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L'DOR VA'DOR:
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE (#1858)

From:
Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation,
1,300 households
6501 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46260
Tel.: 317.255.6647 Fax: 317.254.2187
E-mail: lyndaq@ihcindy.org
Contact: Gerry Arffa

To insure the continued responsible stewardship of our synagogue, we have formed a Leadership Development Committee, which operates on an ongoing basis high-quality perpetual educational programs and encourages the participation of our fellow congregants in responsible leadership roles for our temple arms, committees, and boards. The programs serve to educate and train our congregational members and staff to be effective and committed leaders, whether they currently volunteer or expect to do so in the future. Recently, the committee ran a highly successful Leadership Development program that was open to all temple members.

Acceptance into the program was based upon information that was provided in the required application and reflected a desire to represent the diversity of the congregation’s membership. The application sought information about the member’s educational background, synagogue affiliation, Jewish journey, and volunteer history.

The program, consisting of nine sessions, kicked off with a Shabbat weekend retreat and concluded with a Shabbat graduation. The mode of instruction––self-learning in small groups––insured the success of the program. The participants were assigned situations that they resolved themselves by applying the organizational and problem-solving techniques they were learning. The high point of the program was the work on self-selected problems at our temple: The members joined a group based on their individual interest in a particular problem and then worked to prepare their solutions in the form of a report. The reports were delivered to an awed board subsequent to the participants’ graduation. Four graduates of this first program joined the board, and two of them became officers. Other graduates are active in various committees and arms of the temple. Several graduates of the program helped form the committee that is working with the next class.

RESOURCES: Flyer, letter, detailed schedules, evaluations.

Communicate!, the easy-to-use, computerized encyclopedia of ideas, program expertise, contacts, and resources that is designed specifically for the Union and its member congregations, is a project of the Ida and Howard Wilkoff Department of Synagogue Management and is now fully available on the Web. Click on Communicate! to submit an idea or to access the Web site. For more information about Communicate!, please call the Communicate! Hot Line at 800.894.4735, fax 212.650.4239, or e-mail communicate@urj.org.