Southern Highlights

Austin Minnesota Branch

Volume 9 Number 2 October 2010

Shaping the World One Woman at a Time

Co-President’s Column

It was good to see many of you at our September kick-off potluck (but we missed all who didn’t make it). Our thanks go especially to Janet Gilbertson, our hospitality chair, for the lovely seasonal decorations and arranging for the food.

It was encouraging to see guests and to have most of them become members. We will try to have member spotlights on each of these people. We have 54 members as of this writing. Membership chairs, Sandy Folk and Marsha Kuehne, are to be commended for their work. They plan to have the new directory ready at our October 12 meeting so you will want to be there to pick yours up.

Evelyn Guentzel is recovering from knee surgery and apologizes for not being able to schedule a candidate forum for this election year. You are urged to watch KSMQ Channel 15 on October 25 when The Herald and KSMQ sponsor a debate between the candidates. Evelyn will not be doing Public Policy Notes this month since she is without her computer while at Comforcare for rehab. She may be home by the time you read this newsletter. Continue reading →

Southern Highlights

Austin Minnesota Branch

Volume 9 Number 1 September 2010

Shaping the World One Woman at a Time

Co-President’s Column

Welcome back to all returning AAUW members, and a hearty welcome to you who have recently joined. We are looking forward to a year of working together to advance our goal of breaking through educational and economic barriers so that women have a fair chance. That said, we also look forward to a year of good fellowship and fun. The program committee has many good programs lined up which we feel you will profit from and enjoy.

Marijo Alexander was our president-elect throughout last year, and we admire her courage to tackle the lead job even though she is a relatively new member. Marijo is executive assistant to the president of Riverland Community College and could well have said “I don’t have time” when asked, but with an endless supply of energy and enthusiasm, agreed to tackle the job. I look forward to working with Marijo. I have been a member since 1984 and have served as program V.P., educational foundations chair, secretary, visibility chair, and newsletter editor so I guess my turn has come to be co-president.

One resolution was presented and approved at the state convention in St. Cloud in April, and that stated: “The AAUW Minnesota Board will assist branches through its programming, equality connections, and public policy work to educate members about the ERA issue and actively work to encourage the Minnesota Legislature to put an ERA amendment on the ballot in November 2012.” Needless to say, it passed unanimously.

Why do we need an equal rights amendment? Because:

1. Neither the MN Constitution nor the U.S. Constitution explicitly guarantees that all of the rights they protect are held by all of its citizens without regard to sex.
2. We need to protect ourselves from a rollback of the significant advances in women’s rights over the past 40 years.
3. The U.S. needs to practice what it preaches with respect to equal justice under the law.

Thanks for joining AAUW. Let’s make this one of our best years yet!

Liz Richardson, Co-President

Continue reading →