Submission #22211 by Congregation Beth Shalom Men'S Club - Northbrook, IL (643)

I have read the 2021 Torch Awards Program Guidelines.
Club Name
Congregation Beth Shalom Men'S Club - Northbrook, IL (643)
Multiple New and Adapted Programs Produced in the Face of COVID-19
Club Representative
Person completing form
Steven
Elisco
Club President at time of convention if known at this time
Steve and Andy
Lessman and Wagner
Club President Now
Steven
Elisco
COVID-19

Page 1

COVID-19 Came, and Everything Changed

After our Yellow Candle Packing Event in 2020, nothing else happened in March and most of April. Was this short term or long term? Were we to postpone programs or cancel them all together? Someone in the Synagogue Administration mentioned this thing called ZOOM.

We held our first ZOOM combined Executive Committee and Board Meeting on April 22, 2020. All regular business was put aside and all we did was brainstorm as to how we were going to proceed in an uncertain future. We decided we needed to be the Men’s Club we have always been, and that the Congregation expected. We just needed to find our way differently.

Later, at our July Executive Committee meeting, where we finalize the plans for the 2020-2021 calendar year, we affirmed our commitment as stated above by doing the following:

1. We are going to focus on what we can do and not what we cannot do.
2. We will maintain flexibility to modify planned programs as needed to address changing circumstances and protocols.
3. We will go beyond what is expected to make ZOOM programing special and different.
Photos inserted with captions within the text, would not copy to this field. So we created a PDF file of the Detailed Program description and attached the file under Marketing in two parts due to its size.
Attachments
Self Assessment
The main impact of these programs to our Club is that we proved to ourselves that in the face of adversity when we work together we can accomplish anything. These programs reminded our Synagogue why the Men's Club is so important to the creation of Synagogue life that they rely on. We have and continue to receive thank you's and compliments from congregants regarding our online programing during COVID-19 and how much it has meant to them.

Many of these programs had higher participation than pre-COVID-19. A good example is the Lox Box Program, which raised the largest amount of funds for the Club and the Ark and CJE than any previous Lox Box Program.

Both of our Night of Recognition programs received multiple comments from members and congregants saying that these programs online were more spiritual and emotionally significant than the in person programs they replaced.
This group of programs proves that great leadership provides great results. Our Executive Committee analyzed both the challenges and the risk of doing nothing. We chose to focus on what we can do and not what we cannot do and set goals based upon that. We achieved those goals to great success.

Innovation played a big part in these programs especially the Steaks in the Sukkah tailgate. We went all in for a program that relied on a higher level of technology. When we realized it just would not work we did not cancel the program, but instead pivoted and came up with a totally different program with little time that was better than our first idea.

As stated above under "Impact", the Synagogue Community recognized and acknowledged the value of our programing and what it meant to them.
Not at this time

Page 2

Original Program
Previous Submission
Yes