Report from the Chair

Iwould like to introduce myself to you all, having been elected Chairman of the TLSE Trustees at the recent Trustees meeting. Lisa and I have been members of TLSE for some 30+ years. I have previously served as Treasurer of the synagogue for a number of years, and Lisa is part of the Lunch Club group providing a monthly luncheon get together for the elder members of TLSE. Our eldest son Daniel is usually seen playing the organ at HHD and other occasions, Adam assists Mike Beral with the Tech for our weekly services, and Rachel has often been seen playing flute at our services. Many of you will already be aware that the TLSE AGM resulted in an almost completely new Trustee board, and we have met twice since then. At the first meeting I was elected Chairman of the Trustees. Our immediate challenges are to deal with the aftermath of a somewhat traumatic recent couple of months that has culminated in the resignation of Rabbi Tanya and the subsequent substantial change to the Trustee board of TLSE. My immediate challenge is therefore to steady the ship and plan to take this community forward.

As those of you who attended the AGM may remember, we also have an immediate challenge of preparing for audit the annual accounts of TLSE to December 2021 and then to file them with the Charity Commission. This in itself is proving to be no small task! As the saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining, and the immediate result of recent events has been (for the first time in memory) 16 TLSE members standing as Trustees at the AGM, and we had to vote to select 12. We now have a almost completely new board, and everyone of the Trustees has an important role to play for the future of TLSE. But taking this community forward is not just a challenge for the Trustees alone. We need to engage You, the TLSE community, and have an open and transparent relationship with our membership. One means to achieve this is communication. Members should be aware that they can attend Trustee Meetings as observers and can request a copy of the minutes. We have the weekly newsletter, and Terry Benson has now revived Hakol. But these times require social media in its many forms, Website, Facebook etc. So one of my first challenges is to find, from within the community, a social media champion to overhaul all elements of our social media presence. I am looking for a volunteer to take on this challenge, ideally from our younger members, but in reality I’m open to all possibilities. Please contact me directly if you are interested in this key role. I will be asking all of my fellow trustees to introduce themselves over the coming weeks in the weekly newsletter, routinely providing updates on their role and plans. Finally, I take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year and I look forward to the challenge of developing further our fabulous community.