Philadelphia Chapter Newsletter  
IN THIS ISSUE
* New Member Spotlight
* Community Impact Update
* Ladies With Too Much Stuff
* SIG Corner: Summer Reading
* She Let Go
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS 
TO OUR TTN FAMILY!
Lauren Abel
Linda Banecker
Kathleen Barone
Mindy Bartscherer
Marcia Fisch
Adele Lasman
Lynn McCormick
Ellen Rudolf
Michele Saland
Stacey Thompson

See a friend's name on the list?  Contact them via  TTN Member Directory .
UPCOMING EVENTS

Jun 23
Jul 21
Manna Volunteer Day
Aug 17
Manna Volunteer Day
Sep 7
Mormon Temple Tour
Nov 9
Membership Celebration Event!

Continually Updated!
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JUNE 2016

Dear TTN Members and Friends,

I hope you are enjoying the start of the Summer season.  The Philadelphia TTN Steering Committee members are focusing our efforts on providing and enhancing our members' experience with the following actions: 

  • Adding emphasis and energy to our Community Impact (CI) efforts; please read about the new CI structure below.
     
  • Planning a Membership Celebration event, a fun event designed to recognize everyone who contributes to make our Chapter work as well as it does.  Save The Date:  Wednesday November 9th, 2016, Early Evening.  More details to follow.  
As always, if you have new ideas and suggestions, please feel free to send them to me. Have a wonderful Summer and look forward to seeing you at our events. 


Warm regards,
Fatima Class
TTN PHL Chapter Chair

Editor's note:   We're taking off the month of July........and will be back in touch by mid-August 2016.  Be sure to check Events calendar for what's new!
New Member Ronnie Green Takes Off With TTN!
Ronnie Green joined TTN Philadelphia in December 2015. She recently retired and moved to Philadelphia after being a career coach and counselor for 15 years.  She advised clients on resumes, cover letters, networking and job search strategies. Her expertise is in interview training.

Margie Cole, Membership Chair, checked in with Ronnie on her six month TTN anniversary. Ronnie's enthusiasm for her new-found organization is contagious and we thought you'd enjoy reading her response to Margie's inquiry.  Thank you, Ronnie, for sharing your new member experience!

Hi Margie-

Thank you for touching base with me to inquire about my experience with TTN.  I've gotten very involved with many programs (which I will detail later) and have been so pleased with the friendly members and especially impressed with the organizational structure of the Philadelphia chapter. Here are just a few of the programs that I've engaged in:
  • Warm and supportive peer group
  • Fun and friendly pot luck lunch group
  • Offered the lounge of my apartment building to host a book group with some of the brightest women I've ever met
  • Joined a group of regular volunteers at MANNA
I've met lovely women who I share many common interests with. In addition to the SIG's and social groups, I'm so pleased with the meaningful relationships I am beginning to form. Besides encouraging people to join TTN, I have volunteered to become a Welcome Ambassador. In short, I believe that I could be the poster "child" on how to get involved with TTN! 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best wishes,
Ronnie Green
Community Impact Committee Restructuring

It is an exciting tribute to TTN Philadelphia members that the activities of the Community Impact Committee  have grown and expanded over the past three years. This Spring it became apparent that to operate effectively and efficiently it was necessary to separate Community Impact into two separate committees. 

At a Community Impact meeting on June 14th, followed by a meeting with Steering Committee members on June 15th, we determined that the two committees would be: The Giving Circle, chaired by Mary Klein and Volunteer Opportunities chaired by Moya Kinnealey. 

Over the Summer, the two Committees will have separate web pages developed and launched to make their information more easily accessible and will include descriptions of activities, contact persons and links to our chapter's calendar of events.

There are several upcoming events you should be aware of:
  • On Wednesday June 23rd, The Giving Circle is holding a membership meeting, "Let's Think About Next Year", about the 2017 grant process.  Meeting is 10am to Noon at the Society Hill Towers Community Room.  More meetings will be scheduled in Center City and the Main Line in Fall 2016.
     
  •  Manna has 2 volunteer opportunities this Summer:  July 21st and August 17th.  This is a great way to jump in with TTN members and give back to our community.  
     
  • Additional volunteer opportunities will include Career Wardrobe, Ronald McDonald House, Cradles to Crayons and New Leash on Life. Check the TTN Events Calendar as more activities are scheduled.
For Questions/Suggestions/Ideas/Involvement:
Contact Mary Klein for The Giving Circle
Contact Moya Kinnealey for Volunteer Opportunities
"Ladies With Too Much Stuff Who Need To Move On"
Member Spotlight: Carol Seelaus 
On May 9, 2016, TTN interviewed PHL Chapter member Carol Seelaus, a decluttering demolition expert who has helped hundreds of clients downsize, declutter, organize, transition and move on. Since so many of us in TTN are downsizing, relocating, moving on, we thought this was a good topic! Here are insights gleaned from decades of Carol's work with clients on how to move on with their lives without being overwhelmed by "stuff".

Carol: When I start working with a new client, I need to understand what their motivation is for contacting me. Years ago I did research on motivation and it came down to two things: 1) Negative motivation: Desperation or 2) Positive motivation: Inspiration, moving toward a goal.

Many of my clients call me out of desperation like the woman who needed to replace a broken heater (thankfully, it was in May) but the basement was so bad there was no access to the furnace; or the husband with an engineering background where everything had value and nothing could be thrown away (he would retrieve things from the dumpster); or the divorcee needing to relocate/downsize and totally overwhelmed with the task. 

Desperation is not wanting to live in that environment anymore, wanting to get out; but being overwhelmed and not knowing how to get started.

With desperation, there's often an impending event where you must address the clutter. If you aren't inspired with a positive reason for taking action and having an end goal in mind, then it's about something else. Clutter is an obstacle keeping you chained to the past. Desperation is a temporary motivator with no real behavioral change. Inspiration means you have a goal, a place you want to get to and you're willing to let go and look at things differently. My job is to be a conduit to help people say goodbye. Desperation is why people hire me. Inspiration is why they stay with me.

SIG Corner:  Summer Reading Edition




We TTN'ers like to read!  We currently have 8 Book Clubs reading different genres. For those of you not in a Book Club and looking for summer reading recommendations, we asked our Clubs for their best picks. Here's what they came up with for your summer reading pleasure:


All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful,stunningly ambitious instant  New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. 


Crossing to Safety
By Wallace St egner

Since its publication in 1987,  Crossing to Safety has established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the 20th Century.  Tracing the lives, loves and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep compassion, and powerful insight into the alchemy of friendship and marriage.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
By Fannie Flagg

Fannie Flagg is at her hilarious and superb best in this new comic mystery novel.

A Man Called Ove
By Fredrik Backman

"If there was an award for 'most charming book of the year', this book would win hands down."

And for all you mystery lovers...........

The Whites
By Richard Price

The electrifying tale of a New York City police detective under siege-by an unsolved murder, by his own dark past, and by a violent stalker seeking revenge.



Anatomy of Deception
By Lawrence Goldstone

The year is 1889. In the morgue of a Philadelphia hospital, physicians uncover the corpse of a beautiful young woman. What they see takes their breath away. Within days, one doctor, Ephraim Carroll, strongly suspects that he knows the woman's identity...and the horrifying events that led to her death.


If you are not in a TTN Book Club and would like to be, the following clubs are looking for new members:  People Readers, Murder by the Book, and Whodunnit.  We are also forming a new Book Club that will meet at night, the genre to be decided by the members.  

Please refer to the TTN SIG web page for information on contacts for Book Clubs and all other SIGs.

As always, if you have an idea for a new kind of SIG, contact  Alice Milrod, SIG Chair.
A Little Inspiration:  She Let Go 
A poem by Rev. Safire Rose, shared by a TTN member.

Please send the Editor your poetry, art work, quotes, humor and inspiration.  We'd love to feature in future newsletters. 

 She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
 She let go of the fear. 
 She let go of the judgments. 
 She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.  She let go of the committee of indecision within her. 
 She let go of all the 'right' reasons. 
 Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
 She didn't ask anyone for advice. 
 She didn't read a book on how to let go. 
 She didn't search the scriptures. 
 She just let go. 
 She let go of all of the memories that held her back. 
 She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. 
 She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it  just right.
 She didn't promise to let go. 
 She didn't journal about it. 
 She didn't write the projected date in her Day-Timer. 
 She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. 
 She didn't check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. 
 She just let go.
 She didn't analyze whether she should let go. 
 She didn't call her friends to discuss the matter. 
 She didn't do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. 
 She didn't call the prayer line. 
 She didn't utter one word. 
 She just let go.
 No one was around when it happened. 
 There was no applause or congratulations. 
 No one thanked her or praised her. 
 No one noticed a thing. 
 Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
 There was no effort. 
 There was no struggle. 
 It wasn't good and it wasn't bad. 
 It was what it was, and it is just that.
 In the space of letting go, she let it all be. 
 A small smile came over her face. 
 A light breeze blew through her. 
 And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.