AAUW Manhattan (KS) Branch Retreat
July 13, 2019
KSU Research Center, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
The AAUW 2019 Retreat began with a welcome from Marlene verBurgge, co-president. Mary Stamey co- president presented the Public Policy bulletins, the Small Pay Equity bookmarks and showed us the AAUW T shirt that we may order. She encouraged us to take the bulletins and bookmarks and to order T shirts for promoting our AAUW Branch and the National Public Policies. 14 members were present.
After an activity where we split into groups and found our commonalities and our unique points of interest, new board members were recognized by Marlene verBurgee. They are Amanda Gaulke, treasurer, Chris Herald, STEM Teacher Ambassador, Karen Hummel, coordinator with League of Women Voters, Kathy Lanksbury, Member Connect Coordinator, Annelise Nguyen and Pat Hudgins who are the College/University Partnership Representatives and Gail Chalman who is on the Sponsorship Committee.
For the 2019-2020 AAUW board, various vacant board positions were changed as designated. The following Board Committee positions were changed. The Branch Historian/Scrapbook committee is deleted and tasks will be covered by a History/Archives Committee with Joan Stickler-Chair and members Nancy Bolsen and Claudia Jones. Nancy will assist with the 100th Anniversary committee who will want a multitude of information from the Archives. The Grocery Rewards (Dillions) Program does need a chair. People need to sign up through the application. Instructions are in the yearbook p 11. Connie will check if this is still working. The Grow Green Day committee members Marie Bovee and Anice Robel were deleted leaving Claudia Jones as Chair and Tresa Landis as a member. The Yearbook and the Sponsorship subcommittees were changed to Committees. Various names were submitted as possible committee members to fill vacancies but no decisions were made at this time. The Member Connect Coordinator Kathy Lanksbury will send courtesy notes to people. Mary Stamey and Julee Thomas will be directors of the Work Smart program.
2019-2020 Tasks of the various committees were discussed with the following results.
Program:
Celebrations: Mary N’gang’a is moving to Washington State. We will miss all of the tasks she completed while on the program committee. She was given a farewell gift from AAUW. We will get an update of the programs from Usha, and Julee later. It was agreed that Little Apple Brewery was a great place to have meetings and we will continue having meetings there. LaFestia will be our backup place for our monthly meetings. From the program committee we will need someone there at each monthly meeting, someone to set up electronics, someone to greet people and someone to work with potential members and someone to contact and introduce the speakers. We will seek a separate person to be a greeter at each monthly meeting. Emails need to be sent monthly by the replacement of Mary N’gang’a to cover location of the meeting and dinner reservations. Julee will set up Event Bright for reservations. She will check on the price of Meet Up for 9 months. Barbara Gatewood moved that we reimburse Julee $60 for the Meet UP registration this past year. We can invite someone from National to come speak at a monthly Branch Meeting. We can also Face Time persons from the National to speak at the meetings. Items were discussed such as emailing the entire membership. Is this the same person who takes reservations?
We need to announce our Branch meetings on K State Today, the University Calendar and the Student Life Calendar each month. Barbara Gatewood will do this each month. Tresa Landis will announce the International Women’s Day Celebration on K State Today.
Our Board Meetings will be at Vista on Monday at 5:30 Our Branch Meetings will be on Monday at 6:00
September 3, 2019 (Tuesday) September 9, 2019
October 7, 2019 October 14, 2019
November 4, 2019 November 11, 2019
December 2, 2019 December 9, 2019
January 6, 2020 January 13, 2020
February 3, 2020 February 10, 2020
March 2, 2020 March 9, 2020
April 6, 2020 April 13, 2020
May 4 2020 May 11, 2020
Membership:
Celebrations: Mary Stamey announced that we had 9 new members this past year!!!!!
We will use the bulletin with this year’s programs on the back to hand to people to improve the awareness of AAUW in Manhattan, Kansas.
Many ideas were given on how AAUW can be reaching out to K State and the community to promote our mission and to recruit more members for AAUW. We can highlight women’s happenings, reach out to Women in Kansas, and reach out to under-graduate women at K State letting them know they have free membership to AAUW. This is due to K State administration distributing approximately $325 yearly to AAUW. Does K State have an a civic group recruitment day like the Community Fair that AAUW could participate in? Can we reach out to Leadership Studies students? We can promote the Work Smart program and help teach women in the work force to negotiate for higher salaries. We can wear AAUW T shirt at various meetings. At Everybody Counts Karen Hummel and Maurine Pruitt will hand out AAUW bookmarks on August 3rd as they recruit people to register to vote. There will be a League of Women Voters meeting concerning the 19th amendment on October 6th. Can we become involved? We can take AAUW bookmarks. We can reach out to the Chamber of Commerce and take AAUW bookmarks. Coordinator for STEM will connect more on campus and inform them of our AAUW involvement in the STEM program. Scholarships will be announced on K State Today. We can expand our Special Interest Groups. We can invite non-members to the special interest groups Serendipity and Great Decisions. Serendipity discusses local issues with Nancy Bolsen as the coordinator. Great Decisions with Mary Stamey as the coordinator ordered and sold 10 books this year. Their chapters are read and discussed and are on International topics such as climate change, Russia, etc.
Communication:
Celebrations: $1068 was collected and sent to the AAUW National Fund. Good job!!
- For the Manhattan Branch 100th anniversary celebration in 2020 these ideas were presented. We can at each monthly board and/or branch meeting state or challenge members about facts concerning the foundation or history of our AAUW branch. We should find out from other branches what they have done for their 100th anniversary celebration. We could have a trivia question at each meeting and give away an AAUW T shirt for the person who first gives the correct answer. AAUW could celebrate our 100th anniversary by participating in a parade perhaps the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Possible is a celebration at the May meeting by inviting past members and presidents to celebrate them being past members in AAUW. To get Monthly Trivia, Nancy Bolsen will coordinate with the people at the History Museum. Karen McCullon and Leena Chakrabarti are on the committee. Dee Brokesh was suggested as a committee person.
- 19th amendment which allows Women to Vote will have been ratified to the US Constitution 100 years ago in 2020. The celebrations will be from May to November of 2020. Tresa Landis and Mary Stamey are presently working with the League of Women Voters to get Landon Lecturers to Manhattan, and Flags on the K State campus for awareness of the 19th Amendment. We want sashes for the children to wear celebrating the 19th Amendment and we want books in Manhattan Public Library and Schools Libraries about the passing of the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote. We also want a huge banner celebrating the passing of the 19th Amendment. A note about the passing of the 19th Amendment will be given at each monthly meeting this year. We did see the Power Point slides about the Her Flag that is being made with a strip of fabric designed by an artist from each state and all strips sewn together in the order that the 19th Amendment was ratified by that state. Jennifer Hudson, an artist from K State designed the Kansas strip to be sewn into the flag. Kansas was the 4th state to ratify the 19th Amendment!!! Loretta Allison would be good worker on this committee.
- Work Smart Training 2019 and beyond. Mary Stamey and Julee Thomas are co-directors of this committee. This is a computer program that trains women to negotiate for better salaries. For the Work Smart Program in Manhattan Mary Stamey is working with a K State intern. Any person can work the program. Any woman in the workforce can take the program. K State Leadership Studies will be the first that we will work with. Mary will take some laptops and will facilitate a training session on the K State campus. The goal is to train 10 million women in salary negotiations by 2022 with the Work Smart program. Can we get a list of Businesses that will support Work Smart graduates as they search for careers?
Finance:
Anticipate your expenses
Budget: STEM Camp
Brochures $75
Yearbook approx. $225 Can we afford to print more to hand to new members? Can we print 10 to 15 more than what is needed
for the membership?
Website $125-$150
Special Committees
19th Amendment nothing needed
$150 to League of Women Voters
Guest speakers – small gifts
New members gift bags
Thank you cards
STEM -scholarship money approximately $600
Memorial to the families of those who have passed away – $25 per person
Postage, notecards
Publicity
International Women’s Day Celebration $700 – 1000
Scholarships: Money comes from donations to the Grow Green with the Community organization which matches ½ of what is donated to AAUW.
Fellowships and Grants – no report
National Funds – $1068 was collected and sent to the National Fund. Due date for this to be turned in is December 15th.
Fundraisers: We need a fundraiser committee.
Sponsorships Ideas –
Similar to Little Apple Brewery that gives us a discount.
Market AAUW – create things we do to attract people that would help financially with our activities.
T-shirt sales – set up funding mechanism
Develop a marketing organization
Website
Have available Items like the T-shirts
How do they submit money to the Bank?
Have Categories for Sponsorships
Be clear on what they get back – give them a purpose such as the following:
STEM assistance
Put books in School Libraries and the City Library
Mighty Girl – Newsletter and books
Have videos about women in History
Literacy Fund
Empowering Women and Girls
AAUW is a 501 c4 organization. Sponsors cannot get individual tax deductions.
Ideas for Encouraging and supporting members to take on Leadership and Committee roles for the branch.
We didn’t have time to discuss the ideas given by one of the small groups but they are important. To others we need to stress they can co-lead, reach out, ask, have a former officer or leader have coffee and talk to another member about the position, then mentor through year and define the position. Ask a person about her talents and interests and stress that we use the team approach. Dispel the idea that the position is daunting and let the person know there are different ways to lead and you may tailor the role to your style. Stress the benefits, relationships, friends, etc. Have coffee for a smaller group and talk about vacant positions. Tell the persons they can call upon a current leader. We can learn from each other. Engaging people is a good way to keep people interested in AAUW. Learn more about the significance of the AAUW organization.
State Board Openings – Tresa Landis reported
President Elect
Public Policy – Newsletter article
Newsletter Editor
Program Vice Chair
Membership Chair
Our Website: AAUW Manhattan Branch – www.manhattan-ks.aauw.net(password for
members is: manhattanbranch
AAUW Website: www.aauw.org
Facebook: AAUW Manhattan
Email: manhattanksaauw@gmail.com
Time for board’s 1st meeting on Tuesday September 3rd – 5:30pm (change of time was voted on)
Adjourned