Volunter Frustration

Sometimes facts and circumstances get the better of you. Sometimes it brings you to say something stupid. Sometimes after the fact you realize what the right response was. Well, because of facts, the other night I could not sleep. Now, it was not my normal I can not sleep but rather I could not sleep because of smart people doing stupid stuff. This is not uncommon. Happens all the time. This time it really bothered me. So, since I am a passive aggressive non direct confrontational kind-a-guy, I decided to document my frustrations. Below is the actual e-mail sent out to twelve people. I have gotten one response which said "good job ... good working agenda ... lets go". The response was not from the president or Rabbis who I have not heard from yet. Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest.


Dear Rabbis, Former, Current and Future Executive Board Members,

I want to be clear from the outset, I am writing from a point of frustration. The frustration is not with you but rather with us, the Executive Board, the leadership of the Synagogue. For the future Exec Members, now that you have accepted membership to this illustrious group you should at least know the immediate history from one perspective. Again, any of the issues and lack of progress are as much my fault as an Officer as any ones.

We have spent this last year dealing with trivia, ignoring the big issues, being reactive instead of proactive, and looking down at our feet instead of looking forward.

We started the year without setting up any standing committees and I am not sure if we ever established those committees.

We talked about long range planning and that was what it was talk for a very short period of time.

Knowing how a successful High Holiday fund raising process should be done from the prior year’s experience, we waited until the last minute to haphazardly try to implement a plan. As a result of the lack of advance work, we missed our budget by over $20,000. The independent analysis of our High Holiday fund raising indicated that even in our best year, for various reasons, we raise substantially less than other South Florida synagogues in this fund raising category.

We eliminated an unknown fundraiser from the calendar and by unknown I mean a fund raiser put in the budget without a plan to just balance said budget. Therefore, we were behind another $40,000.

So, in October, we knew that our income was at least $60,000 below budget; we collectively chose to ignore the upcoming consequences until April when we cried “crisis”.

A bright spot in the year was the Annual Dinner / Ad Book. With the kind of hard work that produces results, we did have an Annual Dinner / Ad Book that achieved its budget objectives, if we collect the last of the outstanding money.

There was much talk about transparency as if it should be a goal by itself. To achieve this goal, we told the Congregation that we were in a “financial crisis” and needed critical help covering our shortfall. We successfully convinced a significant portion of our membership that BRS is a sinking ship without leadership or concern for the member’s money. Why should I send money to a sinking ship? We expressed panic like a bunch of … I can not say it nicely. Our cash flow problem began back in October and we did nothing about it like it would go away. We waited until the 11th hour and then cried wolf … “crisis” … and opened the conversation to why do we keep it so cold, how come certain staff make so much, why do we need all of these paper hand-outs, and other wasteful spending habits by an administration that obviously does not care about how the money is spent but only wants more. Whether any of that is true is immaterial when our customers, the members, think it. The reality means nothing against their perceptions. We are not in front of the issue.

Even more so after we cried “financial crisis”, knowing we only had one more fund raiser up our sleeves, the Golf Outing … knowing that we were in a budget deficit mode, we ignored this event as well until, as normal, a couple of weeks before the event. As its tradition has become, it had to be postponed. We ask people for sponsorship and yet make the window that they benefit from that advertising of their sponsorship to basically no time. So, the result will be maybe a $15,000 - $20,000 net instead of the $50,000 it should achieve. Again, we will probably have fewer golfers than most other golf outings, certainly than my small synagogue in Milwaukee with a membership of 90 families as opposed to our 631 membership units.

As a number of people who came up to me after the Annual Meeting saying that they felt the Executive Board members were insensitive to their concerns about rising costs. Again, perception is what matters. In response to tightening family budgets, they heard … it’s only a few thousand dollars here or a few thousand dollars there. These were people to whom a few thousand dollars any where is a significant amount and do not care that it was a slight percentage out of a $1.2 million dollar budget. All they heard was don’t worry, be happy, it’s only a small percentage.

Our leadership, by their own statement, spent an enormous amount of time on the “Shul by the Grove” issue. This group is extremely small and even though its members have more money than they know what to do with act like children, and they certainly by their actions do not understand the word “community”. Now for the vast majority of the membership, SBTG is a non entity, not something on their radar. We escalated the issue by sending out an email with “the conflict at Shul by the Grove that has escalated”. Now whether the Executive Board agreed to send out a mass email or not is not the issue. We could have said nothing. Sometimes if you keep your mouth shut, people do not know if you are silly or not but once you open it up … there is no doubt. We could have walked away weeks ago, taking the high ground instead of trying to get the children to play nicely with each other. We could have called them into one meeting and done who knows what. The bottom line is that in hindsight it is evident that one side was in fact planning for the future. We on the other hand were reactive. We did provide plenty of Shabbat talk for people who never spoke about SBTG before.

We have not spent any real time talking about the fact that the Capital Funds amount to $125,000 and we have impending cost of replacing air conditioners and roofs with cost unknown but certainly beyond our present funds. In fact at the budget presentation either before the Executive Board, Board of Directors and the General Membership the Capital Budget was basically not discussed. This marked the sixth year in a row for it non discussion.

We continue to brag about being cutting edge, premier Synagogue, one of the best if not the best the country with our Superstar staff. Yet we act like small time players. We spend excess time hearing meaningless reports discussing trivia while missing the boat on the important issues.

The following represent an incomplete to-do list – in no particular order:

Have 2008-09 Dues Statements gone out?
There has been discussion about a Pillars Dues Group ... when will the proposal be presented to the Executive Board and the Board of Directors for approval?
The upcoming Adult Education brochure should be printed in black and white. Even if we do not save any real money, it will send a message that we are trying to be cost conscious. We also do not need to send it out around the world. This is ego spending which we can not afford.

The thermostats should be set no lower than at least 76 degrees, and maybe higher, during the operational day. If the men are too warm on Shabbat, they can take their suit coats off.

We should consider having one Shabbat a month without hand-outs, note sheets for the Rabbi’s class. Make the notes available online, and if someone wants them let them print out the 5-10 pages.

We need to convene a small committee, with some new eyes, immediately to review how and what we charge for Kiddushes and other services. Our process should include finding out what other halls charge caterers and function holders. Should we charge for the use of our chairs, tables and dishware? Should we charge extra when our labor is involved in set-up or clean-up? How much a caterer should be charged … per body, a fixed fee or something else? I do not have the answers but we need to deal with this issue because I fear we are leaving money on the table as opposed to in our bank account.

We had a Rabbi come talk about the rules for moving the Mechitza. This is an issue that weekly makes our women angry, and rightfully so, when they can not hear the speaker or the Bar / Bat Mitzvah speech. There was supposed to be a halachically acceptable alternative. Yet, there has been no discussion at the Executive Board level. I propose that this modification be made as soon as possible … hopefully over the summer. It would be a nice way to demonstrate that we care.

The High Holiday Fund Raising committee should be formed immediately so that we actually achieve or exceed the budget goal.

In accordance with the new By-Laws, the portfolios of the Vice Presidents should be determined soon, so they can get moving. The standing committee chairs new to be found.

A year ago, there was an analysis about an additional air conditioner unit over the Library, I believe. As I understand, it would pay for itself within one year and yet no action has taken place. This project should be completed ASAP.

A Building Facilities committee should be established and it should deal with the day-to-day issues. These should not be 15-30 minute item on the Executive Board’s agenda unless there is something that requires a meaningful decision.

We are on the edge of a Capital Fund predicament. A building committee should be convened to review what needs to be done, entertain bids for the appropriate projects with a time table. We can then determine if a special assessment will be necessary (I believe it will) and the actually plan how to present this to the general membership.

Special requests for projects should not be undertaken until donated money is in hand. For instance we should not enter into an arrangement where a cantor is hired, we start paying and there is some promise of a future donation. Nor, should accept the statement that the money I gave you for no apparent reason a month or two ago should now be allocated to a future cost which was unbudgeted.

We budgeted for an additional administrative staff person so we can be more effective. Has a help wanted ad been placed? What are we waiting for?

We should never ever use the word … “crisis” … unless the building is currently burning. If want transparency in our actions, we should make sure the emperor is actually wearing clothes.

I find myself very frustrated. Please do not think that I think I am so much smarter and would have done it different. I am not smarter, nor do I have any special insight or third eye. The point is that together we should be smarter and actually be leaders, that is what I signed up for and I personally want to do a better job, better that I did last year.

In conclusion, these issues are not “oh, I was right and those people were so wrong”. I clearly and completely accept that as a member of the Executive Board I did not do my job completely. With this last year’s experience behind me I want to do a better job. We need to do a better job. If we can’t do a better job, we should step aside and let someone else try their hand it.


Respectfully,