I have a group of slave sites that i want to convert to a new template. is there an easy way to do this? can i activate the template across all sites? can i "push" the new menu to all the slave sites? I dont want to disrupt the content specific to the slaves.

I also need to activate 1 new module area and activate a module for that area for all my slaves.

If the word template mean the joomla template (the look, the themes) and that you want to have the new template as default for a group of website, you have to go in the back-end of each slave site to select the new default template.

I don't know if you have shared the templates directory but if this is not the case and that you have decided to have speicifc templates directory, you will also have to go in each slave site and re-install the template.

Concerning the menu, you will also have to go in each slave site and rebuild them.

Concerning the modules, if you have installed a new module and that you have configured and activated before installing it into the slave with the "JMS Tools" then you will have the same module pre-configured in the slave. If you have created a slave that group a set of children then you can propagate the installation.