KANSAS STAR BRANCH
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN

STARS

1. Membership: Branch gained new members, maintained membership, hosted membership events, etc. Explain:

The Manhattan Branch had an outstanding year in membership enrollment. In addition to the 7 Regular Membership, and 7 MALS membership, K-State has organized a Student Organization which presently has 57 members.

• Regular Memberships (national, state, and branch) Rosie Mitchell, Annelise Nguyen, Beverly Page, Susanne Siepl-Coates, Marlene Ver Bruggen, Sheri Storer, Jonala Johnsstone
• MALS (National MAL and Graduate Students) Trina Rice, Juhyun Kang, Bettie Greig, Erin Bailey, Elizabeth Cauble, Marilyn Lee, Marie Peterson
• 57 Student Affiliates: (names listed on attached sheet)

Membership events that were effective in recruiting new members included:

• Branch members inviting potential members to monthly meetings and special events. Monthly meetings include a dinner and guest speaker, and/or program
• Undergraduate and Graduate Student Fair (held separately)
• Start Smart Workshop and other Start Smart Events
• October 13^th, 2015 University Wide Session – 32 attendees – leaders, Mary Ellen Barkley, Camila Haselwood, Anne DeLuca
• October 2015 Beta Alpha Psi – Accounting Honor Society – 30 attendees – Olivia Law-DeRosso
• December 1, 2015 Professional Mentoring Program in College of Human Ecology – 7 attendees Pamela Erickson
• February 11, 2016 Graduate Students – 40 attendees Camila Haselwood
• New Student Chapter formed 2016
• Community Fair at the Town Center Mall
• International Women’s Day Event March 7-9,2016
• August 27^th – Week of Welcome
• 22^nd – Graduate Fellowship Information Session
• 2^nd – AAUW Informational Session (beginning of student organization)
• Jan 13^th – Spring New Graduate Student Orientation Resources Fair   At each of these events the Branch had a display table set up with information on AAUW and actively promoted AAUW fellowships and grants.
• 21^st – AAUW K-State Student Organization officer selection meeting
• 16^th – First official meeting of the AAUW K-State Student Organization
• 1^st – Student Organization held their second meeting. The student organization has two of our branch members who are serving as co-advisors of the group; Glenda Leung and Annelise Nguyen. Presently as of March 2016 the student organization has 57 members.

2. Projects/Events: The branch had and/or supported many events in our local community. Many of our members were active in these events as well as our new student organization.

• Three of our Branch members attended the AAUW National Convention in San Diego in June of 2015. Nancy Bolsen, who is presently the president of AAUW Kansas, attended; as well as, members, Barbara Gatewood and Tresa Landis.
• Our Public Policy Coordinators, Jean Lee and Maurine Pruitt, had a very busy year. Not only did they keep our branch informed about policies and political happenings state wide and nationally, but they worked with the League of Women Voters in the area to promote voter registration. They also set up a table on the high school to encourage young people to register and to vote. They also worked to help inform the community about the March 5^th caucus day.
• One of our members, Barbara Amoah, lead a project called “Books for Ghana”. Barbara received a $1000 grant toward the project and members donated books or cash toward the purchase of books to be sent to 5^th – 9^th grade students in Ghana.
• Public Policy Coordinators published updates in the Branches monthly newsletter on our website. Members who do not have access to a computer, do receive the newsletters by mail.
• Public Policy Coordinators also attended coffee and conversation events with school board members and city commissioners.
• In June, our Branch, awarded six STEM scholarships to students from five local schools. Sophia Thurston, Chrysteen Brown, Brenna Dowling, Lori Neilson, Margie Morrill, and Delaney Goscha.
• Highlights from our Branch meetings were published in the Manhattan Mercury, including the names of our guest speakers and their topics, as well as, the times and places that we meet.
• In April 2015, Branch members donated money to GROW GREEN.   A local foundation that has an annual drive for organizations to donate monies to be distributed to local non-profit groups. The monies donated are matched with the foundation. Last year the Branches total contribution was $8,250, including matched funds.
• For the 2015-2016 year, the Branch raised $750 for National Endowment Fund; which was also a matched fund raising our contribution to $1750.
• In honor of Native American Heritage Month, the Branch invited as out guest speaker, Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez. Yolanda had lived with an Indian community in Mexico. She talked about how they governed themselves and their culture. Members attended other Native American events on campus and in the community.
• Public Policy, our coordinators had a table display at the “Everybody Counts Event” on Aug. 1^st. They took part in Coffee and Conversation with the school board members and city commissioners. Patricia Hudgins, one of our AAUW members, is on the school board.
• Members donated items of good professional attire to the “Career Closet” on campus.
• Public Policy Coordinators encouraged to contact our state representatives in regard to bill in the house (H.R.2680); the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
• Members of the Branch also attended the Women For Kansas (W4KS) event held on Nov. 7^th, 2015.
• AAUW Public Policy Coordinators were present at the Work Smart Program – Equal Gender Pay.
• Public Policy – efforts were made at the schools to encourage girls to seek out careers in technology, engineering, and computing through the curriculum offered at the junior high and high schools; perhaps even starting at the sixth grade level. Efforts are being made to increase these types of classes.
• January 2016 Branch meeting concentrated on women in the artists. The program was held at the Beach Museum on the K-State campus. Linda Duke, an AAUW member, presented the program on “Women Artists You Should Know”.
• February Branch meeting –“Women in STEM – A Good Fit”   The guest speaker was Cindy Wallace Lage, President of Black and Veatch’s Global Water Business. Mrs. Lage started her career with a degree in Civil Engineering.
• Public Policy – The League of Women Voters worked with the MLK celebration through the month of February. Members volunteered to set up a voter registration table at the Town Center Mall. On Feb. 11^th they helped with “Engaging Young Citizens”.   A table was set up on February 13^th for the purpose of distributing information on Financing Education.
• Public Policy – members informed the Branch members, “What’s Happening in the Legislature”.
• Public Policy – Jan. 11^th. Some members attended the Women For Kansas – program stressed local involvement at school board meetings.

MANHATTAN BRANCH RECEIVED OUR 95^TH ANNIVERSARY CERTIFICATE AWARD FROM NATIONAL IN JANUARY 2016.

March 7-9^th – International Women’s Day Event

The Manhattan Branch invited Noorjahan Akbar, who was named one of the world’s most powerful young women by Fortune magazine in 2012, as our guest speaker. Noorjahan grew up in Afghanistan. Her parents are both advocates of education for women. Her topic for her presentation was, “Empowering Women to Lead Worldwide: Overcoming Political and Social Struggles”.

• Noorjahan spoke with various student and cultural groups on campus.
• She spoke with women leaders in the community
• The idea for International Women’s Day began with members of our Branch and spread throughout the KSU campus with the help of the student organization.
• The event was publicized on the radio on the In Focus program; broadcast on Feb. 22, 2016. The broadcast was followed up with Public Service announcements up to the weekend prior to the event taking place. AAUW Branch was mentioned as the sponsor of the event.
• Letters and posters were mailed and distributed throughout the community and surrounding areas.
• Leadership studies provided a home web site, landing page, tweets, and assistance with articles in K-State Today on February 8^th, 26^th, and 29^th.
• A letter to the editor appeared in the Manhattan Mercury on March 7.
• A front page article appeared in The Collegian on March 8^th.
• A picture of Noorjahan along with a front page story appeared in the March 9^th publication of the Manhattan Mercury. With each of these publications, our AAUW was mentioned as one of the sponsors of this event.

PROJECTS/EVENTS:

• Four Interest Groups meet monthly: Creative Cookery, Great Decisions, Book Talk, and Serendipity.
• The Branch awarded six scholarships to the STEM Program for young girls. The $100 scholarships recipients attended the STEM program on the K-State campus held in the summer of 2015.
• AAUW National Convention, San Diego, June 18-21: Three of our Branch members attended this convention.
• Branch members and some student organization members plan to attend the State AAUW Meeting in Hesston on April 9^th, 2016.
• Some members are making plans to attend the Midwest Ten State AAUW Biennial Conference in Kansas City, Kansas in June of 2016.
• Four members of our Branch traveled to Kansas City to attend “A Conversation with Gloria Steinem”, A book review with the author about her newly released memoirs, “My Life on the Road”. Members set up a table at the event and handed out information about AAUW.

3. VISIBILITY:

• As co-president, I feel that we had a very successful year thanks to some very dedicated members who lead the way on the quest for a student organization on campus and the International Women’s Day Event. In the future I would like to see our branch gain more members who are residing in our community.

4. FUNDS: We sent in our AAUW Funds donation to National AAUW on December 14^th, 2015. It was for $750.00 which included $250.00 from the branch treasury for our named gift honoree and the rest was donations from members. The $750 was matched by the Mooneen Leecce Giving Circle as were all funds sent to National by the December 31^st

• We sent a Sunflower Memorial to Kansas AAUW in February in memory of Mavis Fletcher.
• The Grow Green Funds which were donated by the membership came through The Grow Green Foundation with a match total of $8,250.00

5. KANSAS LEADER VISIT: We are blessed with a Kansas Leader in AAUW who attends all of our Board meetings and our regular meetings monthly. Her name is Nancy Bolsen and she is currently President of the Kansas AAUW organization.
6. BRANCH NEWSLETTER

Two of our Branch members publish a beautiful newsletter. There are nine issues. They have expanded the newsletter to a website for our Manhattan Branch. Anyone is welcome to view the website, it always contains information that is interesting to the viewer. It spotlights generally two members per issue. It mentions upcoming events, programs and guest speakers. The newsletter is mailed to our members who do not have excess to a computer. The members want to thank our newsletter editors, Adena Weiser and Barbara Amoah. We hope that they realize just how much their work on the newsletter is appreciated. They alert to things that are happening in our community, as well as, state and national AAUW news and events.

7. PARTICIPATION AT STATE, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL MEETINGS

• Last year three to four branch members attended the 2015 State Conference in El Dorado. It was held on April 11^th, 2015
• This year there will be the same number of members attending the State Conference in Hesston and also some members from our KSU Student Organization.
• Three of our members attended the AAUW National Convention in San Diego in June of 2015.
• Presently, we have several members looking into the possibility of attending the Midwest Ten State AAUW Biennial Conference in Kansas City, Ks. This June 3-4.
• Our state liaison, Nancy Bolsen, has attended numerous meetings around the state as president of the AAUW State Board.
• About eleven of our members and guests attended the International Women’s Day event, March 7^th – 9^th.
• Members attended League of Women Voter events, worked at the caucus sites, attended MLK events, and National Native American Heritage Month events.

8. MISCELLANEOUS

• We strive to have nine monthly meetings per year. Most of the meetings include a program and dinner. Some of the programs may be in the line of entertainment; such as the Christmas program. Others have been educational and/or informational. This year there was a lot of time spent on women’s issues because of the upcoming elections and local issues regarding education, homeless, and trafficking of women. We encourage members to bring guests. We try to increase our membership. We would like to get more of the women in the community interested in joining AAUW. We try to get the members involved by serving on committees and/or holding “offices”. It is sometimes a problem to get members to volunteer for the more active positions. We had a very busy year; volunteers stepped in a worked hard to make the International Women’s Day a successful event. It was costly and we had wonderful help from the Leadership Studies Group and K-State Women to make this event possible. We are in need of fresh ideas on Fund Raising Events. I don’t feel that we will gain many more members if we continue to raise our dues. How can we attract new members?

NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION FOR INDIVIDUAL COMPLETING THIS FORM:

NAME:   Karen L. Tinkler
Phone: (785) 537-9145
Address: 7000 Mill Cove Drive, Manhattan, Kansas 66503
E-mail address: kdtink@peoplepc.com

Submitted April 2016