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CFUW Moncton President’s Annual Report June 12, 2021

As we near the end of the Covid pandemic restrictions, I near the end of my term as club president. From the highs of our club 85^th anniversary celebrations, we were tossed into the shock of a worldwide pandemic which shut down schools and restricted public and economic activity. As the months wore on we experienced the roller coaster of the different phases of restrictions while waiting and hoping for a vaccine solution. Now as we close in on the needed vaccination levels that will remove all restrictions, we can pause and survey what has happened.

As a club, we should be proud that this unprecedented challenge did not stop us from holding together as a group. We went ahead with meetings when we could, and then learned new skills as we took to online Zoom meetings. Including this meeting, we had ten program meetings with turnouts as good as previous years and had CFUW guests from far and wide. Special thanks to the program chair for arranging such engaging speakers on compelling issues. Once we moved to Zoom meetings, we held five business meetings separately and the executive met seven times. Also, our Out & About group continued, as and when Covid restrictions allowed.

I have had such marvelous support of the club executive. They have worked nimbly through the necessary meeting changes that came with the fluctuating Covid restrictions. They kept members alerted, handled the program date changes ensuring that our speakers could change their schedules, and showed up to help run the club online and off. I thank all of the members as well for supporting our gatherings – your attendance demonstrated the strength and dedication we have to each other. It helped us deal with the challenges of separation and isolation that Covid brought.

For International Women’s Day with its theme Women’s leadership, we reached out and wrote over 60 personal thank you notes to women leaders, formal and informal, local and far a field. With the stresses of Covid, it seemed a good way to support and recognize women. The unexpected bonus for us was the warm response back from so many.

Despite being unable to have a used Book Sale these last two years, we were able to use our scholarship fund pay for our high school and mature women scholarship awards. We continued our endowment initiative too. This year we gave $25,000.00 to the UNB Nursing Advanced Standing Program (Moncton) with the province adding the 50% match. A spring surprise came when Universitè de Moncton added an anonymous donation of $2,872.51 to the endowment we made last year. We also supported NB Pay Equity, internationally, GWI’s “Teachers for Rural Futures”, memorial donations to the CFUW Charitable Trust, Rising Tide Affordable Housing, the Food Depot Alimentaire and the United Way.

Another bright note was we nominated Festival Inspire’ s project, East Coast Inspire Video Project, for the CFUW National Creative Arts Award and it won!

Looking back, we can see that we have much of which we can be proud as a club. We have continued to hold strong to the values of CFUW and to never forget that the as sisters in this organization, friendship is one of the most important.

I have been honoured to be your president for these last years. Thank you all for sharing the ups of the 85^th celebrations and supporting me in facing the challenges that came after. May we always come together in friendship and use our skills and knowledge to make the world a better place through CFUW.

Sincerely,

Karen Dunnett