Dear colleagues:

I wish you all a zissen pesach and a wonderful time with family and friends.   I hope that you have time to enjoy the coming of spring and a hint of summer.

It has been a very busy few months since our amazing conference in Alexandria, and I want to share our recent NATA board meeting with you.
We met at the Steve Breuer Conference Center, Malibu, California, from March 1st through March 3rd.   The board was joined by the nominating committee and the 2012 Detroit Conference chairs and education co-chairs.  We also had a number of invited guests:  Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein, senior Rabbi from Central Synagogue; Barbara Saidel, Chief Operating Officer, URJ; and Dale Glasser, Senior Congregational Advisor, URJ.  Some of our local colleagues also participated in some of our meetings.  Ellen Franklin helped with the entire program, and she and Kathy Small were terrific organizers of the weekend.

Besides the business of NATA, our conversation focused around questions of the role we should be playing individually as executive directors and as an organization in the evolving world of Reform Judaism.  We asked ourselves what it means to be a Jewish professional in this chaotic and changing constellation of Jewish community, and tried to place our NATA work into the broader context of the conversations that are taking place about Reform Judaism, its national institutions, and its local organizations.

Rabbi Rubinstein, our first speaker and my senior Rabbi, challenged us to move beyond the idea of the three legged stool model or the idea of leading from the second chair.  Instead, he argued, we were in a unique position to help our own congregations, lay and professional leadership to change and grow and develop to meet the emerging needs of the next generation of Jews.    Rabbi Rubinstein pushed us to think about ourselves as significant change agents and change catalysts, willing to take risks and to challenge the status quo.   He noted that there are many assumptions that were stifling our movement and our congregations including:

• Our institutions are places of ultimate democracy and elitism is evil.  Rabbi Rubinstein argued that that leadership is about having unique skills and talents, and congregations should not be afraid to ask those who have special qualities to be leaders.   Having time to give to leadership does not equate to having the necessary ability to lead.
• Sacred partnerships trump hierarchy or organizational structure.  Rabbi Rubinstein argued that synagogues should follow an "agency" model of leadership rather than the traditional synagogue structure.  It is important to know who the key decision makers are and give them the authority and the space to make decisions.    
• The greatest marketing moment for our institutions is the High Holy Days or other significant programs.  Rabbi Rubinstein spoke about creating places of meaning in people's lives which is more about relationships and connection to God and a sense of purpose in the world than to any specific program or ritual activity.
• Synagogues are clubs in which dues provide the funding for congregants to support themselves.  Instead, Rabbi Rubinstein posited, we need to see ourselves as raising funds to care for all Jews and not just our members.
• The best economics are to keep expenses and dues as low as possible.  Rabbi Rubinstein pointed out that usually we measure the value received for payment made, and none of us expect quality results for free.  Our synagogues should be trying to make sure that they are well funded so that they can achieve great things. 

• Dues as our current funding model are archaic, and cannot longer support congregations that want to continue to serve their community well.  Our National institutions and our wealthier local community members will need to step up to support Reform Judaism.
• Territorialism:  NATA members notwithstanding, congregations, leaders, and our national institutions are continuing to be worried about working together rather than focusing on what could be accomplished by combining resources.  We need to build consortia and creative ways of working collaboratively.
• Redundancy: we need to be willing to cut out programs that aren't working, activities that are redundant with what is offered down the street, or down the block.
• Converts: we shouldn't be afraid of being accessible to non Jews looking for meaning in their lives, and we should be open to actively engaging such individuals into the lives of our synagogues
• Strategic planning forever and ever, in lieu of action.  Sometimes we need to move forward, even if the plan isn't perfect and the path isn't clear.

Luckily for us, Deborah Naish was attending the board meeting, and helped facilitate a conversation the next morning during which we focused on our ability to be change agents and to help move Reform Judaism forward.  We spoke about the ability of NATA, as an organization, to provide opportunities for our members to go beyond learning technical skills and thinking about their "silent" second seat role in the congregation.  Where can we and should we provide leadership to the movement?   

Some of your colleagues are already helping with change management.   Janice Rosenblatt, FTA has been an active member of a national Think Tank that involves professionals and lay leaders from around in the country in dialog about the vision and mission of Reform Judaism and the role of the URJ.   Others including Ed Alpert, FTA,  Loree Resnik, FTA, and Deborah Naish, have been tapped into leadership roles in one or more of our national organizations.  As president of NATA I have the opportunity to be engaged in supporting change as well.  But, there is much more to do and we will continue to explore our roles and what NATA can do for its members in the year to come. 

NATA's leadership development and transition was another major topic of our time together.  As many of you know, we have had and continue to have an extraordinary level of leadership change.  Among the officers who were elected to serve when I became president in the Fall of 2010, Marc Swatez, FTA has left the field (we are excited for him, but will miss him), Ruth Cohen is stepping down for medical reasons (but will be returning to full health soon), and Robin Rubin will be rotating to NATA Parliamentarian in Detroit (fall 2012).   We are most fortunate that we have a talented and dedicated slate of officers coming on board and we are grateful for what they will bring to NATA in the years to come (see nominating committee report).  We have also had a significant turnover in the board (see nominating committee report)-many for good reasons and some for sadder reasons.   I want to thank Debbie Coutant who is retiring this summer for her extraordinary work on NATA's behalf.    

The NATA board in December 2012 will be very different from the NATA board of 2011.  Ed Alpert, FTA, chair of the nominating committee, and the nominating committee members, deserve tremendous thanks and kudos for the caring and deliberate way in which they thought about the future needs of NATA and helped to identify leaders who will serve NATA well.   For the first time, NATA has a president elect for the next 18 months who will be a bridge between the now and the future; we are so fortunate that Janice Rosenblatt, FTA has been nominated for that key role. 

NATA's leadership, building on the charge first given by then President Loree Resnik, FTA continues to strengthen its leadership development program and to make sure that we are paying close attention to members who show the skills and talents to become future leaders of NATA.  Besides inviting local NATA colleagues to come to board and officer meetings, we are again having a leadership training program this summer as part of our officer meeting (this year in New York City).  It is too important for all of us to leave leadership development to chance. 

We were grateful to Barbara Saidel, COO, and Dale Glasser, Senior Congregational Advisor, for sharing with us a draft version of the new Vision/Mission statement and reorganization of the URJ.    I hope that most if not all of you are now away that there are many changes at the URJ that are being implemented.  As Chairman Steve Sacks recently articulated in Inside Leadership, the Union is "moving forward on key priorities so that we can better support our congregations..... [and] work better with our nearly 900 congregations " [by] focusing on our new priorities: "to catalyze congregational change, expand our reach and engage the next generation."    As Chairman Sacks noted, change is not free, and "even as we move forward, we recognize that a number of employees who have contributed move to the Movement will no longer be on our staff."    The implications of these changes are huge, and I hope that at our Detroit conference you will have a chance to hear from URJ leadership.  We do know that NATA has already been called on to support the URJ's work and our many, many congregations, and we are delighted to do so.    Based on the planned changes, Barbara and Dale led us in an interesting dialog about what executive directors want and need from the Union, and what we can offer the URJ.   While comments about MUM dues came up, we focused more on a series of substantive issues relating to technology, marketing professional Jewish life, marketing Reform Judaism, providing human capital and training, best practices sharing and expertise. 

As a moment of personal privilege, I want and need to thank Dale Glasser, who is leaving the Union, for his years of service to our congregations, and to NATA.   

By now, you are probably yawning, or at least recognizing that although the Steve Breuer Conference Center is beautiful and walks up to the Hilltop camp or by the water are permitted very early in the morning, we were going from morning to night.  I will briefly share two other conversations we had during our marathon days of meeting. 

We had the opportunity to learn from our colleagues -Debbie Coutant, Sydney Baer, Jeff Herzog, FTA, Marc Swatez, FTA -about their journeys as executive directors.  Their comments were remarkably consistent:  success was possible if you were a good listener, you were prepared, didn't take things personally and were able to subdue your ego, you were nimble and flexible and learned new things and were willing to implement new ideas.  They each celebrated NATA for its collegiality, loving environment, educational opportunities (formal and informal) and sharing.  And, they commended NATA for increasing professionalism, the wonderful Journal and for helping others in the Reform professional world recognize the importance of the executive director role.   They challenged us to make sure that NATA has an ongoing role in shaping Reform Judaism and in supporting URJ congregations, and that we also make sure that we are continuing to provide the best education possible for our members. 

We also looked at our educational programming in light of the education task force report of a few years ago and what our members have been saying in the post conference surveys.  We know we need to find more ways of educating our members between conferences, and to better use available technology to reach into local communities and to touch members who can not make it to our conferences.  It is all part of continuing to explore ways to ensure that NATA serves its members at its best. 

For those of you who are still reading, we did review our finances (in good shape), our investment portfolio (ditto) and talk about the other business of NATA (yes, minutes were approved). 

I left once again awed by the extraordinary talent, caring, dedication and affection among NATA's leaders and its members, and want you to know how fortunate we are to be part of this amazing organization and to be able to work together to make our  colleagues, our congregations, and our movement stronger. 

- Livia