“I believe it’s time that women truly owned their superpowers and used
their beauty and strength to change the world around them.”
Janelle Monae
Our superpowers were in full force during the year as great things were accomplished within our club!
Our annual meeting gave us an opportunity to reflect on some of our accomplishments.
President: It is an honor to serve as President of this Club and a privilege to be a member of this club. Together we have served and made an impact on the lives of women and girls in our community and in Haiti. You have heard me mention the importance of making connections and we have done that with each other, with community partners, with other Zonta Clubs, with event sponsors and we have seen what success that brings to our mission. Thank you for participating in the strategic planning session this year which will help us stay focused and in the right direction. We added the leadership development component to our club meetings. I have had the honor to represent our club at our Zonta Area and District meetings and report what great things our club is doing and to see our Club shine. Thank you for your service, your time and leadership. Thank you Cheryl, for being an inspiring leader and giving so much of yourself to us and our club! An organization can only be as strong as its leader and you have encouraged us to rise to new heights.
The officers for the Golden Z’s and the Club were installed by Jennifer Hendrickson. New club officers are: Kathy Wolz, Vice President; Jennifer Criblez, Secretary; Dr. Jan Ruopp, Treasurer, Melanie Baxter, Service Chair. The new nominating committee will be Lynette Willenbring, Linda Greaser and Polly Holten. Please make a note to attend a special meeting on Saturday, June 9th at 8:30 a.m. at Hendrickson Business Advisors to review the bylaws and standing rules. Jennifer C., Casey C. and Cheryl K. have painstakingly reviewed and revised our bylaws to ensure they are incompliance with the bylaws of ZI. Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend this meeting.
Fundraising: The unity of our club with everyone working together led to the most successful fundraising year we have ever achieved. WOA set a record high, several extra fundraisers like Dine to Donate, the paint party, trivia night, Haiti 5K, the Flea Market and Café Zonta enabled us to increase our donations to various service projects and mission trips. Thank you very much for all of your help in exceeding our fundraising expectations! These milestones have been reached because of the incredible enthusiasm, strength, direction and creativity of our dear Amanda! Thank you for your leadership!
WOA: The club has voted to recognize Dr. Karen Hendrickson with the Lifetime Achievement award. Melissa Bain, creator of the 610 Project will be the Celebration Award recipient. Nominees for WOA are Kathy Bertrand, Brooke Clubbs, Dr. Heather Cugini, Jamie Koehler, Stephanie LaPierre, Deb Mavers, Felice Patton, Faune Riggin and Becky Wright. These are all outstanding women in our community who are having an incredible impact on others. We extend our deepest appreciation and congratulations to these women! Save the date of May 29th and invite your friends, family and co-workers to dine at the Gordonville Grille!! The Gordonville Grille will donate 10% of all sales that day to Zonta!!! We also need some volunteers who would be willing to staff a table at the Grille as representatives of Zonta in the event there are questions about our mission and support in the community. Polly Holten has developed wonderful cards that spell out our mission and service projects for distribution at the Dine to Donate event. Please contact Amanda if you are able to help out with this event.
Advocacy: Our efforts to raise awareness and make an impact were front and center as the Advocacy committee took flight by developing a Social Media Campaign to commemorate 16 Days of Activism, partnering with Golden Z and Redhawks Rising for a Peace Pole project, partnering with Golden Z for the PressforProgress Women’s Forum and developing a monthly book club for women in the community. These accomplishments were made possible by the hard work and determination of one of our newest members. Tonya, thank you for all that you do for the club. You are an inspiration!
Service: This was another great year of service projects and scholarships! In addition to our usual service projects, we partnered with the St. Louis Zonta Club to paint rooms at the home of victims rescued by International Crisis Aid. We celebrated International Women’s day by partnering with the Golden Z’s and Redhawks Rising for the first ever women’s forum, PressforProgress. The success of this forum has led to the decision to make this an annual event. Service is the cornerstone of our club and thanks to Melanie’s willingness to leap into this role we were able to continue to shine! Thank you Melanie for taking on this key component of our mission and for being an extraordinary leader and mentor!
Members were recognized for their service hours. The Go-Getter award was presented to Tonya Wells for all of her work with Advocacy and WOA. Chris Sheets and Linda Greaser shared the award for the most service projects, having participated in nine projects each. Congratulations to all members for their hard work and dedication to Zonta! Another bit of outstanding news is that thanks to Polly Holten, two grants from Proctor and Gamble in the amount of $12,500!!!! have been awarded to Zonta for the Pad It program ($7,500) and the BeTween Project ($5,000)! This is an incredible gift and grants are so very difficult to achieve. Thank you Polly for making this happen!! A recap of the Haiti trip was given. Over 710 patients were seen in three days! Thanks to the record system Dr. Heather established, huge improvements in past patients could be seen. A huge improvement in the health and well- being of the children was also noticed. There are no words to express the gratitude and admiration we have for these members who are living out the Zonta mission and making a difference in the lives of others.
PR/Social Media: Enough cannot be said about the level of social media and public relations accomplishments that have been realized this year! There is only one person who could pull us into the 21st century of media mania and show the world who we are and why our mission is so important. Kristy, thank you for all that you do to increase awareness through Facebook likes and shares and for creating Member Monday. YOU make us look pretty darn good in the process!! You are Z-mazing!!
Kristy is on track for helping our club reach 1000 Facebook followers by November. Please like, share, tag and nag all of your friends, relatives and semi acquaintances to follow us on Facebook. We are already up to 695 followers! If you need help with this initiative, please see Kristy. She has also implemented Member Monday where profiles of members will be posted. EVERYONE needs to fill out the attached questionnaire so we have a member posted every Monday. Additionally, President Cheryl has asked each of us to write a personal profile, along with a picture for our website. The goal to complete this task is May 31.
Golden Z: Thanks to the vision and tenacity of Dr. Jan and Casey C. the Golden Z’s have become a reality and are heading into their second year on the Southeast Missouri University campus. The Z’s were instrumental in the success of the PressforProgress event and for creating feminine hygiene kits for the Haiti missions. Dr. Jan and Casey, thank you for your mentorship of these young women and your commitment to the ideals of Zonta. You are role models for all of us and we are grateful to you! The Golden Z’s have also determined they will be mentors to the Tiger Lilies.
Membership: This has been a great year for membership! We initiated eight new members. This surge in membership may be attributed to the desire of existing members to share our love of Zonta with friends, family and co-workers. We had a record year of guests who attended our meetings to learn more about Zonta and hopefully become future members. Our biggest challenge will be retaining members. In an effort to increase our retention rate, a Zonta Handbook has been created and shared with all members and will be covered with new members by the membership chair and their sponsors. Additionally, guidelines that spell out responsibilities of sponsors has been created and we will be establishing Membership circles to increase our knowledge of Zonta, encourage attendance at meetings and participation in service projects.
Nine members were recognized for their perfect attendance. This is a remarkable accomplishment considering our busy personal and professional lives: Cheryl Klueppel, Dale Humphries, Dr. Jan Ruopp, Mary Greaser, Mary Scherer, Pat Hill, Tonya Wells, Lynette Willenbring and Marsha Haskell. The Amelia Awards were also presented. Amanda Lincoln: Wonder Woman; Andrea Sachse: Pit Bull; Casey Brunke: First Responder; Cheryl Klueppel: Raisin; Dr. Christy Flower: BMW; Chris Sheets: Southern Comfort; Dale Humphries: Big Kahuna; Danielle Torbet: Sneaker; Lizbe Knote: Shark Tank; Dr. Heather Cugini: Haiti Rock Star; Jennifer Criblez: Master Gardner; Jennifer Hendrickson: Pincher; Julie Ann Palmer: Dilly Dilly; Kathy Wolz: Big Heart; Kristy Nordin: Social Media Butterfly; LaKenya Taylor: Trail Blazer; Linda Greaser: Fire Cracker; Lisa Newcomer: Helping Hands; Mary Scherer: Golden Shovel; Melanie Baxter: Leap of Faith Polly Holten: Guardian of the Zonta Galaxy; Sandy Hastings: Brillo; Tonya Wells: Busy Bee; Tracey Cooley: Super Duper Hooper; Vicki Frank: Quarter Back and the Ultimate Emily award was presented to Dr. Jan Ruopp.
Healthy Corner: Cheryl M. has suggested that we add a segment to the recaps that will focus on healthy living. The following link is the first in this effort to help us be healthy. Please enjoy and look forward to more tips in the coming recaps! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsBvUF3-rdw
Birthdays
May
Jennifer Hendrickson 16
Christy Fowler 23
June
Lisa Newcomer 3
Casey Crowell 5
Chris Sheets 5
Casey Brunke 19
Lynette Willenbring 20
Krisinda Cook 29
Officers
President — Cheryl Klueppel President Elect and Foundation — Sandy Hastings Past President — Casey Crowell Vice President — Jennifer Criblez — Service – Melanie Baxter Secretary — Dr. Jan Roupp Fundraising — Amanda Lincoln Treasurer — LaKenya Taylor
Finance — Kristy Nordin Membership — Marsha Haskell
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