Federated Women in Timber Fall Meeting

Federated Women in Timber Fall Meeting
October 8, 2011 - Clackamas, Oregon

It was Oregon Women in Timber’s year to chair Federated WIT so the Fall meeting was held in Oregon. They hosted a reception for the FWIT members on Friday evening. The FWIT meeting was called to order Saturday morning by OWIT President Anna Morrison. Twenty five women attended the Fall meeting this year. Ten of those were CWIT members; Monet Allen, Eileen Amos, Dorothy Bianchi, Julie Clausen, Darci Hamilton-Franklyn, Helen Horn, LeeAnn McDonald, Kayla Morgan, Leslie Morgan and Valerie Grant who is a Student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a student-member of North Coast Chapter. We went over the minutes of the last two FWIT meeting minutes and corrections were made. The Treasurer’s report went smoothly (Thank you Helen Horn). The only expense this year was for the website.

Under Old Business we went around the room and those women who had attended the AAW Mid Term Meeting in Phoenix, AZ in April and/or the AAW/FWIT Fly-In to DC in June gave their impressions of the process and of their experiences. We were also asked for our recommendations for future DC trips.

It was the general consensus by those who attended the DC trip that most if not all of the problems we had there (in DC) could be worked out with AAW if we communicate with them what our issues were. Once that discussion was completed, OWIT resigned their state from FWIT stating that they wanted to focus on the Talk About Trees program and possibly take the program to other states. They also said that FWIT was not a legal entity which is true in the fact that we did not file Articles of Incorporation and have no IRS tax ID number. After some heated exchanges that topic was closed and OWIT (Anna) passed the “Chair” to CWIT (Dorothy). And the meeting was adjourned. Normally the State chairmanship does not change until after all FWIT business has concluded. OWIT apparently felt that as they were no longer going to be a part of FWIT that they didn’t need to be involved with the New Business FWIT needed to discuss. We broke for lunch and took up the rest of the agenda afterwards. After lunch, Dorothy Bianchi called the meeting to order so that we could address New Business. There were twenty women who attended the afternoon session from the remaining FWIT states; Black Hills, California and Idaho. The main thing we needed to settle was whether or not FWIT would be going to DC with AAW again, go on our own and/or try to partner with another organization.

There were more positive than negative feelings about partnering with AAW again. We had a general consensus that we would go with AAW to DC again and participate with their events and meetings Sunday through Wednesday and then we would schedule additional meetings and make cold calls from noon on Wednesday until Friday late afternoon of the week of the Fly-In.
We do not have any information such as the date or hotel for the 2012 AAW DC Fly-In to pass along, however… The incoming AAW President is from Montana so the women from Montana WIT will contact her and see about getting us information for the 2012 trip and to ask about our concerns. Additionally, we will be asking AAW to extend their block room rate until the end of the week instead of having that end on Wednesday.

Montana will get us as much information as possible and we will all get back together via Google docs, email and teleconference. We did not choose the FWIT Position Papers as we have done in the past at Fall meetings.

There was a new woman, Stacie Dennis, from Washington State who attended this FWIT meeting with the interest of starting a Chapter in Washington. Fantastic news! Also, Valerie Grant has plans to start a Chapter at Cal Poly as well as assist other schools in doing the same. I have notebooks with instructions on how to start a WIT Chapter/Organization so I will be getting copies to both Stacie and Valerie. So perhaps as we lose Oregon, we can gain Washington. And it may be the case that Oregon may come back somewhere down the road.

I believe it was a very productive day and it was a terrific experience for the CWIT women especially since we are now Chairing FWIT. Thank you to all who attended and thank you for allowing me to participate.

Respectfully submitted by Julie Clausen
CWIT Past President