Annual Meeting 2022

Jacquie's Email

Hello Literary Ladies!!! It's somehow that time of year again - March!!! Along with hopes for warmer weather, crocuses, and peace in Europe, it's time for our Annual Meeting.
    Our agenda includes:

• The nominating committee will announce our fearless leaders for 2022-24 - president and vice president. (This is not an election year for other officers.)
• A discussion on whether to continue on Zoom? In-person masked? Lunch? (As Fran pointed out, we owe Sharon many!)
• Begin a discussion of topics for next year. Attached please find a list of topics since the inception of the club to facilitate brainstorming. (We've done biography twice before, and in 1912-1913, German literature was the topic. Hmmm.)

I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday in your neat little rectangles on my computer screen. Until then! Jacquie

Christine's Minutes

On March 2, 2022, fourteen members of the Literature Club met, again, on Zoom, this time for the time-honored ritual of our Annual Meeting. Our pre-meeting chat ranged from books to new kitchens to blizzards in Montreal to the last great Auk.
    President Fran Greenberg rang the bell for the last time as our president. The minutes were read and accepted. The treasury remains at $ 265.11
    The nominating committee presented their slate for a new president and vice president. Their two-year term will begin next meeting. Because of COVID constraints, we were unable to have our usual ceremony for the "Passing of the Bell", with fifers, drummers, baton-twirlers, and book jugglers.
    The committee nominated for our next president, Connie Stewart, and for vice opresident, Joanna Reisman. Both were unanimously acclaimed. All members applauded Fran for her excellent presidential term, especially in what have been exceptionally trying times. She has been a reassuringly competent presence at her computer guiding us through the shoals of Zoom. In her farewell speech, Fran generously declared that the Literature Club is “a superb organization to be president of".
    Our first topic of the meeting: to Zoom or not to Zoom, that is the question.

Whether ‘tis nobler to stay in our screens
And miss the pleasures of Another’s
Living room, and A Literary Lunch
Or to take arms against a mess of mandates
And by opposing them, to risk the wrath
Of Omicron. To Zoom, a known Path.
Or not to Zoom, tis a consummation
Devoutly to be Wished for.

If not absolute consensus, then there certainly was agreement and a willingness on the part of every member to be considerate to all other members. We agreed that each of us should feel safe. The decision, such as it was: we will continue with Zoom through our April 20th meeting, when Jacquie will present The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.* After that we hope to be able to meet outside and unmasked. One important sidebar: for many presenters it would be very helpful to know ahead of time whether or not we will Zoom, as that can affect their preparation.
    Our second topic was to discuss suggest possible topics for next year. Joanna helpfully provided the list of the suggested topics from last year, containing lots of the old chestnuts. New suggestions included:

• Crime and criminals
• Literature from Countries threatened by Russian land-grabbing and Putin’s madness? Or more succinctly, Writing from Behind what Used to Be called the Iron Curtain, or even, Reclosing the Iron Curtain.
• A book or an author that changed my life
• Banned Books – not band books as this secretary originally understood and then wracked her brain searching for rock’n’roll books.
• Books from a single specific year

OR, we could revisit The New York Times’ list of Comforting Reads.

Meeting adjourned at 2:40 pm
Respectfully submitted,
Christine Lehner, Recording Secretary

*That program has been re-scheduled for the end of the season.