Weekly Report - December 13th -18th, 2009

Hanukah is usually a quite week at the institute. The students are in classes but life slows down a bit as most of Israel goes on semi-vacation:

• The week started with a dedication ceremony for the Center for Sustainable Agriculture's new office expansion and new tractor funded by the Vivian and Ed Merrin Family Foundation Grant. Students, staff, faculty and friends were invited for a ribbon cutting ceremony, candle lighting and a jelly donut feast.

• Monday night, the Sababa Steering Committee met to discuss submitting Timna Park to be declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The declaration would help to protect the park and the surrounding area from over development. Sababa Steering Committee members also discussed alternative locations for the proposed resort hotel that is being developed near Timna Park.
• On Wednesday, Shir Harel, the Arava Institute's webmaster from Ben Or Consulting came to the institute to discuss new media strategy - website, youtube, facebook, flicker etc. Shir first met with all of the staff and went over website statistics. Since the summer, the website has almost doubled its site visits. In addition, the website now appears on page 5 when googling "environmental studies" - previously we had disappeared from that search. In the coming months the institute will develop it youtube profile and become more organized in terms of facebook presence.
• On Wednesday night, the students lite the Hanukah candles in the dinning room of the kibbutz, sang the blessing over the candles and sang a Hanukah song.
• Thursday, the Executive Committee devoted time to finalizing the 2010 institute budget.

David Lehrer

Weekly Report August 30th - September 4th, 2009

This week was a bit quieter at the institute than last week, still there were are a few important events to report:

• The end of the summer brought back to work many staff members who had been a way either for vacation or because the institute had downsized staff over the same. The returning staff included Miriam Sharton, Moishe Siel, Michelle Shachar, Ronit Friedman, Sharon Benheim and Adi Belman.
• We said goodbye this week to our Alumni Intern, Elinor Marboe, who has been with us all year. Elinor returns to Larchmont, NY. We will really miss her.
• We heard wonderful news this week - our close colleague from the Jordan University of Science and Technology, Dr. Samer Talozi is getting married this month. Abby has been invited to the wedding.
• We had special visitors this week: Deanna Neil and Brett Kaufman came to visit Ketua. Deanna is the daughter of Sylvia Neil. Sylvia and her husband Dan Fischel have made a large donation matched by the Goldman Foundation to build a Research and Visitors Park at the institute in memory of Sylvia's sister Dina Markowitz and Dan's father Eugen Fischel. The visit went very well. We are now in the process of writing up the program of the park which will be used by the architect to create the design.
• We broke ground this week on Elaine Solowey's new office expansion. Through a grant form the Merrin Family Foundation, we are adding another 18 square meters to Elaine's office. Once the expansion is complete we will build a "Biblical Garden" outside the office which will be the new home of Methuselah, Elaine' s 2,000 year old date tree. In addition, with the help of Elaine and the Merrin Foundation Grant money, the kibbutz started a community garden just outside the dinning room.
• I am travelling to the US tomorrow so I am posting this early.

David