|
Martha Collins and Shilpa Pandey. 2025 WILPF US Co-Presidents
It’s past time for your two new Co-Presidents to thank you for your vote of confidence! We’ve been up to our necks in organizing details… and finally have time to show up in your inbox.
The last few weeks have been tumultuous politically across the nation.
Like you, we’ve personally been reeling from the daily assaults from this Administration on everything we as a people value.
At the same time we’ve been working closely with each other, our new Executive Director Linda Low, and our contractors to figure out how to balance our duties and share our responsibilities.
WILPF US is going from having one centralized President who was pretty much tackling every aspect of the daily management of WILPF, to having an ongoing conversation and developing goals and strategies among our new leadership team. If there’s strength in numbers, we’re trying to maximize our strengths and create a more effective WILPF US.
We’re focused on developing a sustainable system, because we know that women across generations -- including the younger women that we wish to bring to WILPF have less time -- and that requires a lot of focus and discernment on the front end.
In the next few weeks and months, you’ll be getting a better idea of who your Leadership Team really is!
As your new leadership team at WILPF US, we are developing plans to make WILPF work more visible, more effective and to develop more compelling solidarity actions. Between the three of us, we represent generations of bold women. Linda is the proud daughter of immigrants committed to advancing immigrant rights. Martha is dedicated to mobilizing individuals advancing peace, dignity and equal rights for women and their families. Shilpa comes from a long line of human rights advocates; in fact, her grandparents protested peacefully with Gandhi and WILPF in India!
The next Board Meeting will be Saturday, March 29 at
12:30pm Pacific/1:30pm Mountain/2:30pm Central/3:30pm Eastern.
Note the time change. Because our regular meeting day is the Kickoff for our 110th Anniversary, with Martha and Linda both traveling to Chicago for festivities, we’ve moved the date of the Board Meeting to the next Saturday, March 29. Acting Secretary Dianne Blais will accept requests for members to attend. Contact her at Secretary@WILPFus.org to request the zoom link.
All members are welcome to observe Board Meetings, but they only get to speak if there’s time at the end of the meeting, for time-limited comments or questions.
You may have felt a gap in communications while we tend to business!
Your WILPF emails have seriously diminished!
Former President Darien had been responding to emails constantly and initiating communications at a tremendous rate.
After 6 years at the helm, her style of leadership and continual email messaging was well established and suited her personality and preferred communications style.
By contrast we’ve been operating in the background to establish new processes and discern the best way forward. We’re determined to empower our leaders to create action and impact.
We are trying to minimize the frequency with which you’ll hear from us, but maximize the impact of the work we’re doing. Both of us are working full time in other jobs, so we want to discern the most important initiatives to share with you, and not overload your inboxes.
We’re busy doing the work you elected us to do!
We’ve been busy, even if you haven’t noticed. We’re sorry if we’ve appeared to be absent. The reality is quite different.
- We’ve been getting acquainted with the bookkeeping and recordkeeping processes with help from Chris Wilbeck, and thinking about possible streamlining options.
- We’ve been sharing experiences and recommendations with Linda Low, as well as Board policies and general WILPF US ‘culture’ notes.
- With Linda, we’ve met with our contractors to redefine processes of communications and hear from them their hopes and concerns going forward.
- We’ve been determining how communications will look, dealing especially with a lot of glitches in our new website that have needed attention and focus.
- We’ve been figuring out which of us will be responsible for what… how often we want the Board Meetings to occur and how we want to develop agenda items for those meetings.
- We’ve been balancing the cherished need for member input with complaints about too many emails and eAlerts.
- We’ve been working with the Finance Committee to address a projected budget deficit and to get a more balanced budget approved.
-
And we’ve been working towards a celebration of WILPF’s 110th Anniversary. Martha will join Linda in Chicago on March 22 at a conference at we’re co-sponsoring with the Chicago Women’s History Center titled “Past & Present Strategies To Advance The Rights Of Women”. WILPF will have an exhibit booth, a sign-up opportunity, and Linda will facilitate a workshop. The following day, the Chicago Branch leaders and members will host a Meet & Greet where Chicago WILPF members will get to meet with Martha and Linda and explore their goals for the future of WILPF. Following lunch we’ll share a tour of the historic Hull House Museum.
-
On Monday, April 28, a virtual event WILPF@110, will celebrate our Anniversary on the date of WILPF’s founding. You’ll be hearing more about the inspiring presenters, performers and award winners who will be part of a very upbeat celebratory event that will be sharable with allies, colleagues and potential new members. We’ll be honoring Lisa Graves of the Center for Media & Democracy, and our own Ellen Thomas for a lifetime of peace activism.
- And we’ve been figuring out the processes for navigating each of our complicated schedules and routines. The three of us meet now every Friday to plan, share information, and assign new tasks.
That’s just the tip of the WILPF US iceberg. We’re busy doing the work you elected us to do!
You can reach us at our email address and you can be sure we’ll be reading your emails and responding.
We’re proud to be representing YOU in this historic and powerful women’s organization.
| 
