June Program

End of the Year Branch Meeting

Saturday, June 8 10:00 am In Person

Laguna Lakes Mobile Estate Annex

On June 8th we will be holding our final Branch Meeting of the year at 10:00 am in the Annex at the Laguna Lakes Mobile Estate at 1801 Prefumo Canyon Rd. It will include the election and installation of our 2024-2025 officers. As of the writing of this article, we are still in need of a VP of Membership and a VP of Programs. If you are interested in either of these positions, please contact our president Debra Valencia-Laver or come to the meeting and volunteer then. Our Named Gift Honoree will be announced at this time, as well as an overview of the past year. Being a morning meeting, breakfast treats and coffee will be provided. We hope to see many of our members there as it is one of our few in person meeting.

Our May Branch Meeting was our yearly introduction of our High School Scholarship winners. We presented 10 scholarships this year due to your generous donations. Six of the recipients accepted our Zoom invitation. Sadly, we had only a few members present to hear the plans of Nina Moutafoa, Allegra Highland, Rebecca Gee, Xavier (XC) Clements, Zoe Elliot, and Julia Rizzo. Questions were asked and clearly answered by all the girls. We finished up our scholarship night with a presentation from our Cal Poly scholarship recipient, Berenice Sanchez Hernandez. She could not be with us in person, but Debra played a video of her recent interview with our recipient. It was interesting to hear of her plans for the future. Debra had also included a synopsis of this interview in our May newsletter. If you haven't read it yet, please do so.

As I complete my final article for the year, I would like to thank all of you for your support of these programs and the kind feedback I have received about how you enjoyed them. I will not be returning as VP of Programs for the next year. I have used up all my resources on my list and look to someone new who will develop new and exciting programs for the coming year.

Have a super summer and see you at our first Branch Meeting in September.

Esther Pudlo
VP for Programs

President's Message

Welcome to June and the end of our 2023-24 AAUW year!! It’s been a busy and productive one. For that reason, we are splitting this month’s newsletter into two parts. This is Part One of our June newsletter. It contains announcements of a few upcoming events — especially our year-end in-person branch meeting — various interest group announcements, a special reminder about membership renewal, and June birthdays!!

Later in the month, and after our in-person branch meeting, we’ll send Part Two — a year-end highlights version, including pictures from our June branch celebration — hopefully inspiring you for next year!

 

If you’re interested in being more involved with our branch, remember, we are still looking for a Programs VP and a Membership VP. Please drop me a line if you have questions or suggestions!

Looking forward to a festive celebration on Saturday, June 8th at 10 am!

“The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate and expand her sense of actual possibilities.” — Adrienne Rich, American poet and essayist

Debra Valencia-Laver

President

Membership

At this time we would typically be asking all members to renew. For anyone who hasn't heard, AAUW is transitioning to rolling year-round membership renewals based on the date of joining instead of one renewal season based on the fiscal year. They are sending out e-mail reminders and this now includes a brief video with information on how to renew on-line. They plan to send these e-mails about the 20th of the month, but the timing may be flexible as they adjust.

Please watch for this e-mail from infosf@aauw.org and try the on-line renewal. Unfortunately this will be especially important at this time as we do not currently have anyone able to be Membership VP.

Also, a reminder for life members that although national will not send out reminders, state and local dues are still needed. You can renew and pay your state and local dues online through AAUW's Community Hub.

Erin Egelkrout

Membership VP

Brown Bag 'N' Books

We had a lively discussion about The Paris Bookseller at our May meeting. Mary presented the book and led the discussion.

We talked about our next BBNB year. We decided to meet in August, on Tuesday the 13th. We’ll discuss The Other Einstein, by Marie Benedict (the author of The Personal Librarian, which we read in ’22-’23). The Other Einstein is about Albert Einstein’s first wife and how he took credit for some of her brilliant ideas. Google the title to read about this book.

We discussed several other books which we may choose to read this next year. There are so many very interesting books available! At our 08/13 meeting, we will discuss books and vote on which to read and discuss in the coming year.

All are welcome as BBNB is an open group. We welcome book suggestions. We take turns presenting the books and leading the discussion. There’s no pressure: we are a mellow group.

If you want to attend the 08/13 meeting and are not already on the BBNB email list, please let me know of your interest by August 1st, so I can include you in the emails about book suggestions and place of the August meeting. (We are thinking it’ll be in the Library at the Laguna Lake Mobile Estates.) I believe this is the last Newsletter until September, so information about the 08/13 meeting will go to only folks I have on the email list for BBNB

We call ourselves “Brown Bag ‘N’ Books,” because people are welcome to bring a brown bag lunch to eat while we are discussing the books.

Miki Gillman

Watercolor Painting

The theme for last month was May flowers. We had time to paint some poppies and even make a notecard! 

In June, the sky’s the limit! Hosts Sherill Atkins and her husband Robert write: “June is for graduation, so we will end on a freewheeling note! Watercolor will be held on Saturday, June 15, 2:00 to 4:30 PM. Light nibbles served. June will be the last session this year and the class will end."

 

Remember all levels are welcome!

 

 Sherill Atkins

Dining Out

In May we tried the new SLO restaurant Lure. There were five of us that night. The food was delicious, but there were a variety of problems with the restaurant itself. My advice would be to wait until the fall to try it. We had a 70 minute wait and once seated, waited 25 minutes for water and the bread never arrived. Some of the food came hot and others came lukewarm. The bread came with the food, rather than with the water. They did offer us a free appetizer, but a dinner that takes 2 1/2 hours from entrance to exit was not worth it. You might have better luck at lunch.

Our June Dine Out event will be the last Wednesday in June, June 26th, at 6 pm at Custom House in Avila Beach. It had to be postponed a week as I have an Alaskan cruise the third week. Custom House is a perfect way to bring in the summer. It will be our last Dine Out until September. Do plan to join us. Depending on the weather, it may be outside or in. It will be decided by those attending once we get there. If you need a ride, do let me know.

Esther Pudlo
Dine Out Coordinator

Summer Birthdays

Fe Betita Davies June 23rd

Dianne DeTurris August 19th

Shirley Erickson July 12th

Sue Fong July 23rd

Miki Gillman June 25th

Marty Jenkins August 2nd

Lorie Johnson July 2nd

Judy Riener July 3rd

Gail Sears June 29th

Betsy Stoffel June 3rd

Susan Updegrove August 4th