From the Desk of David Sorkin: Communication & Technology

This year, we’re celebrating the JCC of Staten Island’s 90th birthday. As the JCC turns 90, we reflect back on the milestones the organization has achieved over the years.
 
The ways we communicate have changed drastically since the JCC opened its doors 90 years ago. Beginning in the 1930s, direct mail was the main form of communication for the JCC. To help keep members informed, the Bulletin was started as a newspaper serving the Jewish community. It was an important source of information, including news stories, upcoming events, and birth and marriage announcements. It also contained some more gossipy items and ads for local businesses.

One of the oldest copies of The Bulletin in our archives—from 1939!

The Bulletin has taken on various looks and forms throughout the years. At times, it was printed on glossy paper and bound as a magazine. As times changed, the Bulletin went from being weekly to monthly, then eventually bi-monthly.

Another communication method the JCC undertook was Gabby, a phone book put together by Women’s Division. Gabby was so popular that local businesses took ads out in it! While the idea of a phone book may seem outdated in the age of the internet, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was all the rage.

Do you still have your old Gabby books? We want to see them! Take a picture and email it to us or post it on our social media accounts.

This fall, we’ve made a major effort to move into the future with regards to communication. We’ve embraced the role mobile devices play in our daily lives and have made updates to the way we do things to accommodate this. We’ve updated the look of our email blast, beefed up our social media presence, included more photos and videos in all our communications, and—most importantly—redesigned our website to be mobile-friendly and easy to use. You can check it out here!

While we want to move forward technologically, we also want to preserve pieces of our past history. We’ve moved the Bulletin online to make it easier to access and simpler to update more frequently, but we’ve also kept the newspaper’s past in mind. We’ve designed our new Bulletin logo in a similar style as the Bulletin had in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

We hope you enjoy all our new communication tools, and that you’ll use these new methods to not only access information, but get in touch with us to let us know what you love about the JCC and what we can do better. We always want to hear from you, and now there are more ways to get in touch with us than ever before.
 
While we don’t know what the future will hold technology-wise, we do know that we’ll have to keep adapting to keep up with our members’ and participants’ wants and needs. In the near future, stay tuned for our new fitness app, launching early next year. We can’t wait for you to try it out!