Salad super finishes the year

A good group gathered at Ardelle Torkelsons' for our annual salad supper.  It was a beautiful evening, and quite a few choose to eat outside. 
Diana Pecoraro, community poet for St. Louis Park was the speaker for the program.  Although I couldn't stay, I heard she was going to encourage attendees to play with writing a verse or two.  If any members are brave enough, please reply and share a poem.

Our Named Honoree

One last State Convention photo, here is Jane Ostergaard with her Named Honoree Award. Congratulations, Jane.

Pics from State Convention in Duluth

From business meetings, to social times for meeting friends, to awards, to the LAF silent auction, to blowing bubbles (?), there was a lot of activity at the State Convention April 29-30.  Here are a few pictures from the event.

Music therapy is April topic

About 25 members gathered on April 21 to hear Hilary Fredenburg discuss the value of music therapy in treating a number of emotional, social, and physical conditions that people experience in their lives. Hilary is a board-certified music therapist at McPhail School of Music. She covered a lot of ground in a short time, but everyone felt they learned something new.

Time to Catch up

Apologies for not writing for a few months.  Here are a few pictures to catch our readers up.

In January, we met for a luncheon at the Parkshore Senior Campus.  Our speaker was Nkiruka Okafor, a AAUW International Fellow currently studying at Luther Seminary.  She spoke about her research related to transforming the voice of women sex workers in Africa.

In February, we met at Ridgepointe for lunch.  Our speaker was Dr. Ellen Kennedy, Executive Director of World Without Genocide.  She gave us a thorough overview of how food shortages lead to violence in countries, and that can lead to genocide and other major social problems.

In March, we returned to our evening meeting schedule and reconvened at the Minnetonka Community Center. Vickie Nordquist presented the program about the concepts behind Advanced Higher Brain Living.  This program helps people increase oxygen to the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which helps them to think more calmly and clearly, and eventually focus on and resolve various problems and issues in their lives.

Good Food, Good Conversation, and The Wedding Singer

The table was loaded with delicious treats for the Metro West holiday gathering. Betty Owen hosted a pre-theatre social hour at her home, then we attended a dynamic production of The Wedding Singer at The Old Log Theatre.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Title IX Featured in November

Jill Gaulding, legal director of Gender Justice, was the featured speaker at the November branch meeting. She discussed a number of issues related to Title IX, and also a bit about what cognitive science research tells us about how our brains develop bias.