Welcome new members!

Welcome to the new members who joined in May and June for the 2009-2010 year:

Mary Rack of Avon Lake, Ohio, stopped to visit both Doris Bernlohr and Nancy Shoemaker in early May, and they managed to convince her to join the branch. She has been a member of AAUW for several years, serving at the branch and state level in both Michigan and California. This new model seems to fit how she’d like to engage with AAUW over the next year.

AAUW NC past president and branch member Mary Fran Schickedantz ensures that her neice, Sheryl Ponciano of Durham, and her daugher-in-law Dianne Shickedantz of Franklin maintain membership in AAUW. She transferred their memberships from the Chapel Hill and Bryson City branches respectively since this branch’s “at-large” connection better suits their lives. However, they can still connect to AAUW NC and the branches near them.

Ronni Marblestone is a long-time member of the Raleigh/Wake County branch but has not been active for years. She renewed with the Tar Heel branch to continue her support for AAUW at the national and state level and better reflect her preference on how to connect to the organization.

Elizabeth Rogacz is a life member of the Association. Along with Pat Robinson (who joined as a dual member last fall and transferred to primary membership this spring), she is transferring her affiliation from the Cherokee County branch (which has had fewer than ten members for years) to the Tar Heel branch. It is hoped that the Tar Heel Branch will offer members in Cherokee county the opportunity to continue AAUW’s presence in the area but save them some of the work of maintaining a branch.

Sharon Trimble from Pennsylvania heard about the branch at the 2009 AAUW Convention in St. Louis. She is a life member of AAUW and joined as a dual member to learn more about this new model.

AAUW NC branch members Mary Peterson (Twin Rivers/New Bern),  Alyce Lanier (Salisbury), Lillian Van Order (Wilmington), Sandra Bernard (Asheville), Kathleen Pearre (Winston-Salem), Sandra Slates (Chapel Hill), Mari Pino Del  Rosario (Greensboro), Kay White (Chapel Hill) all joined at the end of the year to connect their branches to this new model. See reasons why members of other branches join the Tar Heel Branch.

Rose Stremlau from Charlotte is on the faculty at UNC Pembroke. The branch at UNCP disbanded several years ago, and AAUW NC is hoping that the Tar Heel Branch may help AAUW members there reorganize.

Branch members can get contact information for each other from the branch roster at http://www.aauwnc.org’s “member services database.” More personal introductions are encouraged on the branch e-mail list.