Donna Holmes
Welcome to a new branch year, and your membership team is full of new leaders:
on doing it for a long time. The advantage for her is most everything is done from home, where she can keep her husband company, and she loves this kind of data-heavy work.Membership History from the 19th Century to the 21st and Beyond
We will be exploring our membership history each month to illuminate how changes have worked over the last 140 years. First: In the beginning, members were hand picked by existing members and had to have attended particular universities. The San Francisco Branch of AAUW is the second oldest branch in the United States, organized in 1886 as the Pacific Organization of Collegiate Alumnae. The members were from UC Berkeley, Mills College and Stanford University. We could still have Angela Scarlett, and Donna’s great-grandmother who attended California Collegiate starting in 1863, merging with Mills in 1864 — unfortunately she died in 1886. Donna’s grandmother, Rebecca Suhr, was the first woman to graduate from the Stanford School of Law in 1903 and became a member.
We will move further into the 20th century in a future article. Stay tuned!
Sharon Anderson, membership treasurer, and Liz Jordan, finance director, want to thank the
members who have so eagerly renewed their membership and made significant donations to our branch outreach programs, and to our Dues Assistance Fund and General Branch Operations Fund.
As of the date of this writing, May 15, 2021:
The deadline to renew is June 1. Because our newsletter comes out very close to this deadline, we urge every member:
The renewal process requires many hours of volunteer time:
Sharon Anderson and Liz Jordan want to thank all members for their timely renewal and for the generosity of their donations to local and national needs. Thank you!
A WELCOME AND A FAREWELL
As we end our membership year, we are very pleased to welcome our newest member,
Bonnie Penix
Carmen L. Hobbs, to AAUW Sacramento. Carmen has a BS in nursing from San Jose State University and an MS from Sonoma State University in nursing leadership and management. She is retired from the position of nurse consultant with the State of California. She has a particular interest in working with our Public Policy and Scholarship Committees. She also is interested in joining Great Decisions, Cultural History, Readers’ Theatre and the Singles Dining Out groups. Carmen made a point of attending our final program meeting of this year on Zoom, and we are all eager to meet her in person as COVID restrictions are lifted.
Sadly, this will be the last column of our two-year term as co-membership directors and what a tumultuous two-year period it has been! The joy of our 100- year anniversary and the challenge of the COVID pandemic were only two of the events that shaped and influenced our term. We wish Donna Holmes and Marty McKnew the best outcome as they navigate membership during their two-year term.
Janice Stuter
ON MY (FINAL) RADAR (From Jan):
One of the last recommendations I would like to make as I end our stint in office: Instead of eliminating a degree requirement for members, why not add an “or” qualification that would extend membership to any interested women and men without formal degrees who have contributed to the advancement of equity for women by working with us locally, statewide, nationally or internationally as a volunteer, financially or otherwise, on projects related to our goals. This qualification would certainly broaden the net we are able to cast to recruit new members while still focusing recognition on one of our primary goals, education and equity for all women. We might also be able to award posthumous membership to those awesome women and men who fought for equity and are no longer with us. I hope National will explore this as an alternative path to more inclusivity in our organization.
You can find out about the Interest Groups offered by the branch by looking at the banner on the home webpage (just under the branch photo) and clicking on “Activities”. Click on “Interest Groups” and you will find a list of all Interest Groups, when they meet, and the group leader to contact for more information (email addresses and phone numbers can be found in the Branch Membership Directory and Handbook).
Some Interest Groups are taking a break during the pandemic, but a number are still meeting – virtually! According to the Interest Group Coordinator, Vicki Nicholson, here are the groups that are currently meeting:
Feel free to contact a group leader to learn more about the Interest Group. They would love to have you join in!
AAUW CA Public Policy Update: A reminder that you can get the latest information on California state public policies that concern the AAUW mission at aauw-ca.org.
The branch renewal letters went out in the mail on Monday, April 19. The day before that, I sent out, to all our members, a mass email that includes National’s invoice form. If you will use National’s emailed invoice form to renew this year, to that we say: Yippee! It saves us a lot of time and trouble, getting all the dues in the right slot very quickly.
The invoice was mailed out from my computer, but it doesn’t look like it because I have to use National’s program. The email will be from memberinfo@AAUW.org.
National’s email invoice is easy, as you no doubt learned last year, but here’s a refresher, just in case: 1) open the email with your credit/debit card in hand; 2) click on the blue (aqua?) highlighted option 1: “Click here to use debit or credit card”; 3) fill in the blanks; 4) click “next”; 5) click the “submit” button at the end. Besides dues, you can also donate to any of National’s Funds on this invoice.
For any donations that you wish to make to any of Sacramento’s programs with your renewal, please include a check mailed with your renewal form, because National will not process our branch donations.
If you have any problems, please call me. Please be sure to postal mail back your paper application to me, as we do need it for our bookkeeping purposes. If the emailed invoice gets lost in your inbox, just let me know and I’ll send you another one.
If you haven’t renewed as you read this, renew now! Thank you!
Sharon Anderson, Membership Treasurer
916-396-9790
Janice Stuter
Our term as Membership co-chairs is ending. It’s been a challenge and a privilege to hold this responsibility. In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, AAUW Sacramento branch has welcomed 22 new members over these past two years. Two of them live locally but are national members only. Four did not renew this year. So the total of continuing new members acquired over the last two years is 16. It’s invigorating to meet more women who wish to help advance equity for all, and to learn from their different experiences, points of view and new ideas.
A big welcome to our two most recent new members:
Bonnie Penix
Margi Park lives in Midtown. She holds a BA in French from SUNY Binghamton and an MS in health from Columbia University. She is retired from her work as an education programs consultant for the State of California. Margi would like to be involved with AAUW Funds and Public Policy. She also looks forward to participating in a number of our interest groups. Margi is a longtime friend of Bonnie Penix.
Jennifer Krebsbach lives in Folsom. She is a graduate student at Sac State. She holds a BA in psychology, an MS in applied behavior analysis and autism studies, and will complete her MA in education-gender equity from CSUS this month. Jennifer plans to help with Speech Trek and the Scholarship Committee. She also wants to participate in Board Games and Bridge.
Please join us at the May 15 installation meeting when we will also honor five of our longtime members: Dorothy Bracchi, Susan McLearan, Elaine Moody, Pat Stilwell and Gloria Yost, each of whom will receive a special Honorary Life Membership certificate and pin to mark a great milestone — 50 years of membership in and contribution to the goals of AAUW.
The Nominating Committee has put forth the names for the next slate of officers for our Sacramento Branch. Donna Holmes and Marty McKnew will be the next Membership co-chairs. We feel these experienced and dedicated women will be excellent stewards of membership as we move into a new year of opportunities and possibilities for AAUW and for all women.
You can find out about the Interest Groups offered by the branch by looking at the banner on the home webpage (just under the branch photo) and clicking on “Activities”. Click on “Interest Groups” and you will find a list of all Interest Groups, when they meet, and the group leader to contact for more information (email addresses and phone numbers can be found in the Branch Membership Directory and Handbook).
Some Interest Groups are taking a break during the pandemic, but a number are still meeting – virtually! According to the Interest Group Coordinator, Vicki Nicholson, here are the groups that are currently meeting:
Feel free to contact a group leader to learn more about the Interest Group. They would love to have you join in!
From Sharon Anderson, Membership Treasurer, and Liz Jordan, Finance Director:
Renewal forms for 2021-2022 membership will be mailed out by USPS in mid-April. The deadline for returning dues and paperwork is June 1, 2021.
The process is the same as last year’s process, and it is very easy for first-timers.
Please remember, we have the opportunity to pay our dues, plus any donation to any of National’s Funds, online in the Membership Payment Program (MPP).
We anticipate members will increase their use of National’s MPP for paying dues because it is so easy. Many more members used MPP last year, which is a tremendous help to the branch.
Calls for assistance are welcome!
1st Reminder: any donations to our branch programs can be made by check, made out to AAUW Sacramento, and returned with your renewal application.
2nd Reminder: Dues for 2021-2022 will increase by $3 because the National dues are going up from $59 to $62. Your total renewal fee (except for life members) will be $102.
This month our membership treasurer, Sharon Anderson, has submitted the names of three of
Janice Stuter
our branch members to be considered for Honorary Life Membership in AAUW. Each of them has been an AAUW member for 50 years! They are Susan McLearan, Elaine Moody and Gloria Yost. They richly deserve recognition for their many years of helping to advance equity and opportunities for women and girls in many facets of our lives. We will be honoring them at our May meeting, still on Zoom, and hope you will attend.
Once again, members of AAUW will be asked, in a national organization election, to eliminate the degree requirement as a condition for membership. Neither of us agrees that taking this step is necessary for us to show our dedication to inclusion. There are organizations, such as NOW, founded in 1966, that are open to any woman wishing to improve women’s life situations. Our organization recruits individuals who have acquired formally awarded degrees of two, four
Bonnie Penix
or more years; have a sincere interest in providing equal opportunity for women and girls in all phases of life; and are committed to nurturing their own ongoing personal growth, culturally, politically and socially.
We both attended the recent webinar on this issue and remain unconvinced that removing the membership requirements will result in a substantial improvement in attaining our goals or improving our membership numbers. We would much rather see adding a new area of eligibility, equal to full membership, for those exceptional individuals who have through their actions contributed substantially to the positive programs and opportunities available for women and girls.
We want to welcome two new members to our branch: Elaine Ellers and Rosemary Howard.
Elaine lives in Fair Oaks. She has a BA in international relations from Monterey Institute of International Studies and an MA in social work from UC Berkeley. She works as manager of the Sutter Teen Programs. She is interested in Film Fans, Great Decisions and Scrabble. Elaine would like to assist with our Speech Trek program. Elaine was referred by Arlene Cullum. Thank you, Arlene.
Rosemary lives in Carmichael. She has a BS in biochemistry from UC Davis and an MBA from CSUS. Rosemary is retired and is interested in Arts & Architecture, Film Fans and Great Decisions. She also is interested in Speech Trek outreach.
