Our 2016-17 AAUW year is winding down, and I want to give a status report and start getting ideas for the next program year, which begins in July. One of our popular interest groups is coming to an end: Walk to Lunch. They started off the year with 23 members and ended the last three months with only two walkers. That’s a shame, but it is evident that group members’ interests and priorities have changed, and there is no sense continuing with so little participation. A big thank you is due to Susan Potter for her seven years of leading this group! Are there other groups that are having a hard time and may be feeling their time is up? If so, please let me know.

I would like to start planning now for some new groups. What about a political action group that meets to discuss current issues and compose and send letters and postcards to political leaders advocating for women’s issues? Also, there were a couple other good ideas last year that maybe didn’t receive enough publicity. One idea was for a group that would attend film screenings of the Metropolitan Opera. Another was for a group that would play chamber music. I know we have musicians and opera buffs among our members. Maybe you can think of a specific mission-based project that we could turn into an interest group. Please email me at capeabody@comcast.net if you are interested in any of these ideas or if you have one of your own.