FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT,
Dear Members and Friends:
Hoping all the Fathers and Dads had a wonderful weekend and please add my Best Wishes to the Day!
Many of us are getting ready to attend GFWC Convention this week in New Orleans and most of next week too. We will learn a lot and come back to CA energized and ready to tackle the many projects you choose to support. We are excited to see our Federated Sisters again as Pam Ament and I get to march in together for the GFWC installation and happy to be able to represent CA for all of you.
I am still in the glow of the CFWC Convention and our installation and Thank You for all the support and wishes as we Celebrated you all and the many awards that you received.
This brings me to a thought on the 2023 CFWC Convention on the subject of Arts and Culture. There are many emails going around and if you address only me, I will respond to only you. If you address many, then I feel I need to address many back, so the same information is given to all. It was said the Executive Committee made the decision for 10,000 members, but there were a lot of circumstances to come to the decision not to have Arts and Culture at the 2023 Convention. No one wants to see Arts and Culture disappear from the Conventions, but we will need more entries and help. Of course there will still be Arts and Culture at the Club and district levels if you choose, but to rent a room for the 35 entries we had registered for the 2022 convention, and then only 25 entries showed up, it not a smart decision when the room rental of hundreds of dollars for three days or so for the arts and culture is so small a representation of the entire CFWC membership. The Chair for the Convention has to have a committee, and one where the Chair can go and get the stands and easels, have a proper check in for the art, and then a committee for sign out so that all the art is redistributed back to the proper Districts, and then to the club members. Then the Chair has to return the equipment back to storage.
No one has said that Arts and Culture was gone forever from CFWC conventions, but we will try it in 2023 only at the club and district levels. Arts and Culture at the convention may be reinstated in 2024 if we get enough help, and entries. A committee to do the work, and make sure everything gets put back where it belongs at the end of the convention. All items must be accounted for and returned to their proper places. The room rentals amounts come from the room reservations and meals that are purchased and then we get charged a different fee for the use of rooms for workshops and Area meetings, by laws and resolutions, break out rooms and Board or convention meetings.
There are a lot of moving parts to put on a convention or Board meeting and we need everyone to try and attend to help with the many charges. Even the sound equipment rental was almost $3,000. at Convention. Maybe Arts and Culture will be reinstated in 2024, but we will have to wait and see if there are more entries to warrant the rental of a room for that sole purpose.
Bylaws and Resolutions committees will meet at the September Boards in the South, location to be determined soon.
Thank you for your patience, with one of our meeting planners Valerie's passing, Carol Lopez Lucey is working very hard to accommodate the extra rooms, meals and your special requirements of wheelchairs and scooter spacing. Everyone is missing Valerie, and there will be more about her services in the Quick Bytes too.
We will get you the September Boards and Winter Boards information as quickly as we can after GFWC convention. July Boards will be fun, as we listen to the 18 District Presidents tell us their plans and the CFWC Chairmen give us their agendas for the next two years on projects and committee work.
Keep us in the loop, follow the CFWC bylaws and standing rules, and we look forward to your ideas.
Fly to Oakland, uber with friends to San Ramon Marriott, rooms are $129. plus; and join the Boards. It will be fun to see everyone in person again, and we will all learn together.
As we celebrate the first day of summer June 21st and a new moon rising June 28th, let's work together as you always do to help each other and our communities.
I am so proud of each one of you, and glad we are all on the same team.
Love,
Barbara