The Jewish Representative Council has recently made major changes to its structures to better represent and serve our community.

Previously the Council’s Executive consisted of 6 Honorary Officers and 39 representatives elected in groups from Institutions, Synagogues, Women’s organisations, Youth organisations, Magistrates & Councillors, Board of Deputies members and Honorary Members. Five more could also be co-opted giving a maximum potential of 50 members on the Executive plus all Past Presidents. In addition to being unwieldy, this has not been conducive to producing a pro-actively minded body with Executive members having clear roles.

The new structure will revolve around 6 Working Groups that will focus the Council’s work. They are:

• Public Relations (Convened by Vice-Chair (Public Relations), supported by 2 Public Relations Secretaries and Officers)
  Oversee links to Councils, NHS, Police, CST, Interfaith groups etc., Press Monitoring and Press Releases responding to current issues.
• Education (Convened by Vice-Chair (Education), supported by 2 Education Secretaries)
  Link to SACREs and Jewish Schools, oversee and develop speakers to outside agencies (schools, community groups etc.), involved in planning Sherman Lectures, Hamburger Lecture, Limmud liaison.
• Publicity (Convened by Publicity Officer, supported by 2 Publicity Secretaries)
  Work on RepPresents, Website, Publicity Flyers for events, promotion of Council’s work including Press Releases in that regard.
• Fundraising (Convened by Treasurer, supported by 2 Fundraising Secretaries)
  Eliciting Advertising (for Yearbook, RepPresents etc.), Sponsorship (for Quiz, Lectures etc.), run annual Raffle, Grant applications.
• Youth & Community (Convened by Youth & Community Officer, supported by 2 Youth Secretaries and 2 Community Secretaries)
  Link to Jewish Youth Groups, Youth Leadership Training, New Jewish Youth Council, support for affiliates, organising events (Quiz, JNet etc), Awards, partnership work with affiliates.
• Anti-Semitism & Human Rights (Convened by Secretary, supported by co-opted members of Executive and Officers)
  Dealing with issues relating to Anti-Semitism, Racism and other human rights abuses. Involved in Yom HaShoah, issues around Shechita, Brit Mila and social media.

Another key change is the splitting of the current President’s role with the addition of a Chair of Executive, who will be able to oversee Council operations, whilst the President will continue to chair Council meetings and deal with external relationships.

The new Executive will have a total of 8 Officers and 12 Executive Secretaries with clear roles as laid out above. Four more can also be co-opted giving a maximum potential of 24 members on the Executive, less than half the size as currently.

President Sharon Bannister said, “This is a very exciting opportunity. The Representative Council was first formed in 1919 and since then we have continued to represent the community through difficult as well as positive times. The change to our structure means that we now have a Council that can more accurately meet the needs of our community.”

Vice-President Jonny Wineberg said, “Having first proposed some of these changes in 2000, it is wonderful to see them now being implemented. It is a credit to many colleagues who have taken this forward and gives the Council the opportunity to be the dynamic, effective body that the community needs and deserves. We are already seeing younger people getting involved as we start to implement change and the constitutional change will embed this for the future.”

The new constitution can be downloaded from www.jewishmanchester.org/amended-constitution/