Hello UCWN sisters and friends,
As we move forward in the “Wheel of the Year,” heading into a more reflective time of harvesting for our coming winter and our live’s futures, we are having three upcoming events after our Walk and Talk at Catskill Visitor Center. On September 10 we’ll have a potluck at the beautiful nature center to gather ideas for planning relevant events for next year and hopefully get a consensus on whether to rebuild a UCWN website, do the fixes required to make our current website more functional or any other options that you suggest. Budget is a consideration, and we have kept our annual membership fee relatively modest to cover administrative costs and event expenses.
Given that most of our members fall into the Wise Woman stage of our life journey, our next two events (before our Winter Holiday party) will have our UCWN member needs in mind. In October we have two amazing women in our Ulster County Legislature, one a Republican from Highland and one a Democrat from Rosendale, in conversation with us to listen to our ideas. Gina Hapsut and Manna Jo Greene will both give us updates on the environmental issues they are pushing forward, always an important topic, and listen to our thoughts on proposals they can bring to the legislature. We, as senior women, have the opportunity to speak to our small and large irritations and transform them into action and bring our voices into sharp focus. Sometimes we gripe about the typeface being too small to easily read labels, menus, etc., and we wonder if there should be some senior parking spots designated (similar to veterans) for those who are not handicap qualified but nonetheless would benefit from easier parking in malls. Your ideas are most important so start thinking of how we can give our representatives our valuable agenda items.
Members Jackie Wolfe, Ava Turner, and Susan Diamond, Health Options NY, will be our November presenters on all the insurance options and changes that we would benefit, (pun intended), from understanding as we make our selection of keeping our insurance carrier to shifting to another that covers those needs that we personally prioritize.
Both our October and November events will be held in a beautiful conference room at NYSUT (happy post Labor Day and thanks to the Teachers Union) at 200 Schwenk Drive in the back of building 100 at the Stockade Business Center across from Kingston Plaza Shopping Center in Kingston. Thank you to Randy Greene Mundy for reserving the space for UCWN. We’ll have potlucks at each event.
Massive thank you to Vice President, Sheila Gould, who is the backbone of our meetings and topics. She is a powerful force, and we all appreciate her generous commitment to community. Thank you also to the amazing Leslie Snow who has kept the flame burning brightly to continue the fabulously professional UCWN communications with her web-mastery and email blasts, keeping us informed of the exciting happenings at UCWN. She will be stepping off her role as of September 15 to focus more on her yoga and coaching practice.
A personal thank you to all the support you have shown for my own mission to create a Parrots For Peace Sanctuary so that the mission of the peace parrot family will continue over their very long lives and be a space to take in parrots that need re-homing as their humans take a new step in their lives and need to place their beloveds in a caring environment. The pool party at Myrna Sameth’s gave some of us a chance to meet Mr. Baby, the dad of the family. Thank you Sheila for recommending this idea to support the mission and thank you to Myrna for allowing Mr. Baby to join the pool party at your lovely home.
Onward and Upwards,
Gloria