BPW/MI Weekly Minute August 17^th, 2008

Greetings!

Carolyn Gilg and I are the Region 3 Co-coordinators. We were hoping to tell you about our regional meeting that was to have been last weekend, but since only five people said they were coming by the deadline (including ourselves) we decided to re-schedule it until next month. However as we informed our locals, we learned of four others who either decided last-minute or who just hadn’t gotten around to responding. Nine would have been a small meeting, but may have been enough to hold one. So ladies, when there is a BPW meeting (state, regional, or even your local) and the people organizing it ask you to tell them if you’re planning on attending, please TELL THEM if you are coming. It could mean the difference between the meeting being held or everyone losing out on the information and camaraderie that comes from getting together with fellow members.

One of the items on the agenda was an update from National Conference. It is unfortunate that low membership numbers nationwide have resulted in the curtailing of events and activities that are the cornerstone of BPW. We are so lucky to have a great BPW/USA CEO, Deborah Frett, who is able to roll with the changes and still keep BPW in the forefront of legislative activity in Washington. Our president, Barbara Henton, has lead the changes this past year that hopefully will help hold us together until membership numbers start rising again.

One of the workshops that I attended was held by St. Petersburg, Florida BPW members, called “Leveraging technology to manage your LO”. They are using computers and the internet to enable them to run their local’s business completely paperless. Their website allows interested outsiders to find information about BPW and their local meetings. Yahoo Groups (and there are others companies) allow them to have members-only webpages to communicate electronically and via e-mail with their members and select guests. All of their meeting minutes, treasurer reports, and membership rosters are kept here. One of the members at the workshop said that if an organization does not have their own website then she is not interested in them; this is similar to a statement I heard from a woman who asked my local for information this spring.

If we don’t start aggressively marketing ourselves to younger women who use the internet to search for organizations, we’ll never get them to join us. For several years Michael Henton, president of Traverse Web, has offered to help BPW local organizations create their own websites for a very reasonable price (if you consider one year free “reasonable”). Just call his company at (231) 938-9400 or check out their website at www.traverseweb.com and ask them what they can do for you. Let’s all take him up on this offer and strive to have 100% of BPW/Michigan’s chapters with websites by next May’s state convention.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone in Midland in October.

Respectfully,

Linda Stright

Carolyn Gilg

Region 3 Co-coordinators