A big thank you goes out to all our mem­bers who attended our 2011 Geor­gia AAUW State Con­ven­tion in Warner Robins and to our host branch, Hous­ton Peach, ably led by Mar­lene Humphry. This branch demon­strated a stellar col­lab­o­ra­tive and pos­i­tive spirit dur­ing this event. The room accom­mo­da­tions and the con­ven­tion facil­i­ties at the Fair­field Inn were excel­lent and the staff was very accom­mo­dat­ing and help­ful. State conven­tion is such a great oppor­tu­nity for net­work­ing and shar­ing in AAUW focused mis­sions and events.

Get­ting to know Patri­cia Ho, our guest AAUW Director-at-Large from national, was so reward­ing and a real treat. In a very engag­ing and inter­ac­tive way, she pre­sented the strate­gic focus of AAUW and set the stage for national con­ven­tion in Wash­ing­ton, DC. I hope many branches will encour­age, pro­mote and enable attendance at the national convention.

At Fri­day evening’s ban­quet, we had a deli­cious din­ner with even more scrump­tious desserts. Awards were announced for mem­ber­ship and phil­an­thropy.  Geor­gia AAUW contributed almost $40,000 last year in philanthropic dona­tions to AAUW Funds … that is $115 per capita giv­ing and we should all be proud of the hard work that sup­ports these contributions.

Our 2011 Geor­gia AAUW Woman of the Year is Car­olyn Garfein. Her legacy of lead­er­ship to AAUW is outstanding, and she con­tin­ues to guide AAUW dur­ing a time of tran­si­tion and great change.

The most sig­nif­i­cant items from the con­ven­tion busi­ness meet­ing on Sat­ur­day were a proposal to increase state dues from $10 to $20 per year and a com­mit­tee was des­ig­nated to review Geor­gia AAUW By Laws and Working Poli­cies and Procedures.

Our state pub­lic pol­icy chair, Patri­cia DeWitt, and Diana Witt of the Atlanta Branch, coordinated an activist panel and dis­cus­sion.  Our guest pan­elists were Danielle Cefalu, an attorney with Hur­ley Elder Care and Hol­lie Per­sons, a spokes­woman with Geor­gia LWV.  Danielle addressed some of the legal ramifications of elder care and Hol­lie addressed the chal­lenges of redis­trict­ing in Georgia.

Pat and Diana showed their involve­ment and pas­sion for pub­lic pol­icy advo­cacy as they updated us on current bills that reflect AAUW val­ues and mis­sion and do need our support.  It was great to applaud the pas­sage of HB 200, which looks to pro­tect the rights of exploited chil­dren, but there is still more work to be done, young peo­ple still needs protection. The Grass­roots Advo­cacy Work­shop mate­ri­als were distributed to the branches … to pur­sue as a branch pro­gram and to encour­age activism at the local level.

Patri­cia Ho was hon­ored to install new state offi­cers, Lau­rie Shaw of Hous­ton Peach, as Co-President and Bea Pid­dock of Cobb Branch, as Trea­surer.  These new offi­cers will assume respon­si­bil­i­ties effec­tive July 1, 2011.  Con­grat­u­la­tions to these new lead­ers in Geor­gia AAUW. Despite wear­ing mul­ti­ple AAUW hats May Ruth (Bradberry) Lynch has very ably served as trea­surer and with her CPA exper­tise, helped us take a good, hard look at our bud­get dur­ing a time of reduced rev­enues.  She has been great to work with and learn with.  Work­ing together as state co-presidents with Mar­cia has been a spe­cial treat for me these past two years. Her years of expe­ri­ence and lead­er­ship in AAUW as well as her knowl­edge, easy man­ner and humor have been out­stand­ing resources and sup­port as we moved into an era of change for Geor­gia AAUW.  As we con­tinue to explore our iden­tity and sig­na­ture val­ues for Geor­gia AAUW and tran­si­tion to a new leadership team, we look for your sup­port and your talent.

Look­ing for­ward to our future together in AAUW

Deb­bie Kar­vey and Mar­cia Capriotti

Co-Presidents

Did you ever want to serve on a national com­mit­tee or task force? Now is the time to apply for the 2011 — 2012 AAUW Com­mit­tees. Com­mit­tee mem­ber hip is a way to work on national issues, share your tal­ent and exper­tise, and meet other dynamic and knowledgeable women. Mem­bers are being sought for the fol­low­ing committees:

• Audit
• Branch Pro­gram Resources
• College/University
• Finance
• Fundrais­ing
• Gov­er­nance
• Invest­ment
• Legal Advo­cacy Fund
• Mem­ber­ship
• Pub­lic Policy
• Social Media

To apply for a com­mit­tee or task force posi­tion, you will need to down­load the fil­l­able PDF appli­ca­tion form to your com­puter. When the form is com­pleted, e-mail executive@aauw.org with the form and your current resume attached. If you do not receive a con­fir­ma­tion email to ver­ify receipt of your appli­ca­tion within 48 hours, send a sep­a­rate e-mail mes­sage to executive@aauw.org. All appli­ca­tions must be received by June 1, 2011. Appoint­ments will be announced fol­low­ing the AAUW con­ven­tion in June.

AAUW life-time mem­ber, Alice Farmer Snead, age 80 died Feb­ru­ary 23. 2011 after a brief ill­ness. A memo­r­ial ser­vice will be held at a later date.  She received her BA degree in Eng­lish at Agnes Scott Col­lege and taught at Mur­phy High School. Later when she and her fam­ily moved to Vir­ginia, Alice taught high school Eng­lish for many years. She was known by fam­ily and friends as an accom­plished cook and gar­dener, an avid reader and an enthu­si­as­tic and insight­ful book club leader. As a pas­sion­ate advo­cate of edu­ca­tion for women, she lob­bied state leg­is­la­tors as far back as the 60’s, wear­ing a hat and short white gloves.

Alice belonged to the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Uni­ver­sity Women for 52 years, hav­ing first joined in 1959 and worked tire­lessly for its causes. She first served as branch pres­i­dent for AAUW in the early 60’s in the Arling­ton County branch. She moved to Alpharetta, Geor­gia, in 1984 and joined the Roswell-Alpharetta Branch (now the North Ful­ton Branch), encour­ag­ing greater activism and fundrais­ing at the national level. In 1997 she received the Geor­gia Achieve­ment Award, “for out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions that encom­pass the pur­pose of AAUW in the com­mu­nity.” At the time, she also served as Geor­gia Pub­lic Pol­icy Chair. She led as pres­i­dent of the North Ful­ton Branch on three sep­a­rate occa­sions. Alice was instru­men­tal in coor­di­nat­ing and pro­mot­ing the annual AAUW Book Fair, serv­ing as Day Chair and Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Chair. Her many projects in the com­mu­nity included lead­ing the Noon­day Nosh Book Club at the Roswell Library, and par­tic­i­pat­ing in Sister-to-Sister, a work­shop for mid­dle school girls. In 2001 the branch announced a national Research and Projects Grant of the AAUW Edu­ca­tional Foun­da­tion, named in her honor, which became fully funded in 2007. She was awarded an AAUW Life Mem­ber­ship in 2009.  In lieu of flow­ers, memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to AAUW, North Ful­ton Branch, 3280 King­shouse Com­mons, Alpharetta, GA 30022; to the atten­tion of the trea­surer, Car­olyn Gar­fein, phone 770–569-9957.

Pub­lished in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on March 8, 2011