Expanded Itinerary and MBI Departure Day Information

Dear MBI Families,

It was great having all the conference calls this week with many of you. I certainly heard a lot of good questions and feel an excitement as we have a few short weeks until the program starts. We have updated the MBI acceptance page to the right of this post to include the Expanded Itinerary and the MBI Departure day information page. As a reminder at the beginning of next week we will be sending out all the domestic e-tickets for everyone flying to New York or Toronto. The international flight is an e-ticket which we will have all the flight information so you won't need to worry about keeping track of those numbers. Soon we will be sending out contact lists for every machaneh(camp) so you all can see who is going and perhaps start a local communication chain whether by phone or email.

Shabbat Shalom,
Michael

MBI Conference Calls!

In the run up to MBI I would like to invite you all to take part in conference calls that myself and Leon(Rosh MBI) will be taking part. It will be a chance for you all to ask any and all questions you might have about the program and hear other concerns other parents may have. Every machaneh(camp) has a designated time slot. However, if you cannot call in to your camp's time slot, feel free to call in to any other conference call. The assigned times are as follows:

Monday June 23rd at 1pm ET Gesher
Tuesday June 24th at 1pm ET/12 CT Tavor
Thursday June 26th at 1pm ET Moshava and Na'aleh
Thursday June 26th at 3pm ET/12 PT Gilboa and Miriam
Friday June 27th at 1pm ET Galil

To call in to the conference calls dial 605-475-6100 and the code is 194815. While the conference call is free, you may be billed for the minutes since it is a long-distance call.

I look forward to speaking with you all as we have less than a month to go!

Michael

MBI Itinerary

At long last the MBI Itinerary is available. This is the basic itinerary. We will be sending out a more detailed itinerary that explains more about the specifics of everything listed. To follow this document you will note that the days are split into mornings, afternoons, and evenings and below that is the name of the place they will be staying. The name may be that of a campsite, hostel, or Kibbutz they will be staying.

Click here or copy and paste the below link.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhpg3npt_11fqr3p2dg

Lastly many people still need to sign up for a cellphone. All participants must have a cellphone for the duration of the program and we recommend signing up with Israelphones at: www.israelphones.com/mbi.htm or for more information go the MBI Acceptance page at the link at right.

Hope you all had a great Chag and you'll be hearing more from me soon...

Renting a Cellphone

As hopefully you all know, all MBI participants will need to rent a cellphone for the duration of the program. I recommend using Israelphones as we have a longstanding relationship with them, and they are both affordable and reliable. The rates and application forms are now available on the MBI acceptance website to the right of this post. They have an early-bird discount if you apply by June 1st. But I'm going to see if they can push that back a week or so to give you all a little more time. Regardless I would move quickly in the event I can't get them to change the date. I also will be out of the office at a seminar from Friday the 24th until Wednesday the 28th.

Back from Israel

Well visiting Israel during its 60th Birthday was a special experience and it will be special for the MBIers to be in Israel during the summer of its Birthday. The itinerary for this summer is just about finalized and there are some exciting things in store. Much of the itinerary's content is similar to last year with a few additions. One exciting thing is for the first time there will be a joint World Habonim summer camp. For several days MBI will join up with the summer programs from Great Britain, Holland, France, Hungary, and possibly a couple other countries. It will be a fun and meaningful experience to meet Habonim Dror members their age from across the globe for an extended time period. Additionally we seem to have settled on our tikkun olam project which likely will be working with Table to Table/Shulchan el Shulchan whose projects involved going to orchards and fields to pick fruits and vegetables that would not be picked, and donate them to food banks and homeless shelters. I will be posting the full itinerary soon, but these are just a couple of things to look forward.

The free weekend which I'm sure most of you have been wondering about will take place the first weekend of August on August 1-2, from Friday morning until Saturday night after Shabbat. Please don't forget to send your visitor request and bus request as soon as possible.

Also if you have not contacted me about changing your dates to/from Israel please do that ASAP. There will be a nominal fee of $50 charged by our travel to adjust the flights to an earlier or later date.

I will post again to let you know that we have put the cell phone forms up on the acceptance page, as well as to let you know when the itinerary is up there.

That's all for now.
Michael

Quick Update

I have put the link to our MBI acceptance website on the right side of the blog. There you will find the acceptance packet, packing information and soon the itinerary for MBI Yud Zayin.

I will traveling to Israel from April 27th until May 10th. As such I will be out of the office during that time and will not always have access to my email. Please feel free to be in touch with Kenan, Gil or Jamie to ask them any questions you have related to MBI. They are very helpful and should know most of the answers to your questions or they will be in touch with me to find out the answers.

Please bear with me as I try to stay in touch with all of you wonderful families for our upcoming MBI. There are over 130 participants slated to participate and we are very excited about these numbers in our office.

Chag Sameach,
Michael

MBI Acceptances

By now all of you should have received MBI acceptances via email. If not please contact our office to inquire what the issue would be. We are currently having issues with Comcast email addresses receiving emails sent from our office. At times the emails are sent directly to a spam filter to our inconvenience. We are working on finding a solution to this unfortunate inconvenience.

Shortly you will be receiving an acceptance letter in the mail which has more information about the next steps to the joining MBI this summer. If you have not already sent in your payment of $1800 whether by check or credit card, please do so by the April 25th deadline. Also if you have any alternative travel arrangements please let our office know as soon as possible.

Lastly I will be out of the office for the Passover holiday until Wednesday April 23rd. I will also be out of the office from April 27th until May 10th as I will be in Israel during that time period. I can still be reached via email and other members of the Habonim Dror staff are equipped to answer any questions you might have or find out the answers for you.

Chag Sameach and Happy Passover,
Michael