LWV of Melrose Meeting Minutes
Time: Oct 29, 2024 07:30 PM Eastern Time
Place:Zoom Meeting
Attendees: Susan Baron, Heather Doyle, Julie DeLillo, Mary Landergan, Karen Smolens, Maureen Elia, Gail Infurna, Janine Vanuti, Joyce Zeiner, Anne DeSouza Ward

Review of August 2024 meeting minutes
Meeting minutes reviewed and unanimously approved.

Congratulations to Mary- Catherine Mahoney, a Joan Moore Scholarship recipient. She graduated Magna cum laude with Bachelor of Science degree from University of Pittsburg. Thank you, Joyce Zeiner, for the notice.

Victorian Fair report: Eight voter registrations were submitted to the clerk’s office. A lot of mail in ballot applications given out. Many people had question about registering to vote and how to check on their registration. The was booth was well worth the effort.

Prospective Members: Anne suggests sending out a welcome letter with information about LWV to people who expressed an interest in LWV at the Victorian Fair. She will draft a letter to review.

Current Website: Maureen went on our website. It seems out of date and incomplete:

• It does not have up to date information on who is on the steering committee, or the last Annual Meeting.
• Anne will review the website and contact person to update.

Facebook:
There are two Facebook pages that we could use to communicate with the public:
Melrose Community Group and Uncensored Melrose.
We can use these pages to post information about joining the LWV and for the Joan Moore Scholarship.

• Janine will post approved text for both prospective members and applying for Joan Moore scholarship.
• Janine and Julie will look into creating a LWV of Melrose Facebook page for review at the January 14th meeting.

Bridge Program:
This is a program to teach a segment in school about elections and election participation.

• Anne got an email from the Mayor’s chief of staff inviting us to work with the Bridge on a civics program for the 8th grade.
• Gail is a member of Bridge and mentioned this to Lisa Lewis (Bridge).
• There is a new 8th grade program this year. Gail will find out about this and be our connection. Mary contacted the High School and there is a Civics Day program in the High School that is also a Bridge program.
• Anne will coordinate with Mary and Gail.

Discussion of membership payment process that is new.

• Note: For many years the LWV members paid membership dues to the local treasurer. We let the State LWV know how many members signed up. The local treasurer then received a bill from the State and National. This is a “bottom up” model. The LWV will be moving to a “top down” model.
• Members will sign onto a site (called ChapterSpot), pay dues to LWVUS. LWVUS will then send monies to the State and the state to the local chapters. Dues are nominally $75.
• Training on these new membership site will be provided soon. We can have two people attend training.  We will seek volunteers for this training.  Susan Baron would like to attend, but Heather Doyle indicated that she would like to give up the position of Treasurer as of June 2025.  It would be helpful if one of the trainees was someone that would volunteer to take over the Treasurer position. Anne will announce this in email and ask if someone would like to take the treasurer’s role starting in June 2025

Next meeting: Tuesday January 14th 2025
Topics will be:
Meeting with the Mayor in April
Voter Registration for HS May – still waiting for a firm date
Candidate’s night in September
Pros and Cons of joining with Winchester League

Adjourned 8:38pm