Public policy advocacy continues to be a priority for the Tar Heel Branch. THB members were instrumental in developing a pilot program to track legislation in North Carolina, and continue to lead efforts among all AAUW NC branches to keep members informed and engaged in public policy advocacy.
Read some background, as well as recent efforts, of the THB to invest members’ time in this area. Go to PP Report Tar Heel Branch Annual Meeting
Can you believe this photo of Tar Heel Branch members and friends was taken after a four hour event concentrating on public policy issues?
For more on what led up to this picture see wakewaa.wordpress.com and contact Nancy or waa-info@ncwu.org if you’d like to bring a similar event to your county.
Pictured are branch members:
Other branch members attending included Victoria Brown, Joyce Gad, and Joan Robertson. Ruth Relos who attended representing Partners Against Human Trafficking in NC, won the drawing for a free membership and has now joined the branch.
It was a great event to connect with representatives of several sponsoring organizations. See wakewaa.wordpress.com for the full list. In particular, AAUW member Beth Dehghan (in the Raleigh/Wake County branch) was there representing WomenNC.
The March 2012 branch ballot included a resolution opposing Amendment One on the May 8 North Carolina primary ballot. With 71 of 124 branch members voting, the resolution passed: 62 in favor, 4 opposed, and 5 abstentions.
On March 31, AAUW of North Carolina passed a similar resolution. See www.aauwnc.org for additional information.
Update: The amendment passed in the May 8 primary election. The long term consequences of the wording which removes recognition of domestic civil unions as well as confirming the state’s law against gay marriage will be worked out through the courts.
Alison Kiser and Becky Mock
The Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina 2012 Champions of Choice Breakfast was an energizing and inspiring event on January 19.
The highlight for me was seeing Becky Mock receive the PPCNC Margaret Sanger award for lifetime contributions to advancing women’s rights. Alison Kiser, who grew up in Alamance County and considers Becky one of her mentors, presented the award.
Both Becky and Alison are members of the branch. Other AAUW members there were Anne Mackie and Dana Jennings from the Tar Heel Branch, Lisa Price and Dona Jean Koeberl from the Chapel Hill Branch, and national member Laura Roselle. If I missed seeing you, please let me know or post a comment!
If you’re near enough to Chapel Hill to attend this event mark your calendar for next January and plan to celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade with friends from around the region.
Tar Heel Branch members have represented AAUW of North Carolina at two events recently.
On October 23, along with the Chapel Hill and Greensboro branches we hosted a reception for the AAUW Fellows in the state.
On November 2, we partnered with other NC Women United members (especially NC MomsRising) to staff the NCWU booth at the NC Conference for Women and, in particular, spread the word about the HERVotes project. (AAUW and MomsRising were two of the initial members of the HERVotes coalition at the national level.)
Please check these links for pictures of our members:
Nancy Shoemaker
Tar Heel Branch President
Three AAUW NC meetings were held this fall: two on 9/17 in Brevard and New Bern and one last Saturday in Statesville. Forty-one members representing 15 of the 20 branches attended at least one of the meetings. Of the 41, 18 were members of the Tar Heel Branch and we welcomed one new member, Janice Imgrund of Winston-Salem, who joined at the Statesville meeting.
Five Tar Heel Branch board members attended (Shoemaker, Evans, Atoji, Pearre, and Abell). The meetings were sponsored by the AAUW NC officers (K. Atkinson, Van Order, McGuire, Abell, Richardson) with support from Mary Peterson — and all of these women are dual members of the Tar Heel Branch.
This report comes from my attendance at the Statesville meeting.
The bulk of the time was spent on the Public Policy Pilot Project that is proposed for branch action during 2011-2012. Branches are being encouraged to
Additional information:
to pp-admin@aauwnc.org as soon as possible.
In late October, the coordinators of the project will be assigning issues to branches based on branch preferences, but hopefully avoiding much duplication. Then two email lists will be populated with subscribers:
During the year, all involved in the project would be asked to make notes on the project to help with an evaluation of whether or not additional state resources should be allocated to it for 2012-2013.
The Tar Heel Branch may contribute to this in unique ways. Jenine Atoji and I will be supporting the project with the technical issues of creating and maintaining the email lists. It is understood that many of our members who joined as “at-large” members of the state may not have time to put into research on particular issues, but it is hoped we will have many members who agree to receive the information and take action as long as the messages are clear and focused.
The AAUW NC executive committee (acting as the board in this year where we’ve suspended the bylaws) approved the 2011-2012 budget. The important things to note are:
There was some discussion of the AAUW Juvenile Literature Award which the NC Literary and Historical Society has administered for AAUW NC since 1953. As documented on the UNC Library page about the NC Literary Awards, this is part of a series of several awards. There was a discussion about the benefit of the award and an idea to encourage all the branches to purchase copies of the winning book for their local libraries received more support than adding a cash award to the winning author.
The consensus was to continue support for the event. That entails contacting the winning author and arranging to host the author at the Literary and Historical Society awards ceremony, as well as arranging for a cup to present it. It was noted that Elizabeth Laney, a member of the branch and the Lit/Hist Society, has been one of the judges for years.
This year’s award ceremony will be Friday, Nov. 18 at the Sheraton in downtown Raleigh as part of the Annual Meeting of the Lit/Hist Society. The awards potion of the program is 1:30 – 2:00 and part of the afternoon session which is free and open to the public. If you’d like to attend, please contact Karla or Lill for details on who will be representing AAUW NC, particularly if you’d like to join the author for lunch or take materials to share about AAUW. (Full program, registration.)
There was a lively discussion of how to get state information out to all the members. While email would seem to be a logical way to communicate, issues about going “email only” included
There was a consensus to continue with last year’s format of a simpler annual meeting near the center of the state.
There was a reminder that by a vote last spring we suspended the bylaws and our current structure is quite different from the one described there. It is still too soon to know how it is working, but it was noted that the nominating committee will need some guidance in what offices will be filled for 2012-2013.
Branch Director-at-Large Roberta Madden, who assumed responsibility for branch public policy efforts last fall, gives this report on the branch public policy efforts:
Several members of the branch will be attending the March 1 Women’s Advocacy Day at the NC Legislature in Raleigh.
The day is sponsored by NC Women United, a coalition of organizations working on issues of related to the equality of women.
For more information or to register for the day, please see www.ncwu.org.
One of the new features of this branch is that community groups (members who live near each other — perhaps in an area that had been served by a community-based branch) may band together and use AAUW’s name in their community. The Wake County group has done that to sponsor the Wake County Women’s Agenda Assembly on Jan. 29, 2011.
2011 Wake County Agenda Assembly, Peace College
A dozen branch members and a couple of other AAUW members from Wake County attended the event, the last scheduled Women’s Agenda Assembly leading up to the 2011-2012 Legislative Session. [There still may be assemblies in New Hanover, Durham and Cleveland Counties. Check www.ncwu.org for announcements.]
But branch members participated in many other Women’s Agenda Assemblies across the state — from Buncombe County (Asheville), to a “Down East” assembly serving Craven, Carteret and Pamlico counties. If you participated, please post at least your first name and the name of the event here — and it’d be great if you’d add a few comments about what you took away from the event.
Opposition to Human Trafficking may not be in the AAUW Public Policy Program explicitly, but this is certainly in line with all the other AAUW principles of civil rights; freedom from violence; and economic, social, and physical well-being of all persons. So you may be interested in these events in honor of January as Human Trafficking Awareness Month in North Carolina and January 11 as National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.
You can find much more information on all these events and campaigns at http://ncstophumantrafficking.wordpress.com/.
Chapel Hill:
Charlotte:
Greensboro: Tuesday, 1/11, 6:30-7:30: Prayer Vigil
Greenville: Tuesday, 1/11, 11:00-Noon: Proclamation signing
Raleigh:
Virtual Events
AAUW Tar Heel Branch 