Pennsylvania NOW Convention just 3 Weeks Away with TWO Featured Speakers: Terry O'Neill and Sioban "Sam" Bennett

The Pennsylvania NOW Convention “United We Rise” is just three weeks away.  It will be held on Saturday, October 1, 2011 at Crowne Plaza‐Bucks County ♦ 4700 Street Rd ♦ Trevose, PA 19053.
 
PA NOW 2011 Convention Invitation BIG NEWS!  We now have confirmed two GREAT featured speakers! Our Featured Speakers will be Terry O’Neill, National NOW President and Siobhan “Sam” Bennett, President and CEO Women's Campaign Forum & 2008 PA Congressional candidate.

Sam will be our featured speaker at the PAC luncheon that starts at 11:35 am.  Siobhan "Sam" Bennett, President/CEO has served as the President and CEO of the Women’s Campaign Fund (WCF) and its affiliated programs The She Should Run Foundation and WCF PAC since March 2009. Under Sam’s leadership, WCF’s combined budget has more than doubled and the organization’s programmatic reach has expanded to every state in the country and been featured in national syndications, including USA Today and over 200 AP newspapers. Sam has lent her unique perspective as a candidate at the local and federal levels to broaden WCF’s impact on women leaders at all levels of government who support reproductive choices and options, and women who may run for office in the future. Cost for the luncheon is a minimum of $50/person.

Terry will be our featured speaker during the afternoon plenary.  Terry O'Neill, President, National Organization for Women is a feminist attorney, former law professor, and an activist for social justice. O'Neill oversees NOW's multi-issue agenda, which includes: advancing reproductive freedom, promoting diversity and ending racism, stopping violence against women, winning lesbian rights, ensuring economic justice, ending sex discrimination and achieving constitutional equality for women.

We also have a great line-up of workshops that include the following topics:

• Voting Rights, Removing Barriers to Voting, and the Elections process
• Caregiving Care for Caregiver
• Health Care issues including single-payer health care and reproductive health and justice
• Collaborating with other feminist organizations
• School Vouchers and Violence in Schools.

Please spread the word!

Cost for NOW members to attend the Convention is $50 with a sliding scale down to $0.00.  Non-members can register for the Convention for $70.00, which includes a one-year membership in NOW.

To register, you can download this registration form (see below). After completing the form, either mail or email the form with your check/credit card number to our Treasurer, Pamela Macklin.  If you want to pay online for the PAC and/or the luncheon you can do so by credit card at our main website.  Go to http://panow.org and click on the "Donate" button.  Then send the completed registration form to our treasurer at pmacfish@aol.com.
Registration Form for PA NOW Convention and PAC Luncheon
Note two deadlines.  The guaranteed reduced rate for hotel reservations ends on September 15 ($99/night + tax); call the hotel at 1‐215‐364‐2000  to make your reservation. People interested in the PAC luncheon need to reserve their seat at the luncheon by Friday, September 23.  You can either pre-register or register on-site for the convention plenaries, workshops, and cocktail party.  If you are putting your check in the mail for the PAC luncheon, please email our Treasuer at pmacfish@aol.com and let her know that you put the check in the mail to ensure she adds your name to the PAC luncheon.

And here are the directions to the hotel.
Direction Card Crowne Plaza

Again…

Join us at Pennsylvania NOW’s 40^th anniversary convention ON OCTOBER 1 and Please spread the word!

Thank you and see you on October 1.

United We Rise! Pennsylvania NOW Convention on October 1, 2011

We need and will rise to fight the War on Women that is currently being waged against women in the US and here in Pennsylvania. A war that includes: 1) women continuing to earn only 78% of men’s salaries, 2) Congress and the PA General Assembly’s attempts to take away our reproductive rights;  3) Threats to public education; 4) etc.

Join us at our biennial convention October 1, 2011 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Philadelphia Bucks County, 4700 Street Road, Trevose, PA 19053 (215-364-2000).  We will be focusing on this war on women and how, United, we can fight back.

Lodging is $99 + tax/night; deadline for this rate is September 15.  To receive this rate, contact the hotel and mention Pennsylvania NOW when you make your registration.

This all-day conference will include workshops focusing on reproductive rights attacks, school vouchers, single-payer health care, maternity care, and care giving, as well as working in coalitions, voting, and election work to make sure our united voice is heard. In addition, we will be electing new officers, holding a luncheon PAC fundraiser, voting on the proposed by-laws change, and hosting a cash-bar reception in the evening.

ELECTIONS

We will be holding elections for President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, & three At-Large Executive Committee members.  The four officers must run together as a slate.  If you are interested running for office, you must contact our Elections Committee. Chairing this committee will be Cindy Purvis (814-460-3568, cindypurvis@velocity.net). Lois Herr (717-371-5721, herrlk@me.com) and Irene Boyle (215- 913-0108) are the other two members of this committee.

PA NOW PAC FUNDRAISER

We have moved the traditional PAC fundraiser from Sunday to Saturday so that more people have a chance to attend if they are not staying overnight.  The keynote speaker at the PAC luncheon will be Siobhan “Sam” Bennett, President and CEO, Women’s Campaign Forum and 2008 NOW PAC-endorsed Congressional candidate from Allentown, PA.

The luncheon will also present current and past NOW PAC-endorsed candidates to the attendees.
This fundraiser will help get out our Voters’ Guide and to also support our endorsed candidates.  Cost is a minimum $50.00/person.  You can use the form below to send in your registration. You can also register online with your credit card for the luncheon at http://panow.org/PAC_file/PANOWPAC.htm.  Then follow-up the online payment with an email to Treasurer Pamela Macklin, pmacfish@aol.com, saying your PAC donation is for the PAC luncheon. Deadline for registering for the PAC luncheon is Friday, September 23.

REGISTRATION FEES

NOW member registration fee is $50.00; early registration by August 26 is $40 in honor of Pennsylvania NOW’s 40th anniversary.  Non-member registration, including a one-year membership is $70.00.  Current members can register and attend the convention on a sliding scale down to $0.00. 

Register online with your credit card at http://panow.org/contribution.htm.  Please follow-up all online payments with an email to pmacfish@aol.com,  saying your “donations” are for your registration and/or PAC luncheon.

You may also register by printing out and mailing in the registration form pictured below.  You can also contact us at panow@panow.org and we will email you a full-size copy of this registration form.

Registration Form for PA NOW Convention

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day (IWD).  IWD has been observed since the early 1900's. IWD is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. Although the United States has yet to make IWD an official holiday, March is Women's History Month here in the United States.  We have celebrated Women's History Month annually since 1987. 
Over the last couple of months, we have seen the overturn of dictatorial governments in Tunisia and Egypt.  Much of the protest and calls for democracy and equality have been from women living in these countries.  In honor of these courageous, women, I thought I'd add today's statement on International Women's Day by Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to this blog.  A true feminist lens for what is happening in the Arab world right now.


I hope this inspires you. Happy International Women's Day!

International Women’s Day Statement

by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

GENEVA (8 March 2011) – On this day, I salute the women of the Middle East and North Africa, along with women all over the world who are taking great risks to stand up and fight for dignity, justice and human rights for themselves and for their compatriots. In Egypt and Tunisia, women were on Twitter, on Facebook, and on the streets. Women from all walks of life were marching alongside men, pushing boundaries and breaking gender stereotypes, just as eager for change, for human rights and for democracy.

The work, however, is far from over. In these moments of historic transition in Egypt and Tunisia, it is important to ensure that women’s rights are not set aside as something to be dealt with after the ‘crucial’ reforms are won. Women’s rights should be at the top of the list of new priorities. While women have played an important role in the call for change, concerns have already been raised that constitutional reviews and the development of reforms are undertaken without their full participation. In fact, there are worrying signs about the content of some proposed reforms in Egypt being downright discriminatory. The women and men in the Middle East and North Africa must ensure this is not the case.

Education benefited women in Tunisia and Egypt, enhancing their human rights, including their participation in the political and economic life of their countries. Yet, like other members of society, women suffered the impact of repression, corruption and lack of social justice. Many women in Tunisia and Egypt endured torture, were arbitrary detained, and silenced. Their privacy was invaded and their family life violated. They were the first to suffer from job cuts and continue to constitute the highest number of unemployed. Salary discrepancies between men and women in the private sector have been striking. Representation in public life remained limited. In addition, discriminatory laws and policies based on gender stereotypes continued to negatively impact their work.

Women in the Middle East and North Africa today expect their state to work for the benefit of all - not only a few. They expect it to uphold their dignity and worth, and to adopt laws, policies, and strategies that translate these words into tangible results. They expect transparent and inclusive processes that allow their voices to be heard and their views to be taken seriously. They expect public and inclusive debates and a responsible and accountable government that delivers on human rights and social justice. In other words, participation, accountability and justice, and equity are their non-negotiable demands.

All over the world, major disparities remain between female and male access to education, employment and salaries. While women are the world’s main food producers and their working hours are longer than those of men, women earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own less than one percent of property worldwide. Women comprise nearly two-thirds of the world’s 759 million illiterate adults. Even in regions with high rates of female literacy, women’s wages continue to be lower than those of men, even for work of equal value. While equal access to education is a key factor to enhance women’s empowerment and gender equality in employment, it is clearly not enough unless de facto and de jure discrimination are addressed at a broader level.

Only when women participate fully in policy-making and institution-building will their perspective be truly integrated. The concept of democracy is only truly realised when political decision-making is shared by women and men, and women’s full participation in institutional re-building is guaranteed.

Societies in which women are excluded, formally or informally, from public life, cannot be described as truly democratic, as the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has warned time and again. Women must be able to shape the future of their countries by being involved in institutional reforms from the beginning. Women’s full participation is essential not only for their empowerment, but for the advancement of society as a whole.

The euphoria in Egypt and in Tunisia was shared by men and women around the world. These are historic events, and hopefully the heralds of great and lasting change. Let us now work together to ensure that the momentum does not fade away with the euphoria.

Let us ensure that women’s rights are at the foundation of these new beginnings, and let us be vigilant against any retrogression.

Let us also today stand in solidarity with women in every corner of the world who are working for positive change in their families, their communities and in their countries.