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President's Notes: We have returned from Sweden! It was a great week, meeting women from around the world, learning about the successes of our projects in Nepal and India and the programs we're going to be supporting during the next biennium. I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment, so I won't take a lot of time telling you about the Convention. I'll share more at the August meeting. But, I will say that the by-law amendments which would allow members who are not actively employed in their classification to serve as officers at District and Club levels were not approved by the delegates. The Club issue was not approved by a slim margin, but nonetheless, it was not approved. I do understand that there will be a new Classification manual out soon, which may provide some other classifications which would allow particularly our retired members to be considered "actively involved in their classification". So, we'll watch for that. Certainly this issue will be presented again in New York in 2004. It was obvious that many club and district officers are retired or not employed for some reason, so it was very interesting that these amendments did not get approved. Anyway, in this newsletter I want to focus on membership. We have 3 members who have not renewed their membership this year: Joyce Giedt, Karen Knudsen and Sandra Boehm and one member who resigned: Carol Adams. That means that we could be down to 23 members this year. This is very discouraging. In July, the Board and Membership Chair, are planning a prospective member dinner. Watch for more news on the location, the date is July 23rd, our regular meeting date. This is a great opportunity to introduce prospective members to Zonta. So, I want to REALLY encourage you to bring prospective members to the dinner at our house on Tuesday, July 23rd. Think of all those women you have invited to the Global Event. Invite them to this dinner. We're going to make it really informal and have a very brief presentation about Zonta. We want to tickle their interest by letting them get to know other members and then bring them back to another meeting to learn more about Zonta. I think in the past we may have scared some people off with our expectations before they got to know us. 5:30 at our house. Please RSVP if you are coming with a guest. If you do not have a guest to bring, don't feel obligated to come to dinner. This is not a regular meeting. Okay? Take a month off. Our August meeting will be held at Peggy St. Germain's home on August 27. This will be a business meeting to really get our ticket sales going for the Global event which will only be 7 weeks away. (Watch for more specific information on the event and district seminar in the next couple of weeks.) So Peggy doesn't have to cook for us, and since we're such good cooks, let's plan on potluck for the meeting. Please let Peggy know if you're coming and what you will be bringing. I hope you're enjoying your summer. Please spend some time thinking about potential members to bring to dinner on the 23rd. And, it's not too early to start gathering silent auction items for our Global Event. Thanks for all you do for Zonta and the women of the world. |