Your Sisterhood Board has been hard at work, and we thought you might like to know some of the more significant decisions they made in the past few months.
The most significant decision was in regards to our Donor program, where we track volunteer hours on fundraising and religious observance events and hold a donor recognition luncheon in June to honor the women who make donor.  Last June, an email went out describing the donor program.  In July, an email was sent describing a proposed change to the donor program and asking for feedback. The proposal was that instead of having a Donor luncheon which only recognized women who made donor, we would have a volunteer recognition luncheon where all Sisterhood volunteers would be recognized.  We received a lot of replies to this email, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.  In response, the board voted to try this for a year and then evaluate the situation at the end of the year to see how we liked it.  So we will not be tracking donor this year, and everyone is invited to our volunteer recognition luncheon (even if you didn't volunteer at all!)
We welcome your help planning this year's volunteer recognition luncheon.  If you are willing to be on the committee, let us know.
Another decision was to update our mission statement.  We formulated an improved mission statement at our summer leadership training and the board has approved it.  However, the general membership needs to approve it as well!  Here is the revised mission statement for you to review:
The mission of the Sisterhood of Temple Ahavat Shalom, an auxiliary of Temple Ahavat Shalom, is to further the highest ideals of Reform Judaism; to empower the voices of Jewish women; to foster friendship among its members; to be a resource for religious, social and educational activities; to stimulate the observance of Jewish religious life and to promote the programs of the Women of Reform Judaism and WRJ Pacific District.
We have also been working on a Sisterhood website.  It is still a work in progress, but you can view it at www.tassisterhood.org - we welcome feedback!  One improvement already in the works - we plan to add photos soon.
One nice thing about the website.  It has a blog, where the weekly emails will be posted.  So if you want to look up an old one, or if one got lost between our server and yours, just go to the website and click on "blog".  Also, all the flyers for the monthly programs are or will be posted there.  So looking up a flyer for a monthly event is really easy now too.
That's enough for now! Thanks for staying 'til the end.

​Last Thursday's meeting was very interesting - Dr. Kleinbrodt was a very good speaker - very informative, and humorous too.  We very much appreciate the women who pitched in to make the event a success, particularly Robyn Blachman, who shopped for those great decorations, baked the foot cookies, made the chocolate candy feet (YUM!) and more.  It was a great success.
Speaking of meetings, the next one is only 2 1/2 weeks away, because it is our Sukkot celebration, and Sukkot is the first week of October.  So mark October 5 on your calendars.  It will be at Jo Schwartz's house.  A flyer is attached for your refrigerator or bulletin board.
Membership packets were mailed out and you should have received yours already.  Did you like the calendar magnet?  If you didn't receive you packet, let us know (even if you already paid) so we can make sure you get your magnet.  We tried to mark everyone who paid as paid on the invoice, but we missed a few - Sorry! Don't stress if yours doesn't say you paid and you know that you did.
We also need to work on how to invite our Temple husbands to become Friends of Sisterhood.  We definitely welcome and want their support, but haven't quite figured out how to configure the packets to express that.  So if you could help out by encouraging men to become our Friends, we would appreciate your assistance!
Apologies for the length of this email, but we thought you would like to know that we're sending almost $500 in gift cards to Temple Emanuel of Beaumont, Texas to help them recover from Hurricane Harvey.  They are a small but over 100-year-old congregation.  Thanks to Mel Birken for facilitating this effort.  We will repeat this next month to a Temple in Florida. 
Went looking for hurricane humor in honor of the resourcefulness of Texans and Floridians and found a half-dozen different images of signs with the following message:

If you would like to help synagogues in Houston, they have requested gift cards for Target, Walmart, Home Depot and/or Kroger(Ralphs).  Bring them to Thursday's Sisterhood meeting - Mel Birken volunteered to box them up and send them to Houston.   (If you buy at TAS, you can get scrip credit as well!)  The Temples will then to be able to purchase what they need for cleaning, refurbishing, etc. and will give out cards out to community members as well as Congregants.
Speaking of the Sisterhood meeting (Thursday at 7pm in the social hall,) I hope you will join us. Dr. David Kleinbrodt will be talking about techniques to keep our feet happy and healthy.  Also we will be voting on the budget (it balances!  whoo hoo!) and announcing other significant Board decisions.
Membership packets were assembled over the weekend and will be mailed early in the week.  If you haven't paid, you can bring your check to the meeting (did I mention it was this coming Thursday?) and save yourself a stamp.  Remember that men are welcome at our meetings and can become our Friends.  If you already paid, we still sent you an invoice (all membership packets need to be the same weight for bulk mailing) but we noted that we have already received your check.  

Just a short note (didn't think we could do short, did you!) to tell you that we are working to get membership packets in the mail in a week.  We hope you will support Sisterhood by becoming a member or, if you are not a Temple member, by becoming our Friend.    Please help us by encouraging your friends to join as well, or (if they are not Temple members or if they are men) to become Friends of Sisterhood. 

The social action committee asked us to mention that The Valley Interfaith Council is sponsoring a solidarity march Sunday, Sept. 10th 2-6PM.  For more information go to http://www.sfvindivisible.com/interfaith-solidarity-march.html
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Today's humor:
The government is requiring us to add a warning label to our upcoming Membership packet -
    "Warning: Sisterhood may contain some nuts"