Mother’s Day Suggestions

Does someone you know care about equity for women and girls, but hasn’t had time to “get connected” to the conversations that are working for a better future? Consider one of these gifts for Mother’s Day:

• Membership in the AAUW Tar Heel Branch (surprise!) — the idea of this branch is that it meets the needs of its members and limits its activities to those that the members really want to support. It can provide a busy woman with information on AAUW issues in a way that fits her schedule. Let us know that this is a Mother’s Day gift an we’ll send a special acknowledgement.  ($60 through 6/30/2010).
• A subscription to Ms. Magazine (aka a “membership” in Ms.) This premier journal of feminism addresses international and domestic news articles and opinion pieces. ($25)
• A connection to MomsRising. This relatively new organization, one that partnered with AAUW on the Feminism 2.0 conference, is admirably connecting motherhood and activism. A group in the Triangle will be one of its first local outposts. ($0 for now)

Connect your daughter, mother, sister or friend!

And save this list for Father’s Day, too — if you’ve raised a feminist son, consider acknowledging that!

January message to the members

Branch President Doris Bernlohr sent a note to all the branch members last week. She included

• A wallet card to store key AAUW and AAUW NC credentials
• A branch brochure to use during January and February with your contacts who may want to join this network

and information about

• This site — tell your friends about http://tarheel.aauwnc.org and our Join Now page (see above)
• Information about using the wallet card
• The recent issue of the state newsletter (which all branch members should have received)
• A couple of business items – the bylaws committee and delegate to the upcoming AAUW convention

She also challenged each branch member to recruit one more member so we can double our size by the end of the year.

Full text of the message.

Branch update: December 2008

E-mailed with attachment to branch members.

The branch is live!

Our charter application has been approved, we’ve opened a bank account, and we’re showing up in the www.aauw.org branch locator!

If you have a correct e-mail address on file with AAUW, you can register for the “Member Services Database”

• https://svc.aauw.org/RECore/inc/Login.asp (or just click the Member Services Database link from the Member Center menu at www.aauw.org)

Once you register and login, you can update your record, get contact information for the other branch members, and see the list of officers.  To keep things simple, we’ll be depending on this directory provided by the national organization – but to get us started, there is a directory attached to this message. If you have difficulty registering, please contact Nancy.

We have a web site

Birgit Pauli-Haack and Nancy Shoemaker have set up the website, http://aauwtarheel.wordpress.com. You can also find it with the address http://tarheel.aauwnc.org. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Example of branch activities

While we are NOT going to plan programs and projects like a community-based branch, the idea of connecting members in communities where there is no branch  already has one good example: The branch connected Doris Bernlohr with Caroline Novello and Doris Dunlap, and they attended the Alamance County Women’s Agenda Assembly. Branch member Becky Mock was one of the organizers of the Agenda Assembly — and is a star of the video that publicizes the program state-wide. See http://aauwtarheel.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/members-attend-alamance-agenda-assembly/ to watch the short video.

Links to e-newsletters:

A primary focus of this branch is to provide you with communications about what’s happening in AAUW and AAUW NC. Here are links to e-newsletters — read as much or as little as you like (and if you don’t have time this busy month, you will find them archived on the web).

• AAUW NC news — the new issue of the Tar Heel News has been posted, see a video on student affiliates, and more.
• AAUW News — links to new articles at www.aauw.org
• AAUW Mission & Action for Nov/Dec — the official e-newsletter from AAUW

The first two are sent to members@aauwnc.org about once a month. Check with info@tarheel.aauwnc.org to subscribe to that e-mail list.

Year end donations

If you make a year end donation to AAUW or one of the related entities (all this gets simpler late next year!), please mark it with the branch name “Tar Heel Branch” and/or branch code “NC3060″. You can make the donation online at www.aauw.org, but if you want to send a check, here’s the address: AAUW, PO Box 630832, Baltimore MD 21263-0832.  Thanks!

Watch for updates in January

After the first of the year, we’ll be starting a couple of discussions on how we want to run the branch. As you may remember, we still have to finalize bylaws. The biggest question for the bylaws may be “how do we want to fund the branch?” [As a "virtual branch" we have few expenses, but we do have some. Should we have dues? Encourage donations? Just say that all projects need to be self-funding?] Let Doris <info@tarheel.aauwnc.org> know if you’d like to be on the bylaws committee or on the subgroup that develops a finance proposal.
____________________________________________________________
The branch will be using e-mail to communicate with the members.
Birgit and Nancy are working on options for to keep that as efficient as possible — we do NOT want to overload your e-mail box, but we DO want to ensure you have access to all the information you’re due as a member of AAUW and AAUW NC.
Please complete the quick poll at

http://aauwtarheel.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/members-attend-alamance-agenda-assembly/
to help us see if there’s a system that some members already prefer.