Tonight as one Administration comes to a close and another begins to emerge there is great anticipation of what the incoming team will try to accomplish. As leader of the new team this Officer has many ideas, hopes and wishes for the next two years. These are not new ideas, these are essential ones that we all need to be reminded and encouraged to continue and perhaps step it up a little.

The first “wish” is that for membership you each invite a friend or friends to a meeting.  That is not a new idea but what I am asking you to do is invite them with no expectation of them becoming members, just have them come as a guest.  Don’t look at every guest as your next new member. Let them see how special your club is, how much fun you have and how important the work you do is. MAKE THEM WANT TO JOIN, make them feel like they are on the outside if they do not belong to your club.  If a woman joins when she is ready, membership will come naturally, she will be an educated member, a member who wants to belong. Women who are talked into joining without really knowing what you are about are typically not good members in the long run. There are exceptions but…..

That means your meetings and events must be meaningful, fun, engaging so effort will need to be placed on programs, speakers and events that are attractive to busy women. We are all busy so we have to make choices. Make your club the obvious choice for those busy women.

I would rather have 8,000 members who want to be part of NJSFWC and GFWC than 15,000 members who belong but with 7,000 constantly complaining about the club they belong to.

A second “wish” is that we restore HONOR to being the President, an Officer or Chairman in your club or district. I don’t know when that changed but it used to be an honor to hold a leadership position in a club or district. This dinner tonight is traditionally the dinner to HONOR CLUB PRESIDENTS. Will all club Presidents stand and be recognized/honored for your service to the 2010-2012 administration. THANK YOU

This administration will work hard to implement procedures that will make being an officer or chairman in your club or district something to aspire to, not run from. This Officer does not want to lose ONE MORE viable club because they could not get a President

A third “wish” for this administration is to be sure all members are knowledgeable about their club and Federation’s past, the well known and the little known. You cannot plan and commit to the future if you do not know where you come from. You must be proud of the accomplishments of the organization you have decided to dedicate some or a lot of your precious time to and you cannot be proud of your past if you do not know anything about it. What we do matters. We will work to restore Pride in Membership.

Consider how different your town would be if your club never existed. The library might not exist, many students would have struggled to afford college, the streets might not be as picturesque, and nursing home residents would not have been visited, read to or thought of at the holidays. The town craft fair, house tours, recycling program or Domestic Violence shelter might not exist if not for your club. The list could go on and on but your town certainly would be different if you never existed or it now ceases to exist.

WHAT WE DO MATTERS

A fourth “wish” for 2012-2014 is to be sure you spread the good news of what your club and NJSFWC are doing. Whether it is a blog, on Facebook, an email, your club website, articles in your town newspaper, on the phone with one of your friends, talking with acquaintances at the nail salon or book club meeting, you need to show how proud you are of your club and the work you do.

WHAT WE DO MATTERS!!

There will be more wishes as the administration progresses but tomorrow we will start with the first four. 

For many years Woman’s Clubs were known and criticized for wearing gloves and hats and sipping tea but perhaps drinking all that tea is what kept them calm and civilized when in fact they were OUTRAGED.  Much of what we have accomplished the last 100 PLUS years, started with outrage.

Jane Cunningham Croly was outraged that as a professional journalist she was not invited to a dinner given by the NY Press Club for Charles Dickens. Rather than cause a scene and show her outrage she went in to action and “got even” and started the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.

When Mrs. Elizabeth Vermilye President of the Woman’s Club of Englewood, was told that she was helpless to stop the destruction of the magnificent cliffs that soared high above Hudson River she was outraged, mobilized her club and members of the State Federation and proved to everyone including the Governors of New York and New Jersey that they were not helpless, what they wanted did matter and NJSFWC is credited with playing a significant role in Saving the Palisades

And when Mabel Smith Douglass wanted Rutgers University, a publically funded, state institution, to admit women she was told that it was impossible. She was outraged that young women in New Jersey could not be educated in an institution that was publically supported, outraged that she had no public support of the state politicians (in private they supported her, but they would not risk the public condemnation of being in favor of such dangerous thinking as educating young women), and outraged that no money was forth-coming from the large foundations, Mabel persevered, secured funding  and founded the New Jersey College for Women later renamed Douglass College

All of these remarkable accomplishments started with the idea of ONE woman, ONE OUTRAGED woman. Obviously it took more than one woman to accomplish these goals but it started with an idea

Maybe what we need now is a little OUTRAGE.

We need to be Outraged that in 2012 many women and children and some men are not safe in their own homes, we need to be outraged that children in the state of New Jersey do not have enough food to eat nutritious and well balanced meals on a regular basis, WE LIVE in the “Garden State”!!!!!!!!!!!!

We need to be outraged that as a coastal state, we continue to be threatened with degraded water quality of the marine waters off the New Jersey/New York coast." 

And we need to be outraged that more than 11,000 children in New Jersey will be homeless this year

We must use our legislative initiatives to give a voice to our outrage. 

This Officer has had the pleasure of getting to know many of the members while traveling around the state the past six years and one sentiment that was heard over and over again was that our members feel a sense of family belonging to NJSFWC.  In good times and bad, the members of the Federation were there to support and care for them like a family, they felt they had a second home. Cherishing our families and the comfort and safety of our homes is a basic human need.  IMAGINE not having that sense of comfort or security.  Well as I mentioned a minute ago, 11,000 children and their families in New Jersey deal with that insecurity each year. A troubling and embarrassing statistic, one that we cannot eradicate but can certainly address which is why the President’s Special Project for the 2012-2014 Administration is Family Promise.

Family Promise is an organization, founded right here in New Jersey, that tries to ensure that children and their families have a safe, comfortable place to sleep.  Family Promise, founded in 1988, is a national organization dedicated to helping homeless and low-income families regain independence.  They assist about 50,000 people annually; more than half of those served are children.  Family Promise operates more than 180 Affiliates in 41 states, including in 15 New Jersey counties. 

Family Promise mobilizes communities to help homeless families and provides people with a way to address a national problem locally in their own communities. The Family Promise model insures that families are kept together through the difficult times they are facing. In New Jersey last year, Family Promise Affiliates provided shelter and support services to more than 3,200 family members. The volunteers and Affiliate communities provide shelter and meals in host congregations and also address additional needs by developing initiatives such as family mentoring, financial literacy, job training, and children’s enrichment programs.

There are so many ways to get involved from in-kind donations to direct-service opportunities such as meal preparation, dinner and evening hosting, and overnight hosting in a host congregation to tutoring, helping with homework, or reading to a child.  There are also opportunities to raise awareness about issues related to homelessness through letter writing campaigns and programs which teach others about homelessness. 

The money raised for Family Promise through the State Project will help benefit so many families in need, especially children, and will allow Family Promise to continue to provide these critical services throughout New Jersey.

With your support and dedication we can make life a little more comfortable and stable for those who find themselves in the unenviable position of being homeless

In my hands I have the NJSFWC year book which many in Federation refer to as the NJSFWC Bible. I prefer to call it the NJSFWC Encyclopedia, a bible has many wonderful parables, some with no basis in fact, there are NO stories in the Yearbook just facts and figures. As club Presidents and members many of us refer to this book regularly but how many realized that on the inside front cover the NJSFWC Mission and Vision Statements can be found?