May 3, 2023
Dave,
In response to your request, the following is an excerpt from the Minutes of the April meeting of our Branch 169 Board which resulted from our discussion of the idea of inviting women to join SIR:
"BIG SIR: At the request of Big SIR Jim Hiney; as Little SIR, Ernie Sopp shared with the Board that two northern California SIR chapters have requested that SIR consider inviting women as members. (Copy of communication attached to these minutes). Two questions posed to our Board: 1) Should women be eligible for membership in SIR. To this question, the 169 Board voted unanimously to reject the idea of allowing women to join our chapter. 2)The second question posed to us by State SIR,was whether our chapter would want to disallow other chapters from admitting women as members. In response to this question, the consensus of the Board is that other chapters should be permitted to make their own decisions regarding this issue. It would not be of concern to our chapter if others chose to admit women as members."
Regards,
Jim Forden
Secretary of SIR 1690, The Gateway Chaper