Over
the last few months a number of people have noticed that our Shabbat program
has changed and that we have been using a new design. While this might not
address a question about Judaism, I thought it was worth sharing our thinking
in this forum where we ask lama –
why?
For
many years we had the same Shabbat program, the front and back covers were
printed externally and then each week we filled in the middle two pages with
the necessary information for each Shabbat service. As we reflected on the
service experience and by extension the representation of our community through
the Shabbat program it became clear that the content was geared far more
towards our guests than our members, and that there was a lot of white space in
the previous design that could be filled with more content and information.
As
we reflected on the potential to improve the design it was also clear that we
as a synagogue are blessed to have Nancy Tejo as a member of our staff, who
could not only redesign the Shabbat program, but could also ensure that we
could make changes and updates as needed.
With
that in mind there were a number of aims in the new design:
·
To have a Shabbat program
that could be changed every few weeks, so that people would be “excited” to see
what photo is included on the back page.
·
To make better use of the
space provided so that more information is included and shared in our program.
·
To find ways to add a
little bit of education about the Torah portion into the Shabbat program.
·
To provide a Shabbat
program that is primarily for our members.
·
To have a Shabbat program
that is aesthetically pleasing.
·
These
are a few of the reasons we embarked on the new design, I am sure that there
are things we could have done differently and elements which are more (or less)
attractive to our members, but we hope that overall this is a better, more
engaging, and more responsive Shabbat program than we previously had.
Alongside
this, we are very excited that with our December Family Service we also
introduced our monthly family friendly Shabbat program. With a service focused
on the younger members of our community we now have a program that compliments
the service. Each month there will be a picture from a member of our Religious
School and there will be an activity for the children to keep them occupied in
the minutes before the service or (in the unlikely event) if they get
distracted during the service.
We
hope that you will enjoy the new Shabbat program, but if you have any questions
or comments please don’t hesitate to contact me.
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