In This Issue
- What Now? Message from LWVCO Leadership
- January 13 General Meeting: "Program Planning"
- LWVUS Federal Judiciary Study: Join the Local Team
- Upcoming Voter Registration Training
- Welcome, New Members!
- New! Record Your In-Kind Donations
- Take Action!
| | From Your State League Leadership |
Friends,
As we ponder the election results, many of us share feelings that mirror our state's geography: mountains & plains. Peaks & valleys. Ups & downs. ...
So what can we do? Well, we have only one choice, and it's what the League does best: WE FIGHT. We stand with immigrants, LGBTQIA+ folks, women -- you know, people -- who deserve equity and equality and respect and who make our country stronger simply by being a part of it.
We're tired -- exhausted, even. But if we don't fight, we may lose our democracy and our country. So we must roll up our sleeves, drink some coffee, and stand together in solidarity and in hope.
'Sister' can be a verb, and it's time to sister up.
Onward!
Irene Tynes, President, LWVCO
Beth Hendrix, Executive Director, LWVCO
//This is an abbreviated version of the message from LWVCO Leadership. To read the full message, please check your email queue for a December 6 email from Irene Tynes, LWVCO President(behendrix@lwvcolorado.org).//
| Join Us for the League's January 13 Program Planning Meeting Via Zoom
"Program Planning" and the "Positions" of the League are at the heart of the League's mission and the foundation for our advocacy programs. The League takes action on an issue (such as election reform, civil liberties, or affordable housing matters) only when we have an established position at the local, state, or national level. To develop a position, members must study and come to consensus on an issue. This thorough, grassroots process ensures that our advocacy is well considered by a broad range of people, understood by members, and that we have a sense of the political environment.
We use our annual Program Planning meeting, scheduled for January 13, 2025, as a time to examine local, state, and national positions as they relate to the work of our League. During the meeting, each Issues Team will present for 3-5 minutes on the focus of the Team's work in 2025-2026 and discuss whether the Team needs updated or new positions to support the work. Each Education and Support Group will have the option of providing a 2-3 minute update on their plans for 2025-2026 as well. Finally, we will review our League's existing advocacy positions to determine if any should be updated or sunset.
| LWVUS Study on the Federal Judiciary
We are organizing a local study committee to prepare for and manage our League's participation in the national LWVUS Study on the Federal Judiciary. The purpose of the study is to address concerns and clarify judicial accountability, transparency, independence and ethics not only within the US Supreme Court, but at all federal court levels. (You can get general information on the ongoing study here: LWVUS Federal Judiciary Study)
Our study team will convene in early January. This study is on a super-fast track and we need to be sure our general membership is on top of the central issues when we all meet to discuss and answer the National Study Committee's consensus questions in mid-March. Want to help with that effort and ensure information originating at the national and state levels reaches our local membership? A legal background might be useful, but it's not necessary. And you don't have to have experience working on a previous LWV study to join our team.
If you're looking for a shorter-term project and you want to learn loads about the League in a compressed time frame, here's a perfect opportunity. Please contact Linda Mahan at Lmahan78@gmail.com or Kathy Maher at kgmaher@gmail.com if you are interested in joining the local study team.
| Voter Registration Training
Saturday, January 11th
9:30-11:30 AM
Old Town Library
201 Peterson St, Fort Collins, CO 80524
Mark your calendars! It’s almost time for our annual Voter Registration training. All volunteers must be retrained each year, so if you are interested in helping with Voter Registration events this year, please plan to attend even if you have attended a training in the past. If you are unable to attend in person, there will be a Zoom training offered later in the month of January. Please register for this training on the LWVLC calendar.
Voter Registration Leadership Update and Opportunities
This year, Linda Thomas is stepping down as the VRD organizer. Her strong organizational skills and leadership in building up our Voter Registration programs have been such a benefit to our community! In her place, Mary Carraher is taking on the role of organizer and will be in charge of trainings, records, and will serve as the contact person for LWVLC’s Voter Registration. Mary will be joined by a team of volunteers to help lead and support this work, including supply managers, event leads, and high school leads committee.
If you are looking to make a difference on your own schedule - but don’t have a lot of spare time – consider leading one of the venues below. We particularly need leads in the high schools. We are looking for current circulators with voter registration experience to be leads in these areas. All training and materials will be made available to you.
1) High School presenters – adopt a high school near you, schedule a voter registration drive 2 x a year (spring/fall) in classrooms or tabling at lunch time. We particularly need help in Thompson school district.
2) CSU – once or twice a year; clip-boarding on the campus; training and materials supplied
3) Dunn Elementary Naturalization Ceremony – once a year, register new citizens
4) Murphy Center – once or twice a year
5) Fairground Farmer’s Market (Loveland) – your schedule, once a month for 2 months (August & September)
6) Homeward Alliance events – 4 times a year
| Introducing Our New Members | | Marian Lilley, a native of Colorado, was raised in Thornton and has lived in Denver. However, she lived most of her adult life in Anchorage, Alaska, where she was married and raised her children.
In 2022 she retired from a 30-year career in Behavioral Health, in the nonprofit sector and with the State of Alaska in Corrections. Shortly after retirement, she moved to Loveland where she has fallen in love with the state and now fills her time with her family, volunteering, reading, and exploring the state.
| | | | We're happy to welcome Danielle Shields as a new member who found the League shortly after moving to Fort Collins in April. She's a Colorado native who was raised in Denver, but moved east to Pittsburgh for her education. She relocated south to Nashville for many years before her longing for the outdoor life drew her west again.
After working in the mental health field for 9 years, Danielle turned her photography hobby into a full-time business in 2015. (Check out her website to see her passion for capturing portraits and lifestyle photos.)
She and her husband Jeremy Shields, a songwriter and musician, have been exploring their new community of Fort Collins. In her leisure time Danielle enjoys travel and road biking. She appreciates the civic engagement of people in Colorado and looks forward to learning how she can contribute to the League with her skills and interest in civil rights.
| | |  | | Pat (Keady) McDonald joined the LWV with an interest in getting reproductive rights onto the Colorado ballot and she's enjoyed the Great Decisions group. Her interests include hiking, skiing, reading, card making, and dog sitting for friends and neighbors. She and her husband are building a retirement home in the mountains near Leadville, where they hope to move in about a year. They have one adult son.
With a MSME engineering degree, Pat had a distinguished career as an aerosol scientist specializing in instrumentation for the measurement of airborne particles. She served 10 years on the Board and as President of the American Association for Aerosol Research. In 2014, she co-founded an instrumentation company, Aerosol Devices Inc., which she sold in 2022. She fully retired in August this year. Her companies’ technology was particularly well suited for sampling biological particles in a way that maintains microbe and virus viability. This was vital to research scientists during the COVID19 pandemic. Her technology was written up in an article by the New York Times in August 2020 titled “A Smoking Gun: Infectious Coronavirus Retrieved from Hospital Air”.
| | | | It reported on the first published confirmation that the virus was viable in the air and could be transported more than six feet from an infected patient. As CEO and President, Pat was honored with a Business Woman of the Year award in 2021 by CEO Today. Aerosol Devices Inc. received over $5M in Federal SBIR grants, won awards from BizWest magazine for the fastest growing private company in Northern Colorado in its size class (ranked 1st in 2019, 4th in 2020 and 2021), won the State of Colorado Governor’s Award for Export Excellence (May 2021), and was selected as a Colorado Companies to Watch (2021). | We Also Welcome the Following New Members: | | Edwina Albright, Loveland
Suzanne Bassinger, Fort Collins
Suzanne Brown, Fort Collins
Jeri Feaster, Fort Collins
| | Angel Kearns, Fort Collins
Carla Kind, Loveland
Harlan Kind, Jr., Loveland
Rose Lew, Fort Collins
| | | Want to Record an In-Kind Donation?
The League benefits when its many members and supporters provide the League with in-kind donations. For purposes of the League, in-kind donations are costs paid by the individual that support the League's activities and for which reimbursement is not requested. Examples include printing, subscriptions, and supplies.
We encourage you to report your in-kind donation so that we have a record of your generous contribution to the League! Simply go to the LWVLC website, where you'll find the In-Kind Donations tool under "Support LWVLC" on the menu bar.
| | LWVUS: "The President Must Immediately Publish the Equal Rights Amendment!"
Read the full statement of the LWVUS and take action here:
| | | Special Exhibit
Fort Collins Museum of Discovery
408 Mason Ct, Fort Collins
The Bias Inside Us is a Smithsonian traveling exhibition and community-engagement project that raises awareness about the social science and impact of implicit bias. The Bias Inside Us is an opportunity for people to learn about implicit bias and reflect on their own biases and how they impact their actions. Projects like this can expose us to other ideas and groups outside our own. This exposure can lead to meaningful dialogue, positive change, greater empathy, and increased inclusivity.
Our League's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Lead, Cindy Linafelter, saw this exhibit and highly recommends it. Catch it before it leaves Fort Collins at the end of December!
| Area Advisory Boards and Commissions Seeking Applicants
City of Fort Collins: Want to provide feedback about natural areas management in the city? Apply to serve on a City of Fort Collins Board or Commission! With 23 options, including Land Conservation and Stewardship, Affordable Housing, and Disability Advisory, there's a place for your voice. Members serve 2- and 4-year terms depending on the board or commission and must reside within the Fort Collins Growth Management Area. Applications are open now through January 10. Help shape the future of Fort Collins.
City of Loveland: At the moment there are no vacancies on Loveland boards and commissions, but you can familiarize yourself with the wide range of future opportunities here and be on the lookout for application calls.
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