Category: President's Letter

I hope everyone is staying warm despite our freezing temperatures. When they tell us that North Port had snow flurries on Sunday night, we all might have to move further south.

We have been trying to figure out what direction BPWEV is going in the last few months. We postponed the Winetasting event until March 7th, but now the decision was made to cancel it all together. In years past, we had a slow start with sponsorships and ticket sales, but the lackadaisical attitude made our leadership members feel that we could not pull it together to be able to make a profit. In this situation, our members lose out and the potential scholarship recipients do not benefit as well.

I sent out a survey with (2) questions on it:

Your vote #1- I want to continue the LO and conform with the other LO’s and pay to have the paperwork from 501 (3)c to a 501(6)c completed. I will consider serving for an office or a committee.

Your vote #2- I want bpwev to go forward with the Winetasting event. I will help in any way I can.

Please answer the (2) questions and return the results to me.

The results are: Three members answered yes to both questions. Six members said Yes to the Winetasting only. One member said no to both questions. The only problem is that without officers and committee chairs, # 2 cannot move forward. I did not receive an answer from 15 members at all.

On our Zoom call on Monday night, the verbal response was that as a member they wanted more networking and less structure at the meetings. Members wanted more education about BPWEV and BP/FL.

Fundraising is not the reason they joined out group initially even though they support the cause of providing scholarships to women.

Members that have held offices for 2 or more years want to step down and have some of the new members think about running for an office. The same people are doing all the work. This is not acceptable anymore.

We are having the February 17th meeting at the Towers. I am going to request a Nominating Committee be formed to explore members who are willing to run for an office. The offices are President, Vice-President, VP Membership, Secretary and Treasurer. We will not have a speaker this month.

I hope you can join us on Tuesday, February 17th at 5:15 PM for this important meeting.

Best Regards,
Sue Hogrefe, President BPWEV