Your input and participation ensure that our community continues to thrive and grow!
DATE:
Sunday, June 14, 2026
TIME:
10:00 am
IN PERSON:
at Temple Sinai (3405 Gulling Road, Reno)
ONLINE:
via Zoom
Register in advance to use Zoom for the Annual Meeting here.
After registering for Zoom access, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Virtual attendees will be able to vote within Zoom during the meeting.
Welcome to our 2026 Annual Congregational Meeting
This yearly gathering is a wonderful opportunity for our entire Temple Sinai community to come together, reflect on our shared journey, and look ahead to the future.
During this session, we will review the big-picture issues shaping our congregation, present the budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and cast our votes on vital community decisions. Your voice and presence matter deeply as we shape the future of Temple Sinai together.
Important Voting Information:
To ensure our voting process runs smoothly on Zoom, please note the following guidelines:
- WHO CAN VOTE: Voting is open to all members in good standing.
- VOTING LIMIT: In accordance with our bylaws, there is a limit of ONE vote per household.
Click the registration button above to register. Thank you for your continued commitment to our community. We look forward to seeing you there!
I. Meeting Agenda
Agenda
- Call to Order
- D’var Torah
- Volunteer Appreciation
- Election of Members of the Board of Trustees
- President’s Address
- Building/Grounds Security Update
- Summary of 2025-2026 Financial Information
- Budget for 2026-2027 Fiscal Year
- Congregation Member Comments
- Adjourn
II. Slate - Nominees to the Board of Trustees
Slate for Members of the Board of Trustees:
Our Executive Board (Two-year term, ending June 30, 2027):
- President – Tova McGilvray (incumbent)
- 1st Vice President – Michael Gorden (incumbent)
- 2nd Vice President – Laura Smith (incumbent)
- Financial Officer – Michael Cohen (incumbent)
- Secretary – Tommy Seidel (incumbent)
- Treasurer – TBD (update coming soon)**
For Member-at-Large (Beginning of one-year term, ending June 30, 2027):
- Howard Beckerman**
- Jeremy Cohen (incumbent)**
- Jill Flanzraich (incumbent)**
- Elspeth Olson (incumbent)**
- Lauren Suto**
** Will be voted on by our membership at the meeting.
III. Bios of Slate Nominees
Tova McGilvray (President) —
Tova McGilvray was “Battle Born” and raised in Reno, Nevada, and is a graduate of UNR’s writing program. She has worked in Title and Escrow for nearly a decade and looks forward to a long career helping people make Reno their home. She trained most of her life as a dancer and thespian, and cut her teeth at leadership managing, and choreographing productions. Her experience co-founding the Nada Dada Art Show exposed her to the plight of the residents in Reno’s weekly motels and introduced her to community activism. While always identified as a Nevada Jew, it was not until attending Temple Sinai just a few years ago that she found a home where she could practice community service from a proudly Jewish perspective. Tova is also the president of the Rotary Club of Reno Midtown.
Michael E. Gorden (1st Vice President) —
I grew up in Southern California for about 10 years and then moved to Reno in 1986. I grew up in a Reform Jewish Home. As a youth and an adult, I have always ensured, to the best of my ability, to belong to a Synagogue. I have been happily married (Don’t tell my wife) to my wife Jennifer for over 15 years and we have two rambunctious teenage boys and one equally rambunctious pre-teen girl – Nathaniel, 18 years, Shalom, 17 years (no, he is not peaceful), and that red-headed child who everyone thinks is cute–boy (she has everyone fooled) Sasha, 11 years. I am a Social Worker and have been working for the State of Nevada for over 15 years, and currently the manager of three District Offices for Medicaid. I also have been in the bowling business (my hobby) for about 30 years. Currently, I am a supervisor at Coconut Bowl, and I am an Association Manager for the Greater Reno-Sparks Bowling Association. My family and I have been members since 2014. I attended services as a teenager and into adulthood, for as long as I have been in the Reno area. I served on the Board for three years as a Member-at-Large and have served for the past several years as the Chair of the Building/Grounds and Security Committee. My family and I are always involved with events and holidays, and tries our best to volunteer time and labor to help out. We are very dedicated to Temple Sinai. I was very honored to serve as President and then 1st Vice-President of our greater Sinai Community, and will be honored to serve again as 1st Vice-President. I feel that I bring a positive, analytical, methodological, and Social Work perspective to growing and engaging our community in leading Temple Sinai.
Laura Smith (2nd Vice President) —
Belonging to Temple Sinai has made Reno feel like home since moving here. In this community, I have served on the Board of Trustees as a member-at-large, chaired the Jewish Practice Committee, volunteered as part of our collective effort to staff the overflow shelter tent on Record Street, coordinated biweekly breakfast deliveries to Our Place, led services, tutored students in preparation for their b’nei mitzvah, sang in the High Holiday Choir, and acted in the recent Purim spiels. In my prior affiliation with Congregation Shaarei Shamayim in Madison, Wisconsin, I served on the Ritual Committee and Social Action Committee, volunteered for The Road Home’s Interfaith Hospitality Network’s temporary family shelter program, ran monthly community meals for the Friends of the State Street Family, and had an active role in the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, engaging in friendship and solidarity with our Muslim neighbors. I currently teach math at Clayton Middle School and feel particularly invested in our cohort of active young families, as the parent of a toddler.
Michael Cohen (CFO) —
I was born in Israel, moved to New Zealand as a child, and then to the US for grad school in 2003. I have now spent over 20 years in the US, spending most of that time in Southern California (for school), and Northern California (for work). My wife Perian is a native Californian, and we moved to Reno in May 2021, during the pandemic, looking for a better work-life balance and more space for our children to enjoy. We found Sinai pretty quickly, and you may have seen us around the place in the last couple of years. My daughter Eliana and son Amiel attend Sinai School. In November 2023, I joined the staff of Sinai School as the 6-7th grade teacher, which has been a wonderful experience, and in July of 2024 I began serving as the Secretary of the Board of Trustees which has been a great opportunity to deepen my engagement with the community and my own Jewish practice.
My father once told me that children can always tell when their parents are being inauthentic, and that therefore the best way to raise Jewish kids is to do Jewish things, so I’m looking forward to taking this next step at Sinai. I’m looking forward to serving you all and learning more about all the joys we share, and the issues we face, as a community.
TBD (Treasurer) —
Candidate and bio coming soon.
Tommy Seidel (Secretary) —
I moved to Reno in 2020, and quickly started missing being part of a Jewish community. In 2022, along with my wife Katherine (a Reno native), we dove headfirst into Temple Sinai! We have both felt exceedingly welcome, and have enjoyed becoming more involved. I has been my pleasure to serve the Board as a member-at-large and is my honor to have been asked to join the board as secretary, and am passionate about both maintaining what we love about Temple Sinai, along with figuring out what we can improve on in order to better serve our community.
I am originally from the Bay Area, but have bounced across the US a few times. I have lived in Michigan (for school) and Boston (for work). I am a software engineer with particular interest in robotics and computer vision. In my spare time, I enjoy hiking, 3d printing, and spending time with my wife, two cats, and dog. I enjoy talking to pretty much anyone about pretty much anything, so I hope to have many opportunities to continue meeting and learning about the members of our community!
Howard Beckerman (Member-at-Large) —
Bio coming soon.
Jeremy Cohen (Member-at-Large) —
Bio coming soon.
Jill Flancraich (Member-at-Large) —
A native New Yorker, Jill moved to Las Vegas in 1994 and later relocated to Reno in 2012. She joined Temple Sinai in 2015 and successfully advocated for establishing the Library Committee, serving as its Chair for nine years. During her tenure, she oversaw several projects, including converting a storage classroom into the Youth Library, creating the Faces of Sinai photo wall in the small social hall, and organizing a program on antisemitism that attracted a diverse audience from Northern Nevada to the synagogue. Additionally, she chaired the Social Action Committee from 2016 to 2018 and developed the annual Mitzvah Day. In 2024, she became the synagogue’s volunteer Events Coordinator, assisting with, and launching, events such as the ‘Who Nu?’ series while promoting community interfaith programming, including the annual Interfaith Sukkot Potluck.
Jill has an extensive background in promotion, marketing, and special event planning, supported by a forty-year career that includes executive roles in retail and non-profit organizations, as well as owning two businesses. She is fortunate to live near her daughter and son-in-law, both graduates of the University of Nevada, Reno, and their schnauzer. As a strong advocate for the importance of Tikkun Olam, she is passionate about civic engagement. Her interests include creating piano compositions, exploring various music genres, reading, and watching classic films.
John Luis Gomez (Member-at-Large) —
John Luis Gomez retired from Corporate Banking in San Francisco in 2020 and is happily settled in the beautiful southern hills of Reno, with Donald, his spouse of 34 years. During the last five years, John Luis has focused his time on returning to Judaism, studying Hebrew, attending Torah studies, and being an active member of both Temple Sinai (a member for the last three years) and the greater Northern Nevada Jewish community. He’s a member of Temple Sinai’s Jewish Practice Committee and tutored his first B’nai Mitzvah student this last year. He writes fiction and poetry and has four manuscripts being polished to “shop” around, which he finds is a long process! He walks five miles a day and reads anything from history to science fiction and fantasy. He also enjoys traveling with his spouse and friends and immersing himself within local cultures and museums. He loves his family, friends, community and life!
Elspeth Olson (Member-at-Large) —
Elspeth moved to Reno in 2019 for a job in the main library at UNR. She previously lived on the San Francisco peninsula and has master’s degrees in history and library and information science. Back home, her family is a part of Congregation Etz Chayim in Palo Alto. Elspeth did not grow up in a synagogue community, as the local options at the time were unwilling to welcome an interfaith family that intended to remain interfaith. Instead, her family attended High Holy Day services through Hillel at Stanford University with Rabbi Ari Cartun, and she attended the Palo Alto School for Jewish Education on Sunday mornings until the end of eighth grade. Elspeth and her brother had their bat/bar mitzvot in the back garden of their family home, with the assistance of private tutoring and the retired Hillel rabbi, Charles Familant. Coming from a mixed-faith immediate family and multiracial extended family, Elspeth strongly believes in the power of communities that welcome, celebrate, and value different perspectives, identities, and experiences.
Lauren Suto (Member-at-Large) —
Bio coming soon.
