About 20 men showed up Oct. 24-26 from men's clubs at Conservative congregations in Michigan, western Pennsylvania, Cincinnati, Kentucky and Columbus for the first KIO/Michigan/Tri-State regional retreat at Deer Creek Resort and Conference Center in Mount Sterling.
Ron Ferer of Columbus' Agudas Achim arranged for the catering by Chani and brought a Torah. Douglas Segerman brought the siddurim and chumashim.
There were a number of great ideas and interesting points mentioned, and I'll list them here individually.
FMJC Conventions -- I could not show my face before any of those present if I did not mention that the FMJC Convention for 2009 is July 1-5 in Philadelphia. It should be a good program, with lots of good ideas to bring back for use in Columbus.
Mike Mills of Cincinnati, who is on the executive committee of FMJC, wants Columbus to host the FJMC Convention in 2011. This will require a lot of work and fundraising on our part
Hagbah Training -- This is a little program that was demonstrated by Dr. Ira Ungar of Pittsburgh that he developed as a way to ensure that there are always knowledgeable people available to lift the Torah in the synagogue. The program takes about 45 minutes, and teaches people a fool-proof way to lift the scroll, no matter how heavy or lopsided it might be.
Monday Night Sex, Beer and Football -- This is a program that combines everything, including a weekly d'var, that one might want in a Men's Club program.
Hearing Men's Voices -- This is a longstanding FJMC program that we could include as a part of other programming, or we could begin as a separate deal. It basically involves picking a topic -- over the weekend, it was dealing with aging parents -- and letting people explore their own feelings about things through their and others' experiences.
Sundry other things -- Also mentioned were the World Wide Wrap, Build-a-Pair, Yom Hashoah candles and the FJMC Convention for 2009. And a host of others that will blip in and out of my memory over the next couple weeks. Did I mention the 2009 convention. This was a very big item for the two FJMC facilitators present. We all should consider going to the FJMC convention in Philadelphia in 2009.
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