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Fran Heller and Steve Hutt are starting to organize the High Holidays seating this week. If you have any preferences for sitting next to specific individuals, you are invited to send your requests to Steve at SHutt234@aol.com or (303) 333-0666.

The deadline for seating requests is this Wed., 9/21/05 at 5:00 pm.

Dear Friends,

On behalf of Jacky, Ellyn, Marc, Dovey, and Graeme, I wanted to update you on two important aspects of the High Holiday planning.

1. Physical space issues: I am thrilled to inform you that we have a confirmed 165-170 people joining us for both R”H and Y”K. This number reflects the number of people who have requested seats. (This does not include children – unless a seat was purchased on their behalf.) The breakdown is roughly 95 men, and 75 women for each of the High Holidays.

Scott Friedman, Craig Schottenstein and I set up chairs in the DAT multi-purpose room this week and confirmed we can seat a maximum of 110 in the men’s section and a maximum of 83 in the women’s section.

The High Holiday committee met earlier this week to discuss our physical space issues given the above numbers and tent logistics. After much discussion, we decided to plan to have our services in the DAT multi-purpose room.

Ralph Freedman is organizing a special High Holidays Booklet (ie. a "Yizkor Book") for memorializing the names of loved ones or just to express gratitude or honor to certain individuals or groups. If you would like to include a message, please complete this order form and send to Ralph Freedman with a suggested donation. Also, please forward a copy of this form to any friends or relatives who might like to participate and/or make a donation to the shul.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the daily minyan for our first week. Although there has been a strong attendance, we are counting on your continued participation -- especially if you committed to certain days.

The regular minyan-goers have decided to make a slight change in davening times. In order to allow for the longer service on mondays and thursdays and accommodate people's work schedules, davening will begin 10 minutes earlier, at 6:40 am on those days. If this change presents a burden to anyone who already committed to those days, please contact Andy Kark at (303) 343-1072.

On behalf of the ritual committee, I wanted to post an update on some of what we have been doing. First, I'll introduce the other members of this committee. They are Aryeh F., Craig H., Dovie H., R. Yaakov C. and Craig S. Let me start off by saying that any Halachic issues will be referred to our Posek - Rabbi Rosenfeld. We do NOT make Halachic rulings. If an issue is determined by Rabbi Rosenfeld to not be Halachic but rather be an issue of Minhag Hamakom( local shul tradition), than we will try to establish this in a way that is sensitive to the concerns of the daveners. Also, we would like to stress that any assignments or recommendations are temporary untill we establish a permanent Rabbinic presence. Here are a few new wrinkles:

The High Holidays committee has been busy this week making plans for the upcoming Yomim Noraim. Please read this update letter from Aryeh and download the application form if you intend to be joining us for the High Holidays. (Please note that the application is an editable PDF that may require a recent version of Acrobat Reader to open. If

Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado announcement:

Hurricane Katrina, characterized by authorities as one of the most powerful in U.S. history, lashed across the Gulf Coast Region this week, with the death toll estimated to be in the hundreds. Although the extent of damages is still unknown, massive physical and infrastructure damage is expected throughout the region and more than 2.3 million people are without electrical power.

Please donate now to United Jewish Communities (UJC) Hurricane Katrina Victims Fund through Federation, and support humanitarian aid for members of the Jewish and general communities touched by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and the Western Florida panhandle.

Thanks to Andy Kark's efforts and the willingness of a large number of minyan-goers to make the necessary commitment, our Shabbos minyan is about to become a daily minyan. Beginning on Rosh Chodesh Elul, which is Sun., Sept. 4th, there will be daily shacharit services, starting at 6:50 am weekdays and 8:15 am on sundays. However, because this first Sunday is also Rosh Chodesh, Shacharit will be starting at 8:00 am. We are not attempting to start daily mincha/ma'ariv services at this time.

Yasher koach to Andy and to everyone who stepped up to the plate to help our minyan take its next so

Aryeh and the newly formed High Holiday committee have sent this letter regarding the initial Yomim Noraim plans. It contains an RSVP request; so please read and respond directly to Aryeh as soon as possible.

A good shabbas to all!

Here are the latest updates for the Minyan:

1)Aryeh Fischer has accepted an invitation to sit on a committee created by the DAT Board to deal with the future of the school. Because Aryeh felt that this might present a conflict of interest with his work on the steering committee, he has decided to step down. On behalf of the steering committee and the rest of the membership, I want to express a sincere thank you to Aryeh for the tireless work that he has put into this minyan. His participation has been instrumental to our success.

However, lest anyone worry, Aryeh will still be making a major contribution to the Minyan by serving as the chairperson of the Yomim Noraim comittee. That committee will be meeting the begining of next week and will provide more information to everyone as soon as possible. The members of the committee are as follows: Ellyn Hutt, Graeme Bean, Mark Braunstein, Dovey Heller, Jacqueline Lampert. Yasher Koach to Aryeh for putting together such a diverse and talented group to carry out the planning for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

2)The steering committee voted unanimously to appoint Sheldon Ciner to fill the vacated position on the committee. Mazel Tov to Shelly! There is no doubt that he will be a tremendous asset for the minyan and the committee.

3)As part of the effort to ensure member involvement and transparency in the minyan, the committee agreed to open up the steering committee meetings to all members. Additionally, minutes from each meeting will be posted to the website for everyone's review. We will post the date and location of the next meeting as soon as the information is available.

4)There are many needs to deal with as we move forward, and as was discussed at the membership meeting last week, we are setting up committees to deal with many of those needs. I hope that everyone will get involved in the important work that we all have ahead of us. The following committees are being established and need volunteers. Please respond with your interest by next Friday, September 2nd.