How does a person become a member?
Membership is open to anyone who wants to be a part of the group. The way to become a member is to find a present member and get invited to a meeting. The sponsoring member brings the prospective member to the meeting, and if they’re still interested in joining – and if the organization is interested in inviting them to join – then they do. Not everyone wants to commit to the schedule – it’s rather rigorous meeting once a week. We do have some snowbirders who go away for the winter, but when they’re here, they’re active.
How many members do you have?
Our bylaws limit us to 30 members; we meet in each other’s homes, and it’s difficult to fit more than that number of people in someone’s home. We presently have 19 members.
Who are the current members?
Our current members are Inge Backhaus, Jane Bird, Marilyn Bucher, Anne Buonfiglio, Kathryn Carroll, Constance Catalinotto, Sally Colclough, Isabel De Celle, Glenn Dobbs (co-president), Nancy Dooley, Amanda Elia, Audrey Klinkenberg (co-president), Sylvia Kramer, Suzanne LeBlanc, Mary Alice Lindquist, Fran Moore, Peg Nau, Phyllis Reer and Peg Wilsey.
What time on Mondays do you meet, and what do you do at your meetings?
We meet at 1:30 p.m. until about 3-3:30 p.m. We hold a business meeting first, and the hostess provides us with a program. They choose what they want to present, and then we have afternoon refreshments.
What kind of programs do you have? Do they involve guest speakers?
It can be a guest speaker. We had a program recently on Operation Smile, another on the bluestone history of our community, a lawyer who spoke on elder law and one about the wives of the famous men of the Civil War. I often do an historic one on Saugerties, places we see every day but we don’t know their importance (Klinkenberg is Saugerties town historian).
Is there a membership fee?
$30 per year.
What are the major projects you take on?
We support local, national and international charities. A new one we added this year is the junior and senior prom after-parties. We support the Heifer Project, Ulster Literacy, St. Jude’s Hospital, Operation Smile, the Saugerties Animal Shelter, the recent typhoon in the Philippines, donations to food pantries, we give to the Ronald McDonald House in Albany every year, the God-Given Bread program at the Lutheran Church at Thanksgiving, toys for the toy distribution by the Council of Churches – all kinds of things.
But our priority is to support the scholarship we give away every year. We gave a $1,200 scholarship this year to a young man now studying mechanical engineering in Florida. The Mary E. Pidgeon Gillespy Scholarship [named after the founder of the Monday Club] was started in the 1920s. The members back then raised money for it by doing odd jobs like ironing and selling things. They raised something like $35; that was a lot of money then.
And how do you get the money for your causes today?
Every fall we have a card party and tea; usually over 100 people attend. In past years we’ve raised money giving bridge lessons. We get help from [a local retailer] who gives nonprofit groups a discount on gift cards and we sell those. We make $1,200-$1,400 every year from that.
We try really hard to give our money away; there are expenses in running a club, but we do support many different things, and every penny counts.
For more information about joining the GFWC Monday Club of Saugerties, call (845) 246-8329, email [email protected] or visit www.village.saugerties.ny.us.
