As I write this, it is February 15, and it is so nice to feel the warmth of the sun through the window. I know we need more rain, but I can’t help enjoying the sunshine! I hope you are, too.

Cherril Peabody, AAUW Sacramento President for 2014-15

Since I became president, I have been inundated by a huge number of communications via email from both State and National AAUW. Although I have shared a few of them with you, I have restrained myself from having our wonderful email tree coordinator, Shari Beck, send all of them on to you, for which I’m sure you’re grateful. However, I do want to remind you that there’s a lot of good information on those websites. State and National AAUW are working tirelessly to keep women’s issues before the state and national government decision-makers and the public. I hope you will log on occasionally to see what’s happening. The website addresses are in the front of our membership directory. Do check out Capital Ideas next month for an article from our new public policy director about what our branch will be doing for Equal Pay Day in April.

I also want to remind you that while probably all of our members consider themselves feminists, they hold various views about other political issues. I ask you, therefore, to encourage different viewpoints be expressed during discussion of current topics as they come up in interest groups and as we socialize together. Even if we disagree about the best way to solve important problems in our society, we should be respectful of the opinions of others and recognize that we might actually gain new insights from listening to their ideas. I mention this in response to some comments mentioned to me by members. We want all our members to feel comfortable when they meet with other AAUW members.

I hope to see a lot of you at our Molly Brown fundraiser later this month.