DUTCHESS MEETING
The Dutchess County Meetup was back at Mahoney’s in January. We continue to have lively and meaningful conversations about the many activities the League is undertaking this year. Here are some of the highlights:
- We are in the midst of setting up our annual meetings with state senators and assembly persons. We expect to receive information from the state League in early February to help frame those discussions. Meetings will be scheduled for the third week of February. We will publish a schedule and encourage members to attend applicable meetings.
- We are planning to meet with Sue Serino in early March. We want to talk about how to partner with the county government in support of bipartisan actions.
- We have requested a meeting with both commissioners of the Board of Elections to discuss how the November elections went and how we can work together to register and inform voters.
- There is a naturalization ceremony on February7. We will provide voter registration materials and, this month, are sponsors of the ceremony.
- We are in the midst of planning a potluck for Women’s Month in March. Our intention is to invite several other organizations to join us. More details to follow.
Our next meetup is February 14th, 1PM at Coppola’s in Hyde Park; prior to that we have been invited to a talk on self-care at Pellegrino Healing Center. More details will follow in a separate email.
SOUTHERN TIER
We will be meeting at the Silk Factory in Newburgh on February 21st at noon! While most of us are from Orange, Southern Dutchess and Southern Ulster, we are always open to League members and their friends. We find getting together and discussing ways we can work to address some of the concerning threats to our democracy is helpful to our sanity! Won’t you join us?
Woodstock/West Regional Group Report
At our January 16th gathering at Eve Baer’s Rainbow Lodge in Mount Tremper, we continued working on the one-page document that Gay had created and made some changes (mostly grammatical). We are looking to polish the appearance and titles for reader interest/readability. We also discussed checking with our local bank or other resources or sponsors for funding in order to print a color tri-fold that can be used locally for voter registration drives and other events, as well as providing for government studies at the local high school.
Members also mentioned how we would be willing to go into the classrooms to provide a more thorough and interesting civic education session. It was also noted that fire companies don’t always welcome outside interest and how we might be of service there.
We are still planning to do a similar more generic template handout in the future that might be used throughout the LWVMHR three-county coverage area and lending the LWVMHR logo to increase credibility and trust in the work. Cindy Bell will be taking the draft to the UC Board of Elections for verification of information.
It’s amazing how many ways voters can use their voice and their votes to make positive change!
Our next meeting will be held at the Rainbow Lodge on February 11 at 1:00pm.
All are welcome.
Contact Eve Baer or Cindy Bell for more information.
December note (not previously published)
After a good discussion with our new member Gay Leonhardt, we determined that creating a voting chart specific to the Woodstock community would be the best place to start. So many issues made this chart not feasible to be generic, mostly because of the unusual setup of fire districts. Gay will continue development for Woodstock to use as a voter information handout when we canvas.
I think we can do this as a community project and then, after some use, bring it to the attention of the League for possible future collaboration
We will be looking at League participation with Family in 2025.