Masthead
December 2011
In This Issue
Directory
KAAUW Calendar
Meet'n'Eat
Potluck & a Film
Party! Party!
Share your comments
Public Policy Updates
A Look Back
Book Club
News



Join Our Mailing List!
Directory and
New  Members
Welcome Irene Rivera Hurst.

 

Education: Hofstra , BA    SUNY Stony Brook, MA   Hofstra University EdD,

 

Irene is an Instructor, Lifespring, Saugerties, a member of League of Women Voters and volunteers at SPCA Thrift Shop.  She is a lover of opera, ballet, theatre (local and other) and art museums and galleries.  Other interests include playing guitar and singing, knitting, sewing, crochet and needlework.


Kingston AAUW Calendar
Kingston AAUW Calendar
 
 
Tues. Dec. 6, 3 PM, Open Board Meeting, Kingston Library

Sat. Dec. 10, Woman: War & Peace. Watch Part 1, discuss the documentary, and enjoy lunch together at Irene Miller's home in Palenville. 
 
Sun., Dec 11, 5 PM, Potluck & a Film at ViVi's, See article.

Monday, Dec. 12, 9:30 am: Meet & Eat Discussion Group, Family Restaurant
11:30 am -
Website Work Group  
 

Tues., Dec. 13,  

1 pm, Book Group  

3:30 Holiday Party, Library Community Room  

 

Fri evening/Sat. to dusk, Dec. 16/17 Gift Wrapping for Legal Advocacy    

 

Sun., Jan. 8, 5 pm, Potluck & a Film

 

Mon. Jan 9, Meet 'n Eat

 

Tues. Jan 10, Open Board Mtg.

 

Sat. Jan. 21, 1pm Mingle, 1:30 Branch Mtg. Major Leland Stedge, retired. Travels in Mongolia.  


Want to print the calendar? Click this link
 KAAUW google calendar  then click on the print icon in the upper right corner.
 

Legal Advocacy Update from Dolores LaChance  

LAF-Legal Advocacy Fund 'Holiday Gift Wrap' project at the Hudson Valley Mall will take place on Fri. , Dec. 16 , from 4-11 PM, and the following Sat., Dec. 17, from 9 AM-11 PM. We need lots of volunteers to make this fundraiser a success.

Masthead
 
It is a surprisingly easy, fun and interesting experience. Everything to create a lovely wrapped gift is at your fingertips, thanks to
Hadassah's provisions. Please give us two to three hours of your time to share in this worthwhile activity.

 

Contact: Dolores LaChance at 246-4507 or  [email protected] to volunteer.

 

Meet 'n' Eat

 A series of monthly get-togethers for AAUW members and their friends.
holly
  
Come have breakfast and share what's on your mind.

Meet'n'Eat
9:30 am
Dec. 12, Monday morning The Family Restaurant
Route 28
Kingston

Hope to see you this month.

 

Potluck & a Film
On Sunday, December 11th, we will gather at 5 PM at ViVi's for a covered dish supper (directions on request), after which we will watch "Philosopher Kings."

Masthead
 This extraordinary 
documentary  follows the lives of a number of custodians who work at various colleges and professional schools.  It's both moving and joyful--just what we want for this season.

I hope you can make it.

 

Directions on request. Hope to see you there.  

ViVi

 

About AAUW
Quick Links
Greetings!
What brings you to AAUW? Mission? Friendship? Intellectual stimulation? Trips? Fun? If you're like most of us, it's all of the above! That's why this fall we've initiated a new approach to program planning.

While we do have a monthly "branch meeting" you'll also find plenty of other opportunities throughout the month, like Meet'n'Eat, the website working group, public policy discussions, etc. We have no one "program chair." Our program chairs are you, me, and other members.

If there's something you'd like to present, pursue, discuss, or plan, let a board member know or come to a board meeting to propose it. We're over a 100 members strong these days, so there are sure to be others interested, too. We'll help you make it happen. 

Ruth Wahtera, Editor

 

P.S. Our gift wrapping fundraiser is Dec. 16 & 17. Sign-up for a couple of hours by calling Delores LaChance, 246-4507.

Come to the Holiday Party  
Songs for the Season of Light
Branch Holiday Party
 Kingston Library Community Room
Tuesday, December 13
3:30 pm

Masthead
Danielle Woerner
Photo by Michael Gold
Join us for a celebration of the season. Bring your friends and introduce them to AAUW. This promises to be a wonderful program.

Danielle Woerner presents "Songs for the Season of Light": Warm up your voices and your holiday spirits with song!   Singer, voice teacher and songwriter Danielle Woerner, December's presenter,  will share and lead the group in songs for this winter holiday season from a variety of spiritual and secular traditions around the world.  

Woerner is well-known as a singer, actor, teacher and workshop leader, as well as a writer and songwriter.  Her own history as a University Woman includes voice teaching at Bard, Vassar and Dutchess Community Colleges, and an Artist Residency at SUNY/Ulster.  She studied at Bard (B.A.), Barnard, Berklee (Master's program) and Hunter Colleges and the Universite d'Aix-Marseille, in addition to her professional training in NYC.

Two "Please Brings"
  1. Small unwrapped gifts for the domestic violence shelter
  2. For the scholarship table, re-gifting items and your cash. Donate your items. Pick up some bargains. Proceeds go toward our scholarship fund. 

Share Your Iron Jawed Angels Comments  
Masthead
Photo by David Cardall
What a great celebration last Saturday! But, we had to cut the discussion short.

Almost 50 members and friends shared cake and popcorn as we watched Iron Jawed Angels together.

 And, in the few minutes before the library closed, we discussed some of the similarities and differences between fighting for the right to vote and Occupy Wall Street. People had lots more to say when the announcement came that the library was closing.

 Please add your comments to the birthday party post here. And, if you have a suggestion about other ways to continue the discussion, post that, too.
Public Policy Program

by Susan Holland, Chair   

Masthead

 

Our Public Policy program this month will be Saturday, Dec. 10, 11am. 

 

Women, War, and Peace- A discussion of Part 1 at Irene Miller's in Palenville.  We'll watch the documentary and talk over a pizza lunch.  

RSVP Irene Miller, 518-878-3516 or [email protected]. If you'd like to carpool from Kingston, let Ruth Wahtera know.  

 

Other activities you should know about:

 

Tonight, Dec. 5, 7pm, the Ulster County legislature will be voting on the county budget. 

 

Dec. 13, 8am-2pm. $26. The Ulster County Charter After Five Years sponsored by the League of Women Voters and CRREO. For more information and registration go here

 

 
A Look Back - Caroline Pickens, AAUW-VA President

Thanks to Susan Holland for sharing this piece by Caroline Pickens 

 

Usually the words we hear in AAUW are ones like "Look to the Future" and "Spring Forward." But I'd like us to take a minute and Look Back. AAUW is 130 years old this year, and our past is an inspiration. Our history made us what we are today.

 

We all know the story of how AAUW's first research in the 1880's refuted the prevailing opinion that women's health was too delicate to withstand the rigors of four years of college. That was only the beginning of AAUW's groundbreaking studies and projects that were often ahead of the times. Consider a few:

  • Almost 100 years ago AAUW issued its first pay equity study in 1913.
  • In 1921 we lobbied for independent citizenship for married women (!).
  • 1932 saw us lobbying for access to contraceptives for married women and in 1935 to legalize dispensing of contraceptive information by physicians.
  • Long before museums did it, AAUW promoted public education on the arts by organizing exhibits in the late 1930's that traveled throughout the U.S. to towns and small cities that didn't have an art museum.
  • AAUW set up a Refugee Aid Fund in 1940 to assist university women fleeing European dictatorships, for which AAUW had a letter of thanks from Albert Einstein.
  • AAUW leader Virginia Gildersleeve was the sole female member of the group that wrote the United Nations Charter after WWII, and she led in creating the UN Commission on Human Rights. AAUW's early and ardent support for the UN was awarded with Permanent UN Observer status.
  • In 1949, 16 years before the Civil Rights Act, convention delegates amended the AAUW Bylaws to clearly state that all college women graduates were eligible for membership, regardless of race.
  • AAUW began lobbying in 1969 for a woman appointee to the Supreme Court (took 12 years to get Sandra Day O'Connor).
  • In 1972 AAUW was instrumental in the passage of Title IX with AAUW member Patsy Mink (HI) co-authoring the bill.
  • In 1983 we began seven years of lobbying for the Family & Medical Leave Act.
  • 1991 saw the release of - Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America, which generated enormous publicity. AAUW's Initiative for Educational Equity was the national catalyst for major changes in the education of girls in our schools.

We should be very proud of AAUW's past achievements, but honoring our past doesn't mean resting on our laurels. AAUW's history must motivate us to keep moving forward.  

 

This organization was founded by women who knew you have to educate and lobby and act to move women along. That is still our mission: keep pushing and breaking the barriers to women's education and equity. So Look Back at what our AAUW foremothers accomplished and keep building on that foundation.

- Caroline Pickens, AAUW-VA President

 

 

Book Discussion Group

Reading List for Dec. 2011 to June 2012

Second Tuesday,  1 PM

Kingston Library, Community Room    

(For a printable version click here.) 

 Masthead

 

Dec.13  Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson-- Simonson tells the tale of Maj. Ernest Pettigrew, an honor-bound Englishman and widower, and the very embodiment of duty and pride. This is a vastly enjoyable traipse through the English countryside and the long-held traditions of the British aristocracy.

 

Jan. 17 Crossing to Safetv by Wallace Stegner

Two couples meet during the Depression years in Madison, Wis., and become devoted friends despite vast differences in upbringing and social status...Charity is one of the most vivid characters in fiction...arrogant, kindhearted, enthusiastic, stalwart and brave.

 

Feb.21 Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

This novel spans the life of Aminata Diallo, born in Bayo, West Africa, in 1745. Kidnapped at the age of 11 by British slavers, Aminata does what she can to free herself and others from slavery, including learning to read and teaching others to.

 

March 20 The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy edited by Cathy Porter

Sofia was 19 and innocent when her new husband, Leo Tolstoy, 34, handed her his sexually candid diary. Smart and determined, she took refuge in her own diary, chronicling her daunting life as the wife of the self-absorbed genius.

 

April 17 When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

...tells one Japanese American family's story of internment in a Utah enemy alien camp during World War II. This novel is written in deceptively tranquil prose, a distillation of injustice, anger, and poetry.

 

May 15 Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout

Thirteen li{ked tales present a heart-wrenching, penetrating portrait of ordinary coastal Mainers living lives of quiet grief intermingled with flashes of human connection.

 

June 19 Shannon by Frank Delaney

Delaney's novel follows an American priest as he travels along Ireland's Shannon River in search of his family roofs, and while it's peace he seeks, trouble finds him.

 

 

 

News, Celebrations, and etcetera

December Briefings   

 

Thanks for the personal care items: Many of you brought much appreciated items for the domestic violence shelter to the Birthday Party. And, thanks to Evelyn Ness who delivered them for us. By the way, Evelyn is our new hospitality chair.   Lend Evelyn a hand for the holiday party.   

 

White House Recognition! Congratulations to Tamara Brown of the AAUW Buffalo Branch. You can watch President Obama honor her for her work on Tech Savvy, a program for Buffalo area girls, parents, and teachers that encourages them to pursue STEM careers. Live streaming Friday, Dec. 9, 3:30 pm at www.whitehouse.gov/live  

 

Gloria Sender is recovering nicely at Woodlands Pond from her hip surgery.  if you remember, slipped an fractured her hip last winter. It broke into about 17 pieces. This month she's scheduled for more surgery. Wish Gloria the best, send her a card, lend a hand with errands, etc.

Arlene Bruck has been spreading the word on AAUW's new research report Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School. She has already spoken to the Social Workers,Cultural Diversity Class and the LGBTQ  Coordinator at KHS. Want to give her a hand or take on spreading the word in your community? Contact Arlene to volunteer or ask for her for advice. You can read the research here.     

 

AAUW in the Smithsonian Magazine: Shirley Breeze from St. Louis County Missouri wrote a letter concerning a previous article by Julie des Jardin about Madame Curie.  Breeze stated that the $100,000 donated to Curie to purchase a gram of radium to continue her research was supplied by AAUW.  "This effort initiated a fundraising campaign that continues to this day through the association's support and funding for women to pursue scientific research."  

   
Keep us posted on member news. Forward items to Ruth Wahtera