Dear Regional and Club Leaders,

I just wanted to catch you up on what we at the Region committee level are working on:

We have started working on the "Direct Contact to Clubs" initiative. The object of the program is to be able to reach as many club members as possible through the Webinar series that Alan Budman has been producing and introducing the Affinity group program that Elliot Feldman has been working on.

These great programs are only as good as the number of people that we can reach. That's where you come in. My committee may have already reached out to you. Our goal is to work with you to help you update your club database. If each club member can be reached via phone/email then we become an even more cohesive community, and the programs we are presenting reach everyone. After all, what is men's club if not the greatest of networking communities? Also, with the Quality Club Award due date coming up (July 24th), now is the perfect time to get those databases up to date.

Also, in conjunction with Alan Budman's webinar series and due to the success of regions like Western, Seaboard and Hudson Valley that have invited the whole men's club community to join their virtual retreats and hearing men's voices programs, we have initiated a new webinar series aimed at highlighting each region.

If you would like to host a webinar, please let me know.

Two more items before I let you go:

Please review the list of club leaders for your regions. Confirm or update the contact information.

And finally, if you are ending your term of office this summer both at the region and club level, please provide me with the name and contact information of your successor.

Thank you all for all of your hard work.

yours in brotherhood,

Bruce Tomar

VP Regions

We have made some updates to the QCA criteria and deadlines because of the particular situation that we all are in, where most of our clubs have come to a pause or halt. We have listed the changes below and on the website. We hope and pray for your safety and health and that we can find some kind of normalcy going forward. Please let us know if we can be of any help to your Club or yourself.

Bruce Tomar VP Region services have summarized the changes below:

* You must log on to complete the application

* The application due date is July 24 for any activity up to May 31st.

* Programming and activity using zoom counts.

* Purchasing of yellow candles, even without current distribution, also counts.

We have a shift in the QCA chair. It is now Mitch Elovitz, Western Region. Rob Cohen, Past President of New York Metro has, unfortunately, stepped down for health reasons (not Covid19 related). We pray for his speedy recovery, Refuah Shelemah. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Mitch, Bruce or me.

Mitch Elovitz elovitzclan@comcast.net

Bruce Tomar BTomar@fjmc.org 

Benny Sommerfeld bsommerfeld@fjmc.org 

We have enhanced our membership database to make it easier to update your club's list.  You can now export the current database into a spreadsheet, add new members and update existing member information and import that spreadsheet into the database.  Watch this 5 minute video that shows the step by step procedure to use this feature.

It is important that you update your club's list of members for the following reasons:

1. Your club members have paid to receive benefits from FJMC.  If we don’t have accurate email and US mail information, we cannot deliver those benefits.  Imaging paying for a magazine subscription and not receiving it!
2. Updating your list of officers in the database allows us to route important information intended for leadership to the right audience.
3. Updating your membership list is a requirement for the Quality Club Award
4. You want your club to be billed correctly.  Your bill is based on the number of members in the FJMC database at the end of the prior fiscal year.  The fiscal year begins on September 1.
5. If we can expand our the number of email addresses in our database, advertisers will pay us to send their advertisements as part or our publications. (We don’t share email addresses with them).
6. We need to be sensitive to the families of those who have passed away and remove their husbands/fathers from our active emailing list.

As many of you may know, the International Kiddush Club (IKC) has been busy hosting a variety of virtual events including Friday night l'chaims/Kabbalat Shabbat singing.  If you would like to be informed of these events, join IKC by sending an email join@kiddushclub.org.

Now it’s easier than ever to come to FJMC Convention!

For the first time ever, we are happy to announce our Installment Payment Program!

Simply sign up (click Get Started below), enter your credit card information, and pay $100.00 a month ($180 for a couple) and BOOM!, you are all paid up. If you are entitled to a future regional subsidy, we will apply all the necessary credits or payments towards additional add-on programs in Chicago.

Without the FJMC, valuable Jewish programming might never occur.  FJMC needs your financial support to in order to continue to create the important programs which keep your Men’s Club vibrant.  You can help preserve the significant impact the FJMC and its members have made, on behalf of the Conservative Movement and World Jewry, by making a pledge. Our movement depends on you!