Texas Executive Women - The Networker


February, 2006	Volume 4, Number 2

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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

Greetings:

First of all, as we did not have a newsletter last month, I want to say welcome to the 2006 Board of Directors. This is a phenomenal group of women who have agreed to work on behalf of TEW this year.

Let me introduce them:

President Elect, Beverly Kaufman

Secretary, Nancy Colmenares

Treasurer, Sheila Manning

Communications, Dorothy Weston Gibbons

Programs, Jeann Howse

Membership, Louella Hundt

Special Events (WOM), Margo Snider

Mentoring, Carolyn Wyly

Social Functions, Beth Williams

Director at Large, Mamie Moy

And also those who work behind the scenes, so to speak, Linda Holt who handles all our bookkeeping responsibilities, Cay Dickson who maintains our website and publishes the newsletter, Elyse Kalmans and Laura Loebl who provide event planning and administration for Women on the Move®. This is truly a dedicated group of women and I am so pleased and privileged to be working with them this year.

My first President's Message has actually been a work in progress for some time. As I was sitting in my hot bath (where I come up with some of my best ideas) late one night a while back, I was thinking about my upcoming year as president. I know, you're saying to yourself “what a strange thing to be thinking of in the bath tub.” But anyway, as I didn't want to lose this one marginally inspirational moment, I hurriedly got out of the bath tub and went to turn on the computer. You know how it is, you better grab that thought and do something with it or you may not ever remember it again.

So here is what I was thinking. While I don't necessarily want to have a theme for 2006, I do want it to be a year of reaching out and rebuilding. Throughout the year this is what we will be focusing on.

One of the best ways I know of to do this is to tap the one person in TEW who has reaching out down to a fine art and that is Beth Ann Scher. Over the many years that she has been a part of TEW she has continuously reached out to our members, past and present. She just has that knack of writing an endearing note to picking up the phone and asking you where you have been and what you have been doing. Several weeks ago, I had a long discussion with Beth Ann over Thai food and several glasses of wine (no, I didn't have to ply her with wine for her to agree) and asked her to formulate a plan and spearhead member retention and recruitment. She will be working closely with Louella Hundt, Membership, whose smiling face you will see at sign in each monthly meeting.

Along the line of member recruitment, I would like to see us increase our membership by 10 new members this year; a goal that I don't feel is unrealistic.

With a slightly different twist from last year, we will be rewarding the member who has the highest number of people join TEW. The winner will receive a year's free membership. Considering that we all just paid our annual dues, $150.00 is nothing to sneeze at and should give everyone the incentive to bring your guests to the February meeting. Remember according to our Bylaws, in order to join, guests must attend two meetings prior to submitting a membership application.

I hesitate to use the word change, but instead, you can expect to see a few enhancements to our organization this year. Particularly in keeping with the member survey, which was so ably initiated and compiled by Mary Ann Collier. (You can check out the complete survey in the newsletter.) The results are in, and even though only 23 surveys (a disappointing 24% of the membership) were returned, you can be sure that the Board will be paying attention to the results.

In fact, some of the suggestions and requests are being implemented already, namely (and by far, many members said this) inviting our members and Women on the Move® recipients to provide our monthly programs. Look for Florence Kuznetz, Lourdes Cuellar, and Jolanda Jones in the upcoming months, and others as they are scheduled.

Several meetings will be dedicated to very special, thought-provoking topics and we will venture to another venue for at least one of our meetings. Just to keep you in suspense . . . more news and details on our programs as the year progresses.

And while I am on the subject of meetings, guess what??? We are changing our dinner menus! The Briar Club has a new Executive Chef and we look forward to sampling his cuisine. The menus will be published in the newsletter every month. You will know what you will be having for dinner and hopefully that will entice you to make that extra effort to attend the monthly meetings. Many thanks to Jeann for arranging and scheduling our programs again this year.

Dorothy Weston Gibbons, Communications Vice President, will be using her expertise to begin developing a communication/marketing plan. As part of this plan, new and revised information on TEW will be previewed very soon. Dorothy is the Executive Director of The Rose and has a wealth of knowledge on researching and implementing such a plan. After a very stimulating and lively discussion over lunch a few weeks ago, I know that this responsibility is in excellent hands.

You will want to be sure to look for that email from Cay each month announcing the newsletter. In the months to come you will begin to see a more substantial, relevant newsletter, including noteworthy member news, member profiles, calendar of events, updates on the mentoring programs and scholarships and much more.

Each Board member will also be contributing to the newsletter as well. Mamie, in her role of Director at Large has agreed to oversee the production of the newsletter each month and further development of the website. I couldn't think of a better person to do this. I know you will like what you see. So please feel free to submit anything that you think might be noteworthy for the newsletter to Mamie, her email address is mmoy@mail.uh.ed . We would love to have your participation!

Our mentoring programs at Aldine, Westbury and Ball are going strong thanks to the dedication and inspiration of Linda Holt, Carolyn Wyly and Margo Snider respectively. Carolyn is Mentoring Vice President this year and gives endless time and energy to directing the program at Westbury. We will look forward to our program in August, which will be entirely devoted to our wonderful mentoring programs (another request from the survey). You will hear more about it in the months to come. This will definitely be a meeting you won't want to miss!

Margo is already hard at work planning the 2006 Women on the Move®. Imagine, in 2005 our total income from the event was $177,695.00! Our best year ever! And we hopefully will do as well or better this year. We have already met to plan a new video to showcase our mentoring programs. Hopefully, you will get sneak peak at the August meeting.

So this is just the beginning of our 2006 TEW year, we have gotten off to great (and very busy) start. As Florence Kuznetz wrote when she autographed her book, The Women of CourtWatch, to me, “MAKE IT HAPPEN!” And that is what we plan to do.

My hope is that you will find value in your TEW membership and want to get involved or re-involved in what we are doing.

I'll look forward to seeing each of you at the February 15 meeting,

Barbara

President

P.S. Whew! I guess I'd better be getting back into my bath tub soon to come up with some thoughts and words for next month's newsletter. It doesn't hurt to think ahead and I could use a good soak.

NEWS AMONG FRIENDS

Mamie Moy is celebrating 50 years at UH! The University of Houston recently honored more than 200 faculty members who marked their 20th and 25th anniversaries and those with 30 or more years of service. One of those faculty members was Mamie Moy, professor of chemistry. She has worked at UH for about 52 years. Full story...

TEW SURVEY RESULTS

Want to know what keeps you involved in TEW? How about what you most want to see changed when it comes to the TEW monthly programs? What kinds of projects would you like to see TEW undertake?

The results of the TEW Survey are in and you might be surprised to see some of the responses. Here's the summary of what TEW members said...

UPCOMING EVENTS

TEW FEBRUARY MEETING
Note the date of the February meeting. It is WEDNESDAY, February 15.

PRESIDENT'S DINNERS
Please join us at one of the President's Dinners. Beth Ann Scher is coordinating the dinners this year. The dinners will be limited to 17-15 members so please take a look at the schedule below and let Beth Ann know what date you would like to attend by either calling or emailing her at 713-993-7500, ext. 111 or scherstvl@pdq.net . She will be sending an email to the membership as well, but in order to ensure that space is available on the date you select, consider contacting her now.

Tuesday, February 28 (Pesce)
Tuesday, April 18 (Ouisie's)
Wednesday, July 26 (La Strada On San Felipe)
Thursday, October 26 (Tbd)

MESSAGE FROM MAMIE MOY, DIRECTOR AT LARGE

Greetings! TEW is celebrating another successful year with the best attendance ever at the Women on the Move® luncheon.

We want to maintain the momentum established by the accomplishments in 2005 under Bonnie Berube's leadership. As you read the President's message you will notice the enhancements include some operational changes and additions to the newsletter and web site. We know how important it is to be informed of the activities of TEW within and without TEW. Communication is the key.

As a Director at Large I will act as liaison between the general membership and the Board of Directors. I plan to discharge this responsibility through The Networker, the official TEW newsletter, as well as working with Cay Dickson in the expansion of the web site to include more items of interest.

We can successfully “reach out and rebuild” by keeping members informed of your achievements, honors, speaking engagements and successes. Please send information to me including announcement of conferences, seminars, programs, etc. that would be of interest to the membership.

If you send the information to me I will see that it gets into The Networker. My deadline is the 25 th of the month. If you send a photo, please identify the individuals and occasion.

My email is mmoy@uh.edu . I look forward to having my inbox filled with newsletter items from you.

TEW MENTORING PROGRAM

I feel compelled to share with all the members of Texas Executive Women some of the stories of the wonderful young ladies who are now, or have in the past, participated in TEW's mentoring programs scattered throughout the Metropolitan Houston area. The two programs closest to my heart are Ladies of Distinction at Aldine Senior High School and Ladies of Excellence at the Aldine Ninth Grade School. Jackie Greer recruited me to help her with the Aldine program back in 1994, and I've been hooked ever since! Read these amazing stories from the girls...

- Linda Holt

FEBRUARY BIRTHDAYS

2/2	Annie Cater
2/8	Georgianna E. Nichols
2/14	Valerie Bergeron
2/16	Bonnie Berube
2/16	Barbara L. Halstead
2/23	Mary Ann Collier
2/23	Andrea Renee' Logans
2/24	Marie Yeates

november

UPCOMING MEETING MEMO

The Briar Club
5:30 - 6:15 Social, check in
6:15 - 6:30 Introductions, Announcements
6:30 program 7:30 adjourn

February 15 - Florence Kusnetz NOTE THE DATE OF THIS MEETING!
Florence Kusnetz came to Houston in 1971 via a long and circuitous route that began in a Jewish immigrant, working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. She was the only one of four children to graduate from high school. Lacking any academic role models, she did not continue on to any of the free colleges available to her in New York City, despite graduating tenth in a class of six hundred. Her early life was shaped by the mores of her culture where girls were expected to get married and have a family. This is what she did.

After sixteen years as a homemaker, Florence wondered if there was anything she could add to her busy life that would bring her intellectual stimulation. This was 1966 and adult women were not going to college except to update their teaching certificates. However, Florence enrolled in college part-time to see if this was the right path for her. It was. Seven years and two cross-country moves later she had graduated from college and from law school after overcoming a succession of formidable barriers including age and gender biases.

"The Women of CourtWatch", a book recently published by UT Press, is a two-fold story. The first is a story of a woman's perseverance in creating a life for herself greatly different from her roots. The second is how she used this new life and her career to persevere against the entrenched judicial system of the Family Law Courts of Harris County. Why should we care? Because that woman is one of us -- Florence Kusnetz!

February's menu will feature:
Chef's Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad; Crisp Romaine lettuce, topped with Parmesan cheese, homemade seasoned croutons, and tossed with creamy avocado Caesar dressing with zesty garlic bread. And .... the Briar Club's famous, fabulous Pecan Ball.

RSVP ASAP to Jeann Howse 713-664-3447
leave message on machine
or email jbhowse@sbcglobal.net and reference TEW in the subject line

Upcoming Meetings:
March - to be announced