June Torch 2013, Vol 51, No. 10



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6/2013 Vol. 51, No. 10 June Summer Edition

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STEP UP AND GIVE BACK

Celebrate in Style with AAUW

What: AAUW 20th Annual Fashion Show

Where: Grandezza Country Club

11481 Grand Oak Boulevard

(Off Ben Hill Griffin Pkwy near Miromar Mall)

Fashions by Razzle Dazzle

Cost: $35 through October

$40 beginning November lst

Ticket sales begin September lst

For ticket information contact

Faye O’Briant 239-549-4689

nanagrams6@

Fashion Show Co-Chairs

Jemetta Hunt 203-249-6545

jemetta@

Phyllis Wayco 219-765-6376

phylwayco@

AAUW Fort Myers/

Lee County Branch

President’s Message

What a lovely event we had for our final meeting of the year! A huge THANK YOU goes to Judy Sims, who not only opened her gracious home and beautiful riverside yard for our luncheon, but arranged for the delightful program by Rusty Brown, Maggie Mullins, and Thora Free. Each of us could relate to at least one of the selections of Judith Viorst’s work that had us laughing out loud. The food that everyone brought was terrific, and Mother Earth did an excellent job with the perfect weather! It was a terrific end to a great program year for our branch.

Fort Myers/Lee County Branch has been recognized by AAUW-FL for its generous giving to AAUW Funds. We were ranked fifth among Florida branches. Our giving includes not only the $2,750 that the branch sends to Washington for the Educational Opportunities Fund, the Eleanor Roosevelt Fund and the Legal Advocacy Fund, but also individual contributions that each branch member sends independently. When you respond to the appeal for a donation for the recently received note cards, or any other separate national AAUW fund raising campaign, our branch gets credit. When any member contributes $100 or more cumulative over one year, she receives acknowledgement from AAUW-FL as a Florida Friend. This year Bonnie Lincoln and Marie Shively have been acknowledged as Florida Friends, and we thank them whole heartedly. To ensure our branch gets credit for your contribution, enter our branch name on the “memo line” of your check (or our Branch code, FL-3005).

This is my final “President’s Message,” and my opportunity to sincerely thank every member for your enthusiastic support over the past two years. Our board members and chairpersons have worked hard fulfilling their roles and I appreciated their dedication, diligence, and especially their time and counsel. We have grown in membership, and have successfully addressed some issues that came with that growth. We had hugely successful fundraisers, made an impact on the lives of young students through STEM projects, and increased our support of women seeking to advance their education. The stage is set for the branch to move forward in its mission of “empowering women through education, advocacy, philanthropy and research.”

I hope you will join me in supporting the 2013-2014 officers, board and chairpersons as they continue the momentum! Have a safe summer!

President Ellen Schneider

Directory Information on Website

The service that our branch has received from AAUW, our new provider for our website, has been superlative. Thank you Pat Allen for steering us in this direction. If you haven’t checked it out, just type in fmlc-fl. and you’ll see how busy our branch was this past year. We are still in the process of adding tabs and pull-down pages to this website. When we are done there will be six tabs: About Us, Meetings, Scholarships, Membership, Special Events, and Members Only.

The Members Only tab will be password protected. The password will be the same for all members and will be distributed in a secure manner this fall. This secure section of our website will give you access to our branch bylaws, policies, listing of Officers, Committees/Groups with contact information, and will provide members with an on-line member Directory. It is added for our members’ convenience and to protect our members’ privacy. We will no longer post an individual member’s contact information on non-secure pages.

Before the Directory information is placed on our secure website pages, you have the opportunity to decide whether you want your contact information included. Remember, only our Branch members will have the password needed to access this information. It will be secure. However, if you do not want to be included in the Directory on our Branch website, you must send an email to aauwleecounty@ or send a written note to Directory, P. O. Box 2115, Fort Myers, FL 33902-2115, and opt out. Your decision to not have your contact information included must be received by June 30.

Rusty Brown Ensemble

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At our May meeting

Thora Free, Rusty Brown, and Maggie Mullins presented “Rhyme & Reason,” based on the works of writer Judith Viorst. Not only a poet, playwright and author, but also a graduate psychotherapist, Viorst analyzes the stages of our lives in her humorous and witty poetry. It was entrancing.

Members brought covered dishes, and lunch was enjoyed in the shade of a tree given by Thomas Edison to the original owner of the home, a publisher of the News Press. Found: a butter spreader, and a lovely shiny teaspoon. Lost: a 9x11 Calphalon opaque plastic lid for a brownie pan. Please call Judy if you have information regarding these items.

Membership Renewal Deadline

As of May 25, your Branch Treasurers are still checking the P.O. Box for 38 more membership renewals. In order for you to have your contact information included in our Branch Directory, we need

your check and renewal form by June 30 at the latest.

Did You Know?

Monthly we print and mail 55 Torch newsletters. The annual cost of printing is $250 and the annual cost of mailing is $150. This cost could be significantly reduced if all members with email service would accept delivery of the Torch via email. Please notify Marilyn Workman if you can make the change

Harry Chapin Donation

On May 15th, Miriam Manpel and Marie Glasgow presented a check for $550 to Harry Chapin President and CEO, Al Brisian. All year our members generously donated at our monthly meetings so that families are able to eat. The summer months make the greatest demands on this organization, and our donation goes a long way to feed our Lee County residents.

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Funds contributed to Harry Chapin are allocated as follows: 96% cover program and services expense, 2% administrative expense, and 2% fundraising expense. One dollar donated allows this organization to distribute $6 worth of food.

The summer months also present a great need for volunteers. With many residents vacationing or spending the entire summer outside of Florida, there is a shortage of volunteers to sort food, help with the Mobile Pantry distributions, and to plan upcoming events. If you can help please contact Bedzaida Bryen, the Volunteer Manager, at 334-7007 Ext. 141, or bedzaidabryen@

Interest Groups

Reading Selections for 2013-14

Our branch has three active book groups. Their carefully chosen selections are being shared to provide all of us with a wonderful summer reading list. If these authors and their work appeal to you, contact Muriel Freedman, 239-481-0391, to become a member of one of the groups.

Book Group I

Prague Winter – Albright

Escape from North Korea – Kirkpatrick

My Beloved World – Sotomayer

Cellist of Sarajevo – Galloway

Feminine Mystic – Friedan

Lean In – Sandberg

On Saudi Arabia – House

Book of Madness and Cures – O’Melveny

Dinner – Koch

Book Group II

The Girls of Atomic City – Kiernan

Unbroken – Hillenbrand

The Girl in the Blue Beret – Mason

The House I Loved -Rosney

Jacob’s Folly – Miller

Night Circus – Morgenstern

The Dressmaker – Alcott

Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker – Chiaverini

Book Group IV

Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker – Chiaverini

The Life Between Oceans – Stedman

American Canopy – Rutlow

A Land Remembered – Smith

The Great Journey: American in Paris - McCullough

Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power – Sanger

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie – Mathis

Movie and Dinner

Carolyn Nance will host a viewing of Goya’s Ghosts at

3:00 P.M. at 5240 Agualinda in Cape Coral on June 19.

Dinner will be afterwards at “The Joint.” Subsequent meetings will be arranged via email.

Bridge

Currently, we have two groups of bridge players that meet during the month.  On the second Monday the "Spades" meet.  The "Hearts" meet on the third Monday.  Both groups meet at 1 P.M. in the homes of the participating members on a rotating basis. Contact Audrey Anthony at 454-2696 or Marilyn Myli at 482-0272. New members welcome. We will continue our meetings during the summer.

Veritas

Next year’s agenda will be set up in September.

Maj Jongg

Maj Jongg will continue to meet during the summer.

Please contact either Jean Schoenthaler at 277-5174 or Gwen Spuhler at 541-1924 if you would like to play Mah Jongg on the first and third Thursday afternoons. If you wish to learn how to play, call Carolyn Nance at 549-7486

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Judith Sims Film Fare

The Cost of Expectations

My expectations were high for The Great Gatsby. Wasn’t this the 6th time the book had been made into a movie? Hasn’t one critic called it one of the 10 best books in the English language? Another THE BEST American novel? I read it in college as part of a course on Fitzgerald and now high school students routinely are required to read it. Yet I was disappointed…So now that I’ve lowered your expectations…see it, parts are excellent...but are they enough? Email me thumbs up or down….or call. Any response will be a vote for continuing this column in the Torch for the next year.

My low expectations for Oblivion with Tom Cruise, Morgan Freedman, Melissa Leo, Olga Kurylenko and Andrea Riseborough really paid off. OK, it IS sci-fi, so how good could it be? It had “robotic weapon- ized drones” a week or so before I heard them contemplated in the news. But it’s more….a sensitive love story with intriguing DNA-memory issues, an anti-war, anti-government-think story and it is so beautiful it makes me cherish each plant in my yard. It is philosophical and environmental. You can think as you go, or just ride it out and think later, but think you will. Do not see this expecting just another action movie. Forget everything you ever read about Tom Cruise and just enjoy Jack Harper. This film is like a prism, so multi-faceted, with so many levels that you choose your experience by how you approach it or how open you are. But you don’t have to be intellectual or analytical about it, just go, look, enjoy.

Name Tags

Do you need a new name tag?  Contact Marlene Palmer. Make your check for $9.85 payable to Marlene Palmer, 9149 Shadow Glen Way, Fort Myers, FL 33913 (239-768-9824) Be sure to include your complete name.

Remember our branch email:

aauwleecounty@

Our branch postal address:

PO Box 2115

Fort Myers, FL 33902-2115

Our website address: fmlc-fl.

AAUW

Fort Myers/Lee Co Branch

Marilyn Workman, Torch Editor

2760 Steam Boat Loop

N. Fort Myers, FL 33917

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Torch Production

Editor-Writer: Marilyn Workman

workmannfm@

Circulation: Judy Sims, Betty Bechtel

Contributors: Ellen Schneider, Marie Glasgow,

Judith Sims, Mimi Manpel, Jemetta Hunt, Phyllis Wayco, Rusty Brown,

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