In This Issue:
- MARCH MEMBERSHIP MEETING – YELLOW CANDLE PACKING – SUN MAR 10
- PURIM CARNIVAL VOLUNTEERS NEEDED – SUN MAR 24
- MOTAS/TBH BROTHERHOOD SEDER – SUN APR 7
- IT’S NCAA (BASKETBALL) SQUARES TIME
- ANNUAL APPEAL TIME
- IN CLOSING
1. MARCH MEMBERSHIP MEETING – YELLOW CANDLE PACKING – SUN MAR 10
Our regular monthly meeting on Sunday, March 10 will be our Annual Yellow Candle Packing meeting. Join MoTAS at 8:45 AM for our usual meeting breakfast with eggs, bagels, lox, cream cheese, and other goodies. After some brief announcements, we’ll be packing the boxes for our Yom Hashoah Yellow Candle activity. This is always a fun meeting where we get a chance to just socialize while doing good.
PLEASE NOTE: If you have children looking to earn campership volunteer hour credit, this is likely their last chance before the deadline.
2. PURIM CARNIVAL VOLUNTEERS NEEDED – SUN MAR 24
This year’s Purim Carnival is being held at TAS in combination with Temple Ramat Zion on Sunday, March 24. MoTAS has been a strong supporter of the Purim Carnival for more than 30 years, preparing and serving food to carnival attendees. This year we will be sharing that effort with the Men’s Club of TRZ. MoTAS will need 3-4 guys to help shop for some of the food on the Thursday or Friday before the event and 12 or more guys to help prepare and serve the food on Sunday. Please call Howard Miller (818) 993-0796 or email president@tasnorthridge-motas.org if you can help. Let’s make this a solid effort from MoTAS.
3. MOTAS/TBH BROTHERHOOD SEDER – SUN APR 7
Our annual Men’s Seder, which will be joint with Temple Beth Hillel and held at Temple Ahavat Shalom, will be Sunday, April 7 at 5pm. Information on the Seder, including how to register, may be found at http://seder.tasnorthridge-motas.org. This special service and dinner, modeled after the traditional Passover Seder, provides a comfortable and ‘safe’ space to explore and celebrate what it means to be a contemporary Jewish man. Our liturgy also explores Passover traditions, new and old, from around the world, that you might bring back to your home seder. The event will take place at Temple Ahavat Shalom. The menu will consist of traditional Passover foods as well as MoTAS’s traditional Seder foods of Bar-B-Que from Stonefire Grill, with Ice Cream and Fruit for dessert. The cost of the meal is $25.
We are looking for volunteers to help prepare the traditional Seder foods: Charoset, Hard Boiled Eggs, etc., as well as volunteers to help shop, set up and clean up If you would be interesting in help with this event, please contact Daniel at faigin@cahighways.org. For the meal itself, we’re planning on bringing food in from Stonefire Grill — introducing the men of Temple Beth Hillel to our Men’s Seder tradition of BBQ and Ice Cream.
4. IT’S NCAA (BASKETBALL) SQUARES TIME
Now that football season is officially over, it’s time for basketball and the craziness known as the Final Four, in early April. Once again, MoTAS is happy to offer you the opportunity to help raise some needed funds for special TAS projects, and maybe you’ll earn some $$ along the way. You are receiving this email because you so generously supported our Sports Squares program sometime in the last year, and we want you to have first opportunity to play now. To get all the information (and in some cases, more than you could ever want), go to http://squares.tasnorthridge-motas.org/ where you’ll find the instructions, a sign-up form you can print, and a link if you wish to order your spaces online. NOTE: If you are registering and paying online, please specify your tiebreaker as your middle initial. What’s a tiebreaker? Read on…
To summarize: each name on the board can have up to 3 spaces. The squares are priced at $36 each. The game is for both the men’s and women’s tournament (semifinal two games each, and final games), so there are 12 opportunities to be a winner, since there is a winner at the half and final score. If the board is fully subscribed at all 100 spaces, the payout is $150 per win. Once again, we’ll use our “tie-breaker” method to determine a winner if a winning square is unsold (If there are unsold squares, the payouts will be adjusted.) The tie-breaker is your prediction of the total number of points both teams will score in any game, for example, if you think the final score will be 82-61, your number = 143. Here’s a hint for those who are unfamiliar (or don’t really care….): the average score for the men’s tournament for the last two years was 147, and the average score for the women’s tournament was 134. You get only one tie-breaker per person, so choose wisely.
5. ANNUAL APPEAL TIME
In 2012, the Men of TAS eliminated the dues requirement for membership. We moved to an inclusive model where every man in TAS is part of the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom. Since we don’t have dues, we don’t have steady revenue. So, every year Men of TAS asks you to support our work financially.
Last week, our Annual Appeal hits the post office. You can also find the message on our support page at http://support.tasnorthridge-motas.org/. On that page, you can find a printable donation form that you can mail in, as well as a link to contribute online. It is through your contributions that MoTAS is able to do that work that we do for the congregation. Please think about how much MoTAS means to the congregation, and how much the relationships you have with MoTAS mean to you. Then add 20%, and make a donation :-). Seriously, the MoTAS leadership works hard to make MoTAS valuable to you and the congregation. This is your chance to let us know what we mean to you.
See your friends and fellow congregants that have really stepped up to support us on our website’s Wall of Honor at http://wallofhonor.tasnorthridge-motas.org/. Join the Wall of Honor yourself by donating $100 or more. Your generous gift will provide fun events for all Temple members, kids to adults, teachers and staff. Continue to repair and improve our facilities. Most importantly, it will help us continue teaching and living the Jewish values that guide and enrich all our lives.
IN CLOSING
As always, remember that the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom is *your* organization. Keep up to date on our activities at http://www.tasnorthridge-motas.org/ and participate. Sign up for our action alert list at http://tinyurl.com/motas-action-alert. We want to serve all the men of Temple Ahavat Shalom and welcome new participants from the TAS membership. Join our Facebook group and “follow” our website. Come be part of the Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom!
Men of Temple Ahavat Shalom 