Essentially, when an issue is proposed the steps are -

• The public policy/advocacy chair confirms that the issue is in line with other published AAUW principles and priorities
• The executive committee, by majority vote, may decide to endorse the legislation

Policy on Endorsing Proposed NC Legislation

• Winter 2009 Tar Heel News (PDF, 2.5 Meg)

See, in particular,

• information on the 2010 AAUW NC convention (page 1)
• federal public policy updates on the Healthy Families Act and the High School Athletics Accountability Act (page 4)
• a special thank you from Democracy NC on our support of the pre-registration for 16 and 17 year olds (page 3)
• President’s letter and pictures from the Fall meeting (page 2)
• Information on 2009-2010 AAUW Fellows in North Carolina (page 3; follow the link for more pictures and details)
• Information on Wilmington project to screen students for vision problems. (More on the Wilmington branch.)
• Ad highlighting membership in the Tar Heel Branch which serves the entire state
  • join now
  • give a gift membership

Correction:

• On page 2 there’s a discussion of the WAGE project’s $tart $mart workshops giving the names of a few members in NC who are trained facilitators. There are nearly 20 people in NC who have been through the facilitator training, including additional AAUW NC members Ada Gregory, Jean D’Addario, and Kathy Pearre. Two workshops have been held this fall at UNC Charlotte and at Duke. More info.

They have recently sent out this message which provides more information on this legislative effort:

“Over 30,000 of our children are currently involved with the adult criminal justice system. Over 85% of these children have committed minor crimes, yet a bad decision made when they were 16 or 17 years old will determine the trajectory of their lives.

Individuals and organizations are invited to sign on to the Statement of Principles behind the legislative effort to raise the age at which children are prosecuted as adults in North Carolina.

Click here to learn more and read the Raise the Age Statement of Principles.

Please email Brandy Bynum or call 919-834-6623 x234 to sign on as an individual or an organization. Legislators will act on this issue only if they hear from constituents. Help us tell them that these children can no longer be ignored.”

If you are interested in supporting the proposed legislation, or wish to know more about it, please follow the links provided above.

Both events will take place Dec. 10^th at the Busy Bee Café in downtown Raleigh.  The annual meeting will be from 3:30-4:30.  The reception will be from 4:30 to 6.  They  are encouraging coalition partners to stay for all or part of both.

If you’d like to attend representing AAUW NC, please coordinate with Elaine Ostrowski (contact info).

• Pages 1-5,7-8 (all but the directory)
• Page 6, the directory of board members (in the member center, contact info@aauwnc.org for the login information)
• For public contact information for the AAUW NC board, see
  • Branch presidents
  • Elected and appointed officers

Highlights from the 2009 AAUW Summer Meeting:

• Introduction (page 1)
• Highlights of discussions (page 4, board meeting minutes)
• Pictures (pages 1, 4, 5)
• More web articles

Public Policy Information

• Is anyone listening (page 5, web article, summary)
• AAUW support for Judge Sotomayor (page 7, web update)

AAUW News

• New bylaws for AAUW approved in St. Louis (page 4, specifics on the new bylaws, more details on convention including handouts and videos)
• Hoffler-Foushee appointed to AAUW board (page 3, AAUW board directory)
• Leadership Corps recruits its first class (page 2, background, FAQ)
• 2009-2010 national dues remain at $49, but $46 is tax deductible (page 2, more details)
• New pilot dues collection process has launched (page 5, AAUW briefing, AAUW FAQ, AAUW NC notes)
• Applications for 2010-2011 fellowships and grants are now available (page 8, press release, more details)

AAUW NC News

• Directory (page 6)
• Fall Meeting registration (page 7, more)
• President’s Message (page 2)
• WAGE and $tart $mart workshops (page 3, more details)
• Vacancies in positions of secretary and newsletter designer (page 2)
• AAUW NC Financial Report for FY08 (page 7, web article)
• How AAUW NC is using Facebook and twitter (page 8, web article)

Branch News

• Carolina Authors’ Luncheon, Wilmington, Nov. 7 (page 2, Wilmington newsletters)
• Chapel Hill branch honors Rachel Carson (page 3)
• Tar Heel Branch reminds MALs that they are welcome to join the branch and connect to AAUW NC (page 4, info at branch site)

Dates

• AAUW NC Fall Leadership Meeting: October 9-10, Boone
• AAUW NC 2010 Convention: April 16-17, Charlotte
• Tar Heel News copy deadline: Nov. 9; target mail date Dec. 7

• page 3: Hoffler-Foushee was appointed to the position of AAUW Finance Vice President. She was not among the candidates elected to the board.
• page 4: In the picture, the person second from right is Betsy Miner, not Denny McGuire
• page 7: Our Membership VP’s name is spelled Sheila Bassoppo-Moyo
• page 7: The “Healthy Branch Culture” workshop will be led by Ann Wilkins and Barie Baker.

Please send additional corrections to editor@aauwnc.org

This was one of the bills on the 2009-2010 list of AAUW North Carolina public policy priorities.

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After an overview of the AAUW public policy program at the federal and state level, the conversation turned to how AAUW NC addresses its advocacy mission, including

• how we endorse specific state legislative proposals and how that process can be improved, and
• what the branches can do to increase their members’ awareness of public policy issues and take a more active role in advocating for those issues.

Among the ideas generated were:

• assuring that a public policy “point person” is named in all branches to receive and disseminate information;
• asking members during branch meetings to make cell phone calls to legislators or to use an on-site computer to access the AAUW Action Alert/Two Minute Activist system to e-mail legislators; and
• encouraging branch members to have a “public policy moment” when they set aside time to contact a legislator via phone or e-mail on a regular basis.

The group also suggested various ways to standardize a procedure for providing AAUW NC endorsement of legislative proposals. These suggestions will be used in developing a recommended procedure to be considered by the Board at the AAUW-NC Fall Meeting.

AAUW now has a new Public Policy Program for 2009-2011 that was approved at AAUW’s Convention in St. Louis in June.  The new program, while generally similar to the previous version, includes two important additions related to current national issues:  adding a provision for the protection of Social Security from privatization, and advocating for freedom in definition of family and guarantee of civil rights in all family structures. The new program is available for review on AAUW’s website www.aauw.org/advocacy and will be published in brochure form for distribution in September. At the summer Board meeting, the AAUW NC Board adopted the new program for state use and will use the AAUW brochures, with an insert containing state issues as appropriate, in lieu of printing a separate state brochure.

The Board also heard from a representative of the League of Women Voters reporting on the League’s efforts to reintroduce the passage of the ERA in North Carolina, targeting the state to be one of three states needed to ratify the legislation that did not ratify it earlier.  The League sought the Board’s endorsement of the League’s efforts and requested AAUW NC to join in partnership with the League to pass the ERA. The Board voted to affirm the intent of the League of Women Voters’ efforts to support and pass the ERA in North Carolina. The Board stopped short of endorsing the League’s efforts since the Board could not commit the branches to active partnership with the League. The League plans to contact AAUW branches to secure their participation in the League’s campaign.

In other public policy news, two North Carolina bills endorsed by AAUW NC were signed into law by the governor:  the School Violence Prevention Act and the Healthy Youth Act.  Another bill endorsed by AAUW NC, the Voter Pre-Registration and Education Act, was still in Senate committee at press time, having previously been approved by the House. Hopefully, passage of these bills was aided by several branch members having a “public policy moment”.

There’s a page on aauwnc.org that summarizes the public policy efforts -

http://www.aauwnc.org/about/aauw-nc-public-policy-priorities/

with the “short address”: http://bit.ly/a4HD6.  It’s also the first link on the “Documents” section of the web site.

Now the problem with that page is that its information can change quickly as bills move through the legislature. In the weeks leading up to cross over and since then, I’ve taken advantage of the information streams from our coalition partners (e.g. @ppcnc and @equalitync) and posted updates as I hear about them. The page gets updated when there’s something significant and persistent, but I’ve posted to Facebook and Twitter when there’s something time critical (a committee vote, for instance). The Facebook and Twitter links can be found at the top of the page and also are on the right-hand column of most of the pages on www.aauwnc.org.

The bottom line is that if you are a “follower” of AAUW NC on twitter or a “fan” of AAUW NC on Facebook, you get “notifications” about the messages that AAUW NC posts through those systems. You can choose to get these sent to your phone via a text message, or you can login via the web and check your messages online. Your first reaction may be that “I don’t need another way for people to contact me,” but if you are interested in AAUW NC announcements, you may want to get them right away, not 2-3 weeks later in the e-newsletter. You may be surprised at how this new way of “gathering news” actually helps manage information rather than adding more confusion. Of course, AAUW NC may not be the reason you want to get set up with Facebook or twitter — but consider connecting with family members, friends you’ve lost track of, professional colleagues, local sources of information. Once you’re “there,”  consider adding AAUW NC to the mix.

Twitter was also used to get the word out about what was happening in St. Louis (see my July 2 post at http://change.bbvx.org - “What a difference two years makes”), but unless you’re already using text messaging to contact folks, Facebook may be more accessible. I gave a talk on Facebook in St. Louis. You can find the slides and handout at wiki.bbvx.org. If you’d  like to learn more (maybe a webinar, maybe a talk to your branch), please contact me.

-Nancy, member of the AAUW NC communications committee (contact info at change.bbvx.org or wiki.bbvx.org)