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. I just learned that 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 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?

 What about next year? I’d like to start planning now for some new groups. What about a political action group that meets to discuss current issues and to compose and send letters and postcards to political leaders advocating for issues of concern to women? 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 together. Another was for a group that would play chamber music together. I know we have musicians and opera buffs among our members. Maybe you can think of a specific mission-based project that you think we could manage as an interest group. Please let me know (capeabody@comcast.net) if you are interested in any of these ideas or if you have another one you think might be popular.