be emailed out, which also required witty email messages. I mean if you there is a groundswell for the details I might consent but we will leave it aside.

Which brings us to tonight ... this evening is the annual synagogue meeting. At this meeting there are four agenda items. I will be presenting two portions of this meeting. As the Treasurer I will be presenting the annual budget and as the chairman of the Constitution Committee, I get to present the revised constitution and new by-laws. Vote yes twice, please.

Now up until yesterday, I was confident about the budget and praying for the sympathy vote on the constitution. Then yesterday, the president stood up and did his Shavuot holiday appeal ... he begged for money to help with the financial crisis. Now when confronted later in the day, he did not even remember using the word "crisis". He did remember telling the congregation that he could see dues going from their current $1,500 to $2,200 in the next couple of years to help pay for our superstar staff in our nationally top ranked synagogue. Even my few friends came up to me and asked me how in good consciousness put forth a budget that expands funding for a new position and higher. Well, well, well ...

I mean there were some good constitution questions that had not been resolved. Could parve cholent really be called cholent? What should the minimum age of the scotch being served in the building be? Could the senior rabbi be a female ... just kidding. Should the youth department also provide programming for the teenager in all of us or the young at heart? Serious stuff.

So, this could be my last post and I say its been nice. My final words of warning ... never volunteer, never go to a meeting, never ask a question at that meeting you forget and actually attend, never say "yes", never even say "okay, I will see if I can make it", in fact just never join.

So long farewell.

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