Dear fellow alums,

Greetings from the NorCal Club! It feels like we just rang in 2022 and here we are, a third of the way through the calendar year and staring down the last two months of our Club’s fiscal year. Speaking of the end of the fiscal year, now is a great time to pay your dues for the 2021-2022 year or even become a Lifetime Member and never pay dues again! All dues payments and donations are tax-deductible and help keep our volunteer-run Club afloat. As we return to gathering in person, your donations are more important than ever as they allow the club to plan and subsidize events, ultimately reaching a greater number of alums and creating more chances to build community. 

The Club had a busy April. Katie Wynen ’05 and Steph Corrales ’16 hosted a special Intro to Pole Dancing party for BIPOC alums and there was so much interest that we may bring this event back for an even wider audience soon. Stay tuned! 

The NorCal book club also met and had a deep discussion about two incredible books, both of which detailed experiences of Japanese Americans imprisoned in internment camps during World War II. At the May meeting, the Club will be tackling another important and weighty subject: climate change. Scroll down for more details and to register.

Finally, this past Wednesday Chantel Lucier ’96, a National Board-Certified Reflexology Educator and Intuitive Reiki Master Practitioner, led a much-needed holistic self-care workshop. We learned some easy reflexology tips to help with stress reduction, sleep, digestion, and more. The exercises and conversation brought clarity to those who attended and provided valuable tools to incorporate into our daily lives to feel calm and more connected to ourselves and others. Thank you, Chantel!

For those interested in being more involved with the Club, please consider joining our fantastic board. We welcome alums from our entire Northern California region, not just the Bay Area. Our Board meetings are via Zoom even in non-pandemic times, so location truly doesn’t matter. We would love to have representation from throughout our incredibly large region! 

The next term begins July 1, 2022. Please peruse the board descriptions and if any open positions spark your interest, reach out to us by email or fill out this Statement of Interest. We’re always looking for fresh perspectives, new ideas, and look forward to hearing from you.  

Check out all our upcoming events for the next two months below. We hope to see you face-to-face or live online. As always, please reach out if there is programming you’d like to see, an event you’d like to host, or you simply want to say hello. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook!

Our very best wishes,

– The Board   

Dear fellow alums,

Happy New Year! We made it to 2022, after quite a draining year. Although 2020 gave us many challenges we hoped would diminish, 2021 proved difficult as well. Between continuing to navigate a global pandemic, wildfires that still haunted much of our membership, along with personal and professional hurdles, we have all wrestled with much this last year. And yet. Despite the many challenges we faced, the Board is happy to have been able to connect with many of you online and, finally, at a few in-person events, starting with a joyful face-to-face gathering over ice cream for Mountain Day 2021. We also met in person for a private tour of the Joan Mitchell exhibition at SFMOMA as well as enjoyed a lively holiday gathering for Virtual Vespers at the home of Eleanor Chang ’78. We have connected via Zoom with alums from all over the Bay Area and beyond—an unmistakable bonus of online events. We are looking forward to turning the page on the year and have a fantastic slate of events planned for 2022. 

You can look forward to the continuation of our book club where we read books by BIPOC authors to a cookalong for Lunar New Year to our monthly mentorship group led by Jean Han ’87, to a special discussion about understanding the work of the Supreme Court with attorney and SCOTUS expert Barbara Creed. Keep your eyes peeled for lots of chances to be in community with NorCal alums in the coming year. 

Boundary Shift Completion

We are pleased to share that after working with the Club of the Peninsula to modify both Clubs’ boundaries in order to better serve the MHC alums who are nearest to our centers, the Alum Association has completed the coding work required to make this change. This meant aligning part of the northern tip of the peninsula with the NorCal Club and expanding the Peninsula Club’s eastern border to Nevada. Both clubs will continue to cross-promote each others’ events on social media so that all members stay aware of all that is happening across both our Clubs’ large territory. Please reach out if you have any questions or concerns about the boundary shift.  

Bylaws Update & Meeting

For the first time since the 1970s, the NorCal Club has updated its Bylaws and Mission Statement. Please feel free to look them over and share any thoughts with the Club via email and/or attend a Bylaws discussion meeting on February 15th (register here). We’re looking forward to finalizing and voting on our new Bylaws in Spring 2022!

Pay Your Dues 

Many thanks to those of you who paid your dues and/or become Lifetime Members in 2021. Your annual dues payments and donations enable our volunteer-run Club to host a diverse slate of events and programs throughout the year. Dues pay for renting event venues, food and beverages when applicable, guest speakers, creating and sending care packages to local first-year and transfer students, offsetting costs of certain events, subsidizing costs for those who normally wouldn’t attend because of lack of funds, and much more.  

If you want to pay membership dues for the 2021-2022 year or become a Lifetime Member, please do so here: MHC Club of Northern CA Membership Dues. If you prefer to pay by check, please email us. Additionally, if your company offers corporate matching or incentives for volunteering or being a part of a non-profit organization, we are happy to work with them to find ways to financially support our Club.

Let’s Connect

As we continue planning for 2022, please share with us what types of events, programs, and resources may best support you at this time or any which you may wish to offer. Email us or fill out this form to get started. 

We’d love to showcase members of our alum community on social media. If you’re interested in sharing your story, let us know here.

Our very best wishes,

– The Board