Minutes September 20, 2005

Tuesday evening, Sept 20th, at Ethel's. We started close to 7:45 and finished by 9:29.

Attending: Alice, Carol, Emily, Ethel, Lea, Max, Paul, Vicky


STANDARD AGENDA ITEMS:
1) Upcoming Dates & Places:

Neila - Thurs, 10/13 -- Service begins around by 6 pm
Havdalah & break-fast at 7:16 pm.
Ed S will host; Carol will lead.

Sukkot Sat, 10/22 at Claire S & Ed A's

Sat, 11/19
Sat, 12/17
Tues, 1/17 CDM
Sat, 1/21 - Fixlerim
Sun 2/12 Tu B'Shvat (Mindy?)
Sat, 2/18

To be allocated between volunteer houses: Sas, Fixlerim, Mindy, Judy & Mitchell. Max and Paul will followup with
potential hosts.

2) Treasurer's Report from Alice:
Balance began with 680.73
Newsletter mailing 49.50
Childcare 80.00
End balance $551.23

3) Plans for annual appeal letter -- We will base it on last year's letter. Vicky will ask Judy K for her input, and will have
newsletter and appeal sent out by 10/31.
Note: Last year, we averaged ~$43 to $66 per household. We all chimed in about this year's
accomplishments:
Hotsprings. Reached out via Bring a friend shabbat. Vicky's increased our pool of daveners. Sent learned teachers and feminist liturgy to the national havurah institute. Support of bikkur cholim.

4) Followup on outreach
Miryam and Paul said that they'd email a list of people potentially interested in Nishmat. Carol will reshare her
list with M&P after Sukkot.
Lea Delson will post to BayJews + Aquarian Minyan list (add a note about our music being vocal only)

4) Torah service question:
Question raised: should we do our healing circle before or after the Torah is put away? This was extended into a discussion of the order of the service after the Torah reading, and including our custom of sharing good news.
[Here is a list of ideas put out by people]
Mindy emailed ahead: the healing circle should be after the Torah is put away, just before the mourner's kaddish. And
then a song or two after the mourner's kaddish Carol: Healing circle before hagbah and galila, Torah goes back to the Ark, then good news... (Having Torah open is part of the traditional healing)
Max: Amend to put it after hagbah and galila, so that we will have finished the torah service. On a parallel with an aliya with a misha berach, wouldn't do it for the last aliya, because then it's the maftir.
Paul: Potentially have one person as the synthesist of good news.
Ethel: I don't think we have to balance it out. Want it to be after Aleinu. Like Mindy's idea of a closing song, and before announcements, give good news.
Emily: Don't like having one person announce good news. Add some soft gentle reminder about no cross-talk.
Alice: Liturgy broken up by non-liturgy is what doesn't feel right. Carol: Maybe put a shechyanu in there to be more like
liturgy.
Max: Hatov ha' e'metiv may be more appropriate than Shechyanu. It should not be before Aleinu

b) The Torah Service: Kavanot
Discussion of how to make them flow smoothly, based on Mindy's email.
Alex is coordinating with the leyning. Perhaps Miryam, whose talent is remarked upon for coming up with kavanot, can
assist in taking that on. (Carol will do it for Sukkot).

c) Drash
Max explained format for feminist haftorah. Some members have collected into binders items that already speak to the
parsha. (Max has one copy and Alex has another). If we run the Torah service more tightly, we may be able to incorporate
this custom more often.

5) Topics from Ethel:
a) Shalom Bayit as a potential Tzedakah project for Nishmat. They do have space in their office for items that Max might
donate.
Dreamhouse had a coordinator, where the needs were discerned, and communicated to the group, so that the group
would then be able to make a decision as to whether the opportunities match our means and goals (Money, used items,
spiritual guidance, holiday items to assist in Jewish observance). Lea will contact Julie to learn whether we can plug in to help.

b) The mailbag that Nishmat has received in the last few months
Jewish Film Festival, Magnes, Jewish Family & Children's Services of the East Bay, JCL has the film series on Mizrahi + Book Club in a box.

c) Ethel's discussion with Rabbi Kelman of Netivot Shalom - Suggested that Netivot's building be used for Feminist
minyan -- We graciously appreciate the offer, but there was no sense that anyone wanted to take this up at this time.

6) Missing books. Ethel reports that we've found every book except one. Max did an inventory of existing books. We need a better box to transport the Chumashim (The box holds 14 only with a perfect packing, and it would be easy to mistakenly
pack 13).

7) Max needs the labels to be printed before the books go over to Claire's. Paul will print English and Hebrew labels
-- Garamond

8) Support for Alex and Eve (while Eve is dealing with and recovering from back problems.) Meals would be a big help.

AGENDA ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING:

Calendering for spring
Treasurer's report
Concrete plans for working with Shalom Bayit
Followup to discussion on the order of service after the
Torah reading
Eek- we neglected to discuss Tu B'Shvat. Save the date for Sunday evening February 12th!