Professor Kathy Laster
So we might start first of all with Ronnie.
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Okay.
Professor Kathy Laster
Can you tell us, what were the main challenges responding to COVID-19 at first, and then later as social distancing measures changed, how did that happen?
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Kathy, good question. Really the first thing to say is the Jewish community is very community-minded. Nothing is celebrated or commemorated on its own as an individual. Almost everything is done within a community. So for example, Jewish festivals, we've just passed two festivals, the first one in lockdown in fact was Festival of Pesach or Passover. Traditionally associated with families getting together, I suppose it's a bit like the Jewish Christmas I guess. People will travel from around the globe, you know, sons and daughters will travel around the globe to go back home for Peach or Passover.
We also had the Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks just a couple of weeks ago. So the first thing to say is that in isolation, it's been a struggle for members of the Jewish community because they're used to doing things together, and every life cycle is the same, whether it be a birth, at a circumcision or a girl's baby naming at the stars, the baron bat mitzvah, weddings, all of those are celebrated big style. So the first, so I can tell you now that it hit the community hard. It was out of our comfort zone. And it meant that we had to change the way we operate as no doubt everyone has whether you're faith-based or not.
In terms of our faith, a lot of the things we do are done as a group. So aside from the calendar cycle or aside from the family life cycle, we have things we do as a group. We learn together. We pray together. In fact, the concept of a Minyan, which is basically at least 10 males getting together, and we can come back to gender, gender issues, maybe later on, but 10 males getting together, that was the mainstay for many people within our religion and So to be told that synagogues are closed meant that they've had to change. We've had to change and then our congregants have had to change the way we operate.
And then it was, I think part of the problem was not only us delivering our services differently, but also getting our, the members of our religion to realize that the way they've operated, it can be done differently. They just didn't realize because this is the way they've been brought up. They just assumed that you had to pray together, but you don't. They assume that you had to have people all together to do a circumcision. Well, in fact, you don't.
The way we commemorate the death anniversary, what we call a Yahrzeit. Every year, one commemorates the anniversary of a loved person's passing, that was traditionally done you came to the synagogue and you did something public and so on. But there was nothing that required you to do so. You could light a candle at home and study texts. So it’s really, The struggle was not just on our behalf, but the struggle was also on behalf of our religion. People were just not used to changing the way they operate. If there's time, I'm happy to speak about the way we've had to structure our fees and our finances.
Professor Kathy Laster
So perhaps if I could just quickly ask, how did the quick response happen? Where was those, were those decisions, both religious decisions, but also governance decisions about closing synagogues and finding alternatives? How quickly did they come enforce and some who was making the decision?
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
In the case of our synagogue, in fact, many of the synagogues closed early before government mandated that the churches and synagogues had to close. We actually closed. It was a board decision on the night of the 18th of March. We had a regular board meeting. At that board meeting, we decided to close effective immediately. So services for the morning of the 19th didn't happen. As I said, that predated the government mandated closure. The decision was made based on several factors. Firstly, we saw the writing on the wall, we saw that things were getting out of hand. In our congregation particularly, we've got a lot of older members, and we know that they were people at risk, significant risk.
So the decision was made in a corporate way by the board. It was put to the board by, predominantly by the president of the board, discussed the issues and then communicated fairly rapidly the following morning to our community. Then from there on, we actually got guidance not only from government advisories, but the Jewish community had two organisations that played a role. One was a Jewish Task Force on COVID.
It actually, if you like, supplanted what I'd set up 20 years ago, JEMP, Jewish Emergency Management Plan. They then became the Jewish Community Crisis Management. And they set up a task force and were providing almost daily updates. The second group was the Melbourne Beth Din, it's the rabbinical court. And they issued advisories on not attending services. And then once things started relaxing about the protocols they believe were appropriate, most of those by the way exceeding government regulations for reopening services. So for example, just one quick example, people get called up to the Torah. The Torah is the scroll that we read, that's read a few times a week. People get called to the Torah. They said as soon as we reopen, people are no longer to kiss the Torah, which we would normally do as a sign of respect or a sign of love, and issues related to social distancing between the person reading the Torah and person called up.
So they put out guidelines. So together with those two agencies, we were getting great feedback, and we were providing constant feedback to our board and to our members. Every week, we're providing more and more. In fact, we changed the delivery of our services and increased our services during this period.
Professor Kathy Laster
Interesting. I'm wondering, Sheikh Saleem, if you're listening, if you would like to join into this discussion? How were Muslim communities reacting immediately, and then as time passed? Tilly, can we find Sheikh Saleem, if he's prepared to give a response?
Tilly
Unmuted, he is unmuted.
Sheikh Muhammad Saleem
Thank you.
Professor Kathy Laster
Saleem, from the Board of Imams and also from, well, a friend of the Sir Zelman Cowen Centre.
Sheikh Muhammad Saleem
Thank you very much. As you would appreciate that Muslim community responded very well in adhering to the government imposed restrictions, and the Board of Imam was upfront when these COVID-19 restrictions came about. We have advised them not to hold Jumu'ah prayers because the risk was very high compared to other religious organisations because we are not only just standing and praying. We're also making frustration and we have to take Wudu or ablution outside. We have towers and so on.
And then, For Jumu'ah prayer, the crowd is pretty large and we can't control. So then, then we cannot stop, "Okay, you are 50 years or more, so you don't come," because they are the people who would like to come more than anyone else. So there was a lot of logistics considerations. We said, okay, we just, we have a civic duty to contain this spreading of the virus. And then everyone, all those people, all those imam that we thought they wouldn't know how to use the technology, and they started using Zoom. They started spreading their messages Zoom.
And you know that, also the Ramadan was during this tough time. So the people are being asked to stay home and conduct a community pray at night, night prayers with their family. Many families expressed their appreciation after long time, they were able to do the congregational prayer with their family. Then they also followed the daily briefing or daily reading off Quran through Zoom. And one of imam from each spot, we have a Jumu'ah sermon through Channel 31 every Friday during Ramadan, and it is going on for the next couple of weeks.
So that was watched by many people, especially people in prisons. They feel also some kind of a lockdown while they were there, and then nothing happening because the visitors are not going anymore and their families, imams are not accessible to them. So as a result, they were able to feel a little bit of belonging to the community by watching Channel 31 program. Then pretty much people are still continuing giving their sermons through, what do you call it, through Zoom.
As you know, the people were really accepted this whole setup or at least the new way of conducting religious observances because it is not only happening here, it is happening from the Kaaba Tulah, the very place that we are facing the mosque, the Grand Mosque in Mecca and in Medina, and in many other places. The juries have been very upfront to come up with the fatwa like you have these rabbinical advisers, we have the fatwa. They all came and said, "Okay, you can do your own prayers, congregation and prayers."
Professor Kathy Laster
Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Sheikh Saleem. I didn't want to interrupt you. But we might just keep moving along. I'll bring you back into the conversation if you don't mind.
Sheikh Muhammad Saleem
No worries, okay.
Professor Kathy Laster
At various points. But that's fascinating. I think one of the things that's emerged both from what Rabbi Figdor has said and what Sheikh Saleem has said is how quick faith based communities, who are known to be quite traditional, were suddenly able to change course and adapt, which I guess is why they've been around for so long. If I can actually then bring in Reverend Ian Smith. I do want you to comment about what some of the Christian communities that you've been dealing with, how they responded. But I have a very special question for you. What's the right balance, because a lot of this deals with governance issues, between governance and service delivery and faith-based community values when you're under crisis?
Rev Ian Smith
Okay, good afternoon, everybody. I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land as well. Recognise elders past, present and those emerging. I want to commit to the process of reconciliation both within our own state and nation, and obviously in this current moment within, the global world of, lives matter. So in the context of that crisis, one of the things I've been reflecting on as a CEO is that don't panic is a little motto.
And so I've probably fielded 60 or 70 phone calls from faith leaders, particularly across the church, particularly in the smaller communities, for whom this moment has been a real moment of changing the game plan. So my first reaction in terms of the balancing between governance and service is not to panic, to take a step back, to take a breath, and to try and reflect objectively rather than from the gut reaction. I think as Ronnie and Sheikh said, initially, it was really complex and really weird.
You know, fancy not gathering, you know, As Ronnie suggests, you know, when Peshach is happening, it's our Holy Week, and it's the most holy moment of the church. And we do everything similar to our Jewish brothers and sisters in the sense that it's around gathering. I had spent, a group of us had spent eight months planning the Palm Sunday March through the city, 15,000 people were walking for refugees and the acknowledgement that we ought to be good people and good neighbours and welcome others into our worlds.
Suddenly, all that goes out the window. It's easy to panic. But I think one of the lessons is that we need to stop and be really objective. And good governance helps you walk through that objectivity. I wrote down three things that I think has been really helpful in the journey. One is to remind ourselves of the basis of our existence. Who are we? What are we? What is the critical thing that causes us to live and breathe? So in our faith context, it's about affirming the narrative, it's about living out of the story of where we find meaning and purpose. The second one is to review our activities, to look through our activities and say, "What are the essential parts of what we've done that we need to continue?" But be really hard and ask the question, "What are the non-objective, non-essential parts that we can comfortably let go of that are really convenient when there are no restrictions, but now are superfluous to how we might operate?" So we need that review of all our activities, what's essential, what's non-essential.
The third one, and one that I've been really conscious of is, we need to be really aware of how our staff are travelling. I for one am a person who is a social animal. The longer this goes on, the more I feel like I'm climbing up a wall. And I keep working out ways of adapting the restrictions. So I discovered that if you meet a friend for a cup of coffee, and you go for a walk around the block, you can exercise, you can have a takeaway coffee, and you can have a meeting, and you can have a socialization, providing you've got distance.
We've got to be really careful that in a moment like this, people don't get lost. So the critical thing about our faith communities is that we are people working with people for the betterment of other people. And we need to be really conscious of staff. So how do staff travel? Are staff better in a quiet space? Are they more social? Do they, and. If we've changed from essential activities to non-essential or the other way around, have we left somebody out? Have we suddenly put a, left a person with nothing to do and all those? So we need that real strong sense of how our staff's travelling.
The fourth one I'd say is you're going to get really switched on to what the government and what our health sectors are saying. So one of the things that my role has ... (inaudible) Contacting with Bretts (inaudible) ... Contacting we people like Vivian Newgen, the head of VMC, talking to somebody from DPC, Department of Premier and Cabinet and building notes liaison so that you're across the latest information. Then when the information is distributed from one of those sources, being in the conduit place where you can disseminate that to your people really quickly because the worst thing in a crisis is lack of information, which then leads to rumour. And then rumour leads to fear. We've got to try and cut the nexus of that. So really good links around that.
Professor Kathy Laster
Ian-
Rev Ian Smith
The last point I think is around flexibility. In a crisis, you've got to be super flexible. So the balancing act is holding together objectivity, intention and being flexible.
Professor Kathy Laster
Thank you. That's very important for all organisations as principles of good governance. I think the communication is interesting because I think faith-based communities are actually very good communicators, they have ways of contacting, you know, their congregations and mobilising them very quickly. So maybe they were in an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
Nadav, can I bring you in here? Because we've talked about the value space, we've talked about what's essential, what's not essential. But for some communities and organisations, this was an existential crisis, right? They really need funds, and you know, they have buildings. So in many ways, if we move outside of the faith sphere and look at them as an organisation, what are the three key legal issues for faith-based organisations responding to but also recovering from COVID-19?
Dr Nadav Prawer
Let me just make sure that my microphone is working.
Professor Kathy Laster
Yep, you're great.
Rev Ian Smith
We can hear you.
Dr Nadav Prawer
Well, let me just say this. The starting point is that communities or, for example, in the Jewish sense, what we call a Tehillah, have both a religious personality and a social personality, but also a legal existence. When you talk about legal personality, that's the kind of legal entity that you are. And that creates different natures of obligations that you have to comply with. You might have a company, you might have an incorporated association, you might have an unincorporated association. Everything from the church with its structures, all the way through to the great synagogue in Sydney, have different kinds of legal regulations and structures that apply.
So the starting point is know thyself. If you don't know what you are, it's very difficult to understand what your obligations are because at the end of the day, if you are an incorporated association, you have an annual meeting that's coming up. And even with everything else going on, you still need to make a return and a statement if you're large enough and conduct an audit and all kinds of other things. So if you're a company, you have a board of directors that may need to meet. If you are in an un-incorporated group, you have a different set of problems that have to be met.
So the existential crisis is met very differently depending on who you are and what you are as a collective. There are also things that aren't necessarily religious, for example, paying the rent. And if you have a rent over commercial tenancy or what we call a retail tenancy, the government has put in place a new set of regulations, the Omnibus Bill, as it's so wonderfully called, that contains special rules about how you can ask your landlord for reduction.
On the other hand, in some sectors... (inaudible) groups have property that they rent out as well. So just because you're a religious organisation, doesn't mean that you're not required to comply with, for example, rent reduction requests that require you to do things inefficiently. So the biggest one that has come up for me in the last two weeks has been people saying, "Look, we have to have our AGM. How do we have an AGM? How do we have a gathering where we're not supposed to gather?" And there are rules about technology and technology provisions for having virtual meetings. It might be hard to have virtual prayer. But in most cases, it's relatively easy to have your AGM by Zoom. For many organisations, this will probably become the new normal. So it's a really important thing to look at the rules, what is governing your specific organisation and structure.
The other thing is that just because the world is ending doesn't mean that you don't have to file your tax returns and deal with your compliance obligations. The government has made some financial adjustments that I'm sure Adam will talk about, but it hasn't made the compliance framework disappear, even if there are some times and extension. The other thing to remember is that organised obligations… (inaudible)…
... Organisations in particular, you're in the spotlight about things like mandatory reporting. Mandatory reporting doesn't change just because things are happening by Zoom rather than happening in person. And statistically, more abuse happens online, including more sexual abuse and more grooming than happens in person. There are arguments about it, but there are some suggestions it's by a factor of 100. So the same practices, concerns, everything that you were doing before is still likely to be around.
I'll flag one last thing. And that is for you all to be aware of and to consider, and that is that no one has yet tested the liability that organisations may have for infection. So we're yet to have court cases where organisations say a synagogue might be held responsible for injury or death, resulting from allowing a person to come into their building who has an infectious disease. It hasn't happened yet. But it's very likely that it will happen. So please make sure that you're maintaining your insurance cover, including your old insurance with runoff, because there are, those are the kinds of things that are likely to be excluded.
Know thyself, make sure that you're keeping up with your existing compliance framework, and keep looking out. I'll just mention one other thing. We are now, the government's current edition of the directives. They have a wonderful title called the Stay at Home Directions. For example, we now to our seventh edition, we also have something like 15 editions of the other sets of regulations that are being promulgated and changed all the time. You have to keep up to date with them. They, for example, governance, how many people are allowed to gather for the purpose of conducting a religious ceremony, capacity requirements. And there is no safe harbour for saying, "I looked at the old regulations." If things change, and they can go up and down, you must be aware of them. Ignorance has never been an excuse under the law.
Professor Kathy Laster
Thanks, Nadav. While we're talking about existential crises, and rents, landlords, and tenants, also employees, we might turn to Adam and ask Adam to give us an update on some of the financial implications of COVID-19 for faith-based communities.
Adam Lancaster
No worries. Thank you, Kathy. Thanks to all that are sort of attending today. Hopefully, we can provide you with some value to take back to each of your organisations. So basically, I'll just want to have a bit of a chat about the financial viability and what we've been seeing in practice out there, and maybe just put a bit of a framework around it and split that framework into sort of two sections of things that we can sort of immediately do around cash flow, which is obviously very important for any organisation to keep up and running. So the first part of it will be short term cash flow.
And the second part will be the short to medium term cash flow, what we can do there. Now, Ian made some, some good points earlier with regards to the focus of an organisation. We're seeing a lot of people become as lean as they possibly could upfront. What does that mean? That basically means they look to cut their discretionary spending as much as possible and concentrate on their core purpose or their core service, which is the first thing you can do to just really bring the business back to its own bare bones. In saying that, they always want to be mindful of not sacrificing the organizational infrastructure that you may have built over a long time because we're sort of starting to say see now in that the economy is starting to rebound and there's a lot more good feelings out there.
So it will turn and when it does, it will turn hard. That's what I believe to be true anyway. So we need to be prepared for that. So we don't want to sacrifice, throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. So that's sort of what you can do straightaway. As far as the next sort of point I want to make with the short term cash flow is to try and secure as much stimulus or grant money as you can. Whether that's through the much publicised job keeper payments, the cashflow boost with PAYG, withholding on employees, seeking rent relief, which Nadav touched on, and even just from a state government level, trying to get land tax reliefs, some utility reliefs. There is a lot of, a lot of reliefs out there. You only have to ask question and generally, you can get some access to that. Now, I did just want to touch on-
Professor Kathy Laster
Can I just ask, is it too late for job keeper?
Adam Lancaster
No yeah, Yes, that was the next point. I was just going to take a bit of a minute to talk about job keeper. That's fine. So basically, the job keeper scheme runs through until the 27th of September. So basically the end of September. So if you haven't opted in, that doesn't mean you can't opt in. We've got now still, yeah, sorry, three to four months to still take part in this scheme. So how do we enter this scheme? We basically as a charity or religious institution, you need to be registered with the ACNZ, and if you have experienced a drop in your turnover, comparative to the same month or the same quarter last year, so if we were use as an example, we would (inaudible) ... We made off some quite a few (inaudible) ... Whatever job keeper fortnight we are in up until the end of September.
So basically, if you think you've had a drop in your turnover comparative to the same month last year and there are a number of special laws or rules relating to charities and religious institutions, which I won't go into at the moment because it'll be complex, we don't have time. But we've got the next job keeper fortnight finishes on the 21st of this month. So basically 10 days jump in, and you can get back paid for the fortnight in relation to not only your employees, but your religious practitioners or religious institutions which they brought in as the original legislation effectively excluded them. So that was a good thing of the government, we think.
And then if you do qualify for job keeper, basically it's mandated that you, in turn, qualify for rent relief in conjunction with the decline and turnover that you've had for job keeper. So you can get a rent relief of at a minimum of 30%, oh 15% because that's the new drop in turnover that it takes to qualify to get into the scheme in the first place. So that's what we can do in the short term.
If we move to the second part of the framework, the sort of the medium, short to medium term cash flow, you know, it's basically where we started to get more sophisticated when we look at things like cash flow forecasting. What a cash flow forecast does is allows an organization to understand their cost structure and any impending deficits that might be coming up. What it does do is give you the confidence to take on the future by taking some of the mystery out of the future as much as possible, you're never going to get 100% right bit of a guessing game at times.
But knowing that you have costs coming up versus knowing that you have 10K of cost coming up is a very powerful difference in terms of making decisions moving forward. Basically, the knock on effect from completing the cash flow forecast is understanding then that you may have deficits coming up and you can approach the banks to secure some financing in relation to helping you get through that period. They did it from the pandemic, the banks do offer unsecured loans that are 50% government backed, but they are also financing business normally to help with cash flow. It’s all, to get the. To basically secure any finance, the banks are always going to want to see a cash flow forecast and they're going to want to know that generally, you're being profitable over the past one to two years, at some point in time because at the end of the day, they are a business themselves. They need to know that if they lend money, it's got to be paid back. They've got Responsible Lending.
Professor Kathy Laster
One of the things-
Adam Lancaster
Criteria. Sorry.
Professor Kathy Laster
so one of the things I'm registering is how important it is to have a governance structure with an audit risk committee and having good financial practices because you never know when you're going to have to suddenly, you know, show those records, who would have predicted. Sometimes I know with small organisations, faith-based communities, you kind of leave it to the last minute, that would not have been a good strategy here as a takeaway governance list.
Dr Nadav Prawer
Can I just pipe in? One of the critical steps that particularly churches and synagogues have to deal with is if there are restrictions under their trustees from borrowing. So many, many, many organizations have a structure where the land or the building that the church is on will be owned by trustees rather than by the church itself. And that separation was very common from the 1800s until quite recently as an asset protection tool. Very often, only the trustees, if anyone, will be allowed to give a mortgage, will be allowed to give property as security.
Dr Nadav Prawer
So when it comes to providing assets and figuring out what your assets are, it's really important that you understand your structure and the division, because otherwise when you're doing your cash flow forecast and your balance sheet and everything else, and certainly if you're knocking on doors asking to borrow and have some security, it may not be yours to begin with, and it may not be something that you can use in that fashion.
Professor Kathy Laster
So can you-
Adam Lancaster
Absolutely. Yeah.
Dr Nadav Prawer
So the second reason is really, really important. Because if you go back to the bank and say, "Well, I wanted a half a million dollars, and I was giving you, I will say St. Paul's Cathedral as security," that's one thing. If its, if it's the personal pledge of someone who's taken a vow of poverty, it can be a little bit different. So it's much better to check before you have the somewhat embarrassing conversation.
Professor Kathy Laster
Ian, you were coming in there because I know that churches are often under a very complex arrangement of ownership of land.
Rev Ian Smith
Yes, absolutely. Yes. I just affirm everything that Nadav said that yes, most churches would be unable to use their facilities or land as a asset to draw against because of trust relationship.
Professor Kathy Laster
Mhm,
Rev Ian Smith
That's a critical thing for anybody, any of us, it's critical to make sure that we're allowed to draw against something.
Professor Kathy Laster
Yes. Ian, while I've got you there on screen, can we move away a bit from the sort of technical elements of what people are doing and how they need to go about it, and talk more in the sort of impacts, the postural impact of COVID-19. Have you been aware of the gender dimensions that this pandemic has presented for communities? Then I'll ask the other people the same question. This is my thing about-
Rev Ian Smith
What I'm hearing, if I change hats a little bit from the VCC to my other role, which is Faith Communities Council Victoria.
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Ian, you don't wear a hat? (laughing)
Rev Ian Smith
(laughing) No. (laughing) Very good, Ronnie. One of the things we've been discussing at the Faith Communities Council is that there is a antidotal perception that in this crisis, women are far more vulnerable, and children are far more vulnerable because often what's happening in lockdown is that there is a sinuation, there is a extension or a inflaming of any tension in family and so many of the faith communities across Victoria are experiencing and working really hard to try and alleviate the disadvantage of the women and children are finding in a context where because one partner doesn't leave the house, there isn't the breaker to some of the conversation.
So I think one of the costs going forward is going to be that pastorally, however we all understand pastoral care or caring for our communities. There is going to be a real need to revisit some of the relationships that our communities have, where there has been real tension applied because of the unusual nature of working from home. I'm aware that in some homes, the new office is the kitchen table. Well, you know, if you've got a laptop and a printer and stuff set up on the kitchen table, and it's a place where the family eat and work, there is a whole blurring of the lines about what is and what isn't, and who should and who can't, creates phenomenal tension.
I think going forward, one of the hidden costs for all faith communities is going to be how we bring our communities out of this in a way where there are really healthy relationships both within the family units but also within the congregational units. I've had a number of conversations recently with clergy about as we've gone from 10 people to 20 people, and the projection is of maybe 50 by the beginning of July, a number of clergy are finding that their congregants are really scared to come back. There's a real anxiousness about what happens. What's it mean?
Pastorally, I think, whether it's Ronnie or it's me or it's a Sheikh, or it's anybody else in this conversation, where I think we're going to be really ... We need to be really mindful that we're going to have to work really hard at rebuilding some of the foundational building blocks of community, where we find trust, how we find, how we move back into relationships. There are going to be some. It's a bit like a bell curve, the first 10% will be racing in the door, there will be a few that will never come back. Then there’s that 80% on the leaf of the curve who will find it increasingly awkward to come and we will just have to manage that in a whole new way.
Professor Kathy Laster
Thank you.
Dr Nadav Prawer
Can I just pipe in and say that right now, there is a different opportunity for renewal because of the technology generation, which is perhaps my generation or a little bit younger, who are now all of a sudden being provided with and have a more valuable skill for the new way that many communities are going to be structured.
And there is an enormous opportunity for meaningful participation by young people that may have been marginalised structurally before, because now their skills are given new prominence. So for most organisations, the possibility of having a shadow board or in fact, engaging in aggressive continuity plans by targeting the under 60s and probably the under 25s is really important. Usually organisational knowledge transfer is the biggest structural weakness for faith-based communities. Because you have the same people doing everything. But now all of a sudden, we have a huge push to engage people in a technological way.
Rev Ian Smith
Yeah.
Dr Nadav Prawer
I'd say most people over the age of 65 would ask their grandchildren how to set up a mobile phone.
The same is true for asking your grandchildren for how to more effectively engage in technological communities, rather than simply locational communities. I'd like to hope that everyone gets at least one 25 or under year old onto their board by the end of the crisis if not five.
Professor Kathy Laster
Nadav, thank you.
Rev Ian Smith
Yeah, there you go. Fantastic commitment.
Professor Kathy Laster
That brings me to a kind of final-ish question of the panelists and I'm hoping that Sheikh Saleem can also come in here. What will be the legacy of this? What will be the good bits? Nadav's raised one element of that, generational change and renewal for faith based communities. Are there any other legacies of what we've just been going through? Maybe, Ronnie?
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Yeah, sure. Perhaps I'll address three different aspects. The first one is work from home. Can I say that I'm the only one in the office at the moment. The rest of the staff are working from home but we've discovered we've actually found some efficiencies we never dreamt of. We were sort of forced into it because we realised there was still some stuff that we were operating on paper. Now because staff have to share things between them, we worked out ways that we could do some of that stuff and realized, "Oh, that's a much more efficient way."
So one of the positive things is because of necessity, we've redeveloped some systems, which we never thought of and realised they're better ways. The other thing is, the second thing is new ways to deliver services. Both we and our congregants have sort of assumed a particular way of service delivery that's evolved over in our case, millennia. But of course, now with technology and picking up on something Nadav said, we've certainly developed new ways to, to engage with people and some of our younger congregants are suddenly getting engaged because we're now speaking, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on, some of the technologies which we didn't think were necessary, we've actually engaged asocial media expert over the last few months.
It's reaped benefits because we're now reaching out in ways we never realised we could and it's speaking to a different demographic. And the third thing I suppose in terms of, but I'm happy to answer questions. The third thing, I suppose to mention in terms of positive developments, is in fact some personal professional development. I've now learned some new things that although I come from an IT background, I never really focused a lot on delivery of my services or delivery of meetings via technology until I was forced to invest in that and of course, now I’ve learnt some things, certainly some positives have come out through necessity.
Professor Kathy Laster
Sheikh Saleem or someone I see from the Board of Imams, is there something you would like to add about what has come through as a legacy good or bad from the current pandemic for communities?
Sheikh Muhammad Saleem
I'm pretty sure that benefiting from the overseas scholars has become easy. Now we don't need to apply for visa anymore so we can bring them Zoom and people are really comfortable listening to them recently. And, that has become a legacy, I think for sure in the next Ramadan for hopefully. Definitely, there is a women's participation probably has become, I'm not very sure whether it is increased or decreased because we can see in the mosque whenever we have congregations, we can see the large crowd of female participants. But during the Zoom times, we are not very sure whether they are a participant or not in this place.
It's only the male participant on it. So that may be a bad legacy, I'm sure because we can't. And we also do not know whether the younger people really participated in the family environment, and so on. So these are off the cuff observations from that sense.
Professor Kathy Laster
Thank you, Sheikh. I think we've got quite a number of very good questions coming in on the chat line. I wanted to give people an opportunity while we have this expert group with us. Greta, do you want to curate those questions to see what the thrust is of a lot of them?
Greta
Yeah. So we've got about 12 questions. I'll try and group some of them together. The first one, a couple of them touch on some of the technical, finance, financial stuff, so I might start with that. So we have a question about the DGR status. This is in regards to seeking grants, small faith groups without DGR status seem to not be eligible for a lot of community or business grants. So the question is, are there any workarounds if you're in these circumstances?
Professor Kathy Laster
Adam, Nadav?
Dr Nadav Prawer
I might be able to take that one,
Adam Lancaster
I’ll defer to Nadav
Dr Nadav Prawer
Sure. The answer is yes and no, as with most things. Grant giving is usually defined by the parameters of the person that's giving the grants. And many, many, many organisations and government entities are moving towards more accountability in the way they give out money, but at the same time, wanting to spend less money on managing that accountability. That means using pre-existing government prudence, like being registered with the ACNC or having DGR status. The presumption in most of those cases is that doing so ensures a level of compliance. And that is the trend.
That's why whilst, you know, a lawyer might be important, I've got to say, having a really good accountant who can maintain your demonstrable compliance is probably the most important thing after your selection of a pastor or religious leader. Because today, the flow of money is only going to be as wide as your ability to demonstrate a clean, appropriate, sensible balance sheet. The other issue with DGR is that many of the organisations that are giving money can only do it pursuant to their tax rules to DGR organisations. In those cases, you can't get any money through those foundations.
Sometimes you can go to whoever gave the money to the foundation and say, "Look, we were a small group, we're not yet there with DGR." But that's outside the existing grant schemes. My advice, being most practical is that if your organisation is serving more than 100 people a week, and whether that's through prayer or through charity, or otherwise, you should already be looking to get to DGR status.
If you have 1000 contacts a month, you should already be looking to go down the ACNC full-on registration route, get your compliance in order early. You'll have to do it eventually, if you're going to grow and be successful, better to do it early. Better to invest money in a program like Zero, an accounting software platform, that is going to help you and all of your people get your books in order early.
It makes a big difference to how you'll be viewed for a very long time. But I've got to say Adam is more important than I am on these things, because I can tell you what to do. But if you don't actually have someone who is keeping you on the rails, then a donor who asked to look in your books will say, well, there's the old story that the books of the organisation are pile of pieces of paper that have built up over the years. And you can tell what the board had for lunch on the third Tuesday in 1972, because they all have their crumbs on that pad that's all the way down. That doesn't cut it anymore, particularly now, where we're in a Darwinian era where organisations are going to fall over. So you might be able to get a few dollars working around, but it's a very temporary solution.
Greta
I've got another question that actually is quite relevant to that. So another question is-
Professor Kathy Laster
Yes. Maybe we'll get Ian to help answer it because-
Greta
Yes, Ian or Adam. Can we elaborate on how every institution has handled member fees adjustments, so as we know institutions still have ongoing costs, even if people are not physically there. So the question I suppose is, can you just remember to deal with this?
Professor Kathy Laster
Ian first, Ronnie, and then Adam, if you've got any comments on that, but maybe Ian starting and then Ronnie.
Rev Ian Smith
What was the very first part of the question? I missed it. Maybe Ronnie can answer it and I'll come back.
Professor Kathy Laster
Okay. Ronnie, come on in.
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Sure. That's an excellent question. I don't know who asked it. But of course, in our case, people are expecting, it's a bit like gym membership. You expect to be there. Even though we're delivering service via Zoom, you're not there. So what am I paying for? So first thing to say is our annual fees, by the way, those are normally invoiced at the start of April. Right when we went to lockdown, they were invoiced, by the way. But our cover letter explained that we normally we would allow, we normally would ask people to pay by the end of May. We firstly extended it to the end of June. We invited people to make contact with us if they had any issues about paying.
We've for a long time encouraged people to consider paying in periodic payments. And so anyone who had some concerns did contact us. I have to say they weren't that many. We put a moratorium on fee based resignations. That means that anyone who has contacted us saying, "I want to resign, I can't afford it," we told them that that we wouldn't be processing any such resignations until September. In the meantime, if they can pay something, they do. If they can't, they can't. But we're happy to talk to them again towards the end of September.
So we made it, we were very open about accommodating whoever we could. You're quite right, Greta, that our costs continued. But I have to say, our members really appreciated the way we've reached out to them during these difficult times. We changed our pastural services. We couldn't do visits, we not only rang the people we would normally visit. But we actually split the 1400 members between volunteers and staff, and have been ringing them all just to say hello, and check on how they're doing. So peopled appreciate it, they realise they're getting value. They also appreciated the fact that we are happy to hold off on receipt of payments.
Professor Kathy Laster
Ian, do you want to add anything to that? About how your communities are faring with the financial issue?
Rev Ian Smith
The conversations I've had with the leaders of the various communities is that most communities are doing it really tough, that most communities within the church, unlike our Jewish brothers and sisters, don't have contribution. And so, it's much more a voluntary process. Whilst of sending care out, our people will have automatic debit and direct payments, etc. A significant number still rely on what happens in the plate or what happens at the door.
And so, most of our communities are struggling in that space. And we're looking at, you know, one person said that they thought they'd be 50% down on their last year's. But I think we're all going to take a significant hit because of; it will depend a little bit on how soon we come back. It will depend on whether people have a sense of, as Ronnie said, recognising the gift of the community to the wider community and they may continue to give you even if their personal need if you like aren't being met physically. But yeah, we'll wait and see, but I think 12 months hence, we'll have a better read of. But I think most of us are preparing to have a negative going forward.
Professor Kathy Laster
Nadav, you have just a very quick comment I hear.
Dr Nadav Prawer
Yeah, and Ronnie's lucky, his synagogue trustees in terms of membership provide for 12 months flexibility with becoming a non-financial member, but everyone else needs to check, particularly as elections come up, what your rules are for financial and non-financial members. You might, depending on the terms of your organisation, you might not be able to give people a fee waiver whilst they are still going to be eligible to hold office or to vote. So you have to look at the terms of your constitution. It might be better to propose to amend your constitution before it's too late, before you have problems, before your board members and treasurer can't vote, and so on and so forth. So you have to look at your rules and do it early, rather than waiting two weeks too late when everyone becomes non-financial and you have a very big problem that results. Plan early. It's much easier.
Professor Kathy Laster
Thank you. Greta, can we move onto the next question?
Greta
Yes, we can answer. We've had a number of questions regarding faith based rituals that cannot really be replaced by technologies such as the ritual mikvah baths in the Jewish community and the Eucharist in the Christian communities. And so, the question is generally how have we adapted to this? I suppose it's for Ian and Ronnie.
Professor Kathy Laster
Yeah. Do you want to answer, Ian, how you managed the Eucharist?
Rev Ian Smith
Yeah. Our world is really complicated. The church is basically divided into two different camps around our rituals. Some of our communities, the rituals have to be done in person. And in those communities, this has been a particularly distraught time for many people not to be able to physically gather to participate around baptisms, around Eucharist, around naming days, etc. doesn't allow for the event to have its veracity.
However, there is a proportion of the church for whom they have been really adaptable and been able to find new ways of being able to hold those events in isolation, but together. So you know, I know of one community, for instance, where 600 people gather every Sunday under Zoom, and they're still doing breaking of the bread because each person organizes their own at home. And their understanding of the event is that they can do it in isolation, but do it together because Zoom puts them in the same space.
So we have a real diversity within the church. One of the greatest gifts was the gift that came at the beginning of June, where for our Eastern and Orthodox and our more traditional churches, they were allowed to have congregants of 10 people plus or people officiating, which allowed for 12 to 15. And the 10 congregates could actually participate in in the Liturgy of Eucharist. Yeah, but we're in that diversity of both end.
Professor Kathy Laster
Ronnie, very quickly any specific thing that is ... (inaudible) Congregates?
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Yeah, I suppose the concept of a Minyan which I mentioned before was 10 males in fact aged 13 and over is required for some parts of the service, but not, for most parts of the service, one can say on their own but there are some parts that require a Minyan. Those, and they need people face to face via Zoom doesn't cut it. Those parts simply were just not done. I know that there were people trying to find the Minyan around the globe in order to say a particular prayer for someone who's passed away. And they were searching for someone, if I could pay someone to do it in West Africa, for example, then that would be great. But almost every synagogue around the globe closed. So there were just some parts. But otherwise, for the majority of what we do, it can’t be done at home, it's not the same experience that can be done.
Professor Kathy Laster
Sheikh Saleem, just very quickly, anything specific in Islamic practice that requires an absolute gathering that couldn't be done or had to be varied?
Sheikh Muhammad Saleem
Apparently, yes. For Friday congregations, usually this large, but at least minimum has to be about four. But then the community opted to have no Jum'ah prayer at all because the problem is how did you choose that four, which one? We don't want to upset the community. So if we are going to have, yeah, it's all of us together. I mean, community understood that everybody should be treated fairly. So even at the moment, 20 people can meet or pray together. But I'm not saying no, we are not going to have it until ... (inaudible)
Professor Kathy Laster
Yes. Can I ask on that issue of how do you tell who it should be, as we talk about resuming contact, are any of the faith communities and also bearing in mind Nadav's caution about legal liability? If people get sick as a consequence, is anyone imposing testing or ...? Yes, so Ronnie's saying, for re-entry for High Holidays, you're going to ask people for a certificate or ...?
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
For re-entry already. So already we're now allowed, we were allowed 10. We're now that 20 plus, a couple of people to run the services. Already people have to register, they have to contact us. We give priority to those who've got a bar mitzvah or some other commemoration. They'll get a priority, but others have to contact us. We put them on a list, then we email them in advance a series of questions for which they must truthfully be able to say no. So; have you got temperature? Have you been overseas for the last two weeks? Have you got a cough, a runny nose? Have you lost taste, sense of smell or taste? Those are series of questions we send them. When, if they say no, then they're allowed to come. They're on our list of 20, 22 people. When they turn up at the day-
Professor Kathy Laster
Nadav, on a very quick yes or no basis, as the lawyer, is taking those kinds of precautions likely to be sufficient as reasonable measures to stave off any litigation if there was an outbreak?
Dr Nadav Prawer
No. Sorry to say, no. It's a good start, and it will get you some mitigation. But there's a lot more that you would have to do in order to do it. I would suggest that people enter into an indemnification agreement in which they waive any claims against the synagogue for any illness that they may contract. And at the same time, if they breach those terms, that representation, that they acknowledge that they are liable to indemnify the synagogue for any loss that they have in turn. I'd just add that at least from a Jewish perspective, coming into a synagogue, if you are ill or maybe ill, is potentially akin to murder. So it carries a religious penalty, which is possibly far more severe than merely having the lawyers come after you.
Professor Kathy Laster
Nadav, we'll hold-
Dr Nadav Prawer
The thing that needs to happen is you need to ensure that there's no crowding. So if you want to do a simple thing, go outside your building with a roll of masking tape and draw lines on the ground every two meters and signs for people not to queue even to enter the building closer than that.
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Already done.
Professor Kathy Laster
Okay. What a, maybe we've got one last question from Greta.
Greta
This could be a sum up question for everyone. Just before we leave
Professor Kathy Laster
Yes, or maybe we would just do that. How has this COVID virus, pandemic situation changed your understanding of your role and that of community? Just a quick whip around. Ian, starting with you. What does it leave you with?
Rev Ian Smith
Does it leave ...
Professor Kathy Laster
As a minister, as a person of community.
Rev Ian Smith
A couple of things. One is around the issue of accountability and modelling. I think it changes the role and the model of who we are as leaders, we have to be modelling responsibility and appropriate behaviour. It also raises the notion of what does it mean to care in a new way. So it alters the definition of care for your people. So the things that Ronnie's talked about, the things that Nadav have picked up, the things that Tim's (Adam) talked about, there's this new world where you've got to be thinking through how you space your people at the front, how you pre booked people. Yeah, I'm aware of one church that's gone to Eventbrite and sets up all its services on Eventbrite. It's got a cut-off point, the first number in, you got a ticket. You turn up, you've got your ticket, da, da, da, da. That's changing. I think that's altered my world. Yeah.
Professor Kathy Laster
Ronnie, leadership, leadership of community. How has this experience changed, that governance and religious leadership?
Rabbi Ronnie Figdor
Be on the forefront, that's the first thing. People don't want to wait because someone that previously mentioned people will start making up stories along the way. Be on the front foot. We developed a epidemic pandemic policy, which our board approved and if people are interested we're happy to share it with people, which discussed how we cut down things. Along the way, we've now added to it how we resume services in a staggered way. So be on the front foot, that's going to be very important because a lot of people make up statements.
Professor Kathy Laster
Thank you. I'm glad you reminded me of that. We are putting together a set of resources from multi faith communities. And Ronnie has kindly offered his. Adam has very kindly also offered to share with us some working documents that redi-one the accounting firm has prepared as a sort of a quick reference guide. We will ask our panellists and anyone else we can cajole into asking the questions that you sent by way of chat to Greta that couldn't be answered because I promised a hard close. We will post those on a mechanism to be decided so that you don't have to go away with a burning question that we didn't answer.
We hope that this event has been useful. We tried to add value. We've been working with faith based communities for some time. It's been a fantastically informative and interesting session, I've certainly learned a great deal. It has been a challenge for everybody. So I would particularly like to thank and you know, you do the traditional hand clapping. All of our panellists, our experts, our two particular panellists, Sheikh Saleem in the last minute, and we will be writing to everyone who registered. We'll be posting a recording of this for those that couldn't be here, along with some resources. If any of the audience have got resources that they'd like to share, please send them to us and we can make that a communal knowledge information sharing platform. So thank you very, very much, everybody. Wonderful to have you with us. I'll ask the panellists to stay for a quick debrief. Goodbye to everyone. Thanks so much. Bye.
