Dear friends and fellow meetup members,

I am writing today to let you all know I am stepping down as the organizer of the Westchester/Fairfield Single Jewish Professionals Meetup group.

I am very proud of all we have accomplished in the past couple years in truly establishing a wonderful local Jewish singles community. I have see relationships flourish and countless meaningful friendships develop?all because a particular web site, meetup.com, exists to help bring people with common interests together. It is also through this web site that I met my girlfriend Lisa on July 4. And as my relationship with Lisa has grown, so have our plans to move forward together. I am beginning a new job in NY, and On Dec. 28, I will be moving from Stamford to northern NJ. Hence the time has come for me to transition from the singles activities of these past years to a more partner-focused life.

It is with great happiness that I announce that Ariela Pelaia will be your new meetup group organizer. Ariela, whom many of you know, is the Program Director at Temple Beth El in Stamford. Many of the events, especially of late, that I have promoted for our group are Ariela?s. Our meetup group was originally created with the prime intention of helping to promote advertising for the Stamford YJP group?simply to utilize the power of the internet to add one more dimension in growing our local community of Jewish singles. Fortunately, we have grown since that original concept to the point where we could sustain events of our own, and I could not be more pleased with that growth. As Ariela has similarly posted events, we have tried in different ways to advertise them through different sources to ultimately maximize event turn outs. I know this has adversely led to confusion for many of you, often not knowing which source to RSVP to. With Ariela?s integration into meetup as the organizer, hopefully things will become simpler.

Many of you are members of Ariela?s TBE Facebook page. Fortunately, meetup and Facebook are fully integrated, and should Ariela choose to maintain both sites, every event posted on meetup can be directly linked to a Facebook page with the click of the organizer?s mouse. To those of you on my friends list, perhaps you?ve seen some of our events posted on my Facebook wall.

So, some exciting changes are afoot, and I could not be more comfortable placing the group in Ariela?s talented hands. To those of you who have yet to come to an event, make it a New Year?s resolution to do so. And to those of you who have come out but could become more active, just do it. We never know who we will meet at any given time, and there gems among you just waiting to meet one another.

I wish you all a very happy holiday season, and it has truly been an honor getting to know you and making friends with you. I wish you all the very best, and rest assured I will still be around in Fairfield County from time to time.

Sincerely yours,
Jeffrey Joseph