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| Circulation: State Board members, Area Representatives, Big Sirs, Little Sirs, Branch Secretaries, and Branch Treasurers May 1, 2023Subject: Your Guidance To State SIR on Inducting Women in SIR In March I sent you an important message asking that your Branch BEC take a vote at your April BEC meeting on two critical questions regarding whether your Branch would support the future inclusion of women in SIR. The purpose of the survey is to seek the opinion of your branch about admitting women into your branch as well as how you feel about allowing other branches to have women in theirs. A BIG thank you to the 57 Big Sirs (~64%)who have already replied (and please ignore the rest of this message). If you haven't responded yet, please consider the questions, then click on the link below and complete the simple 2-question survey, and submit it. It's best if you send your answers via the link because they are automatically recorded which avoids potential transcription errors or email errors if you send a separate message. If you have any problem with the link, please use this one:https://forms.gle/eS9KG5VjDAYvuVWb7 If any Area Representative has received results from their branches please also submit them using the links UNLESS you have already forwarded them to me or Dale. We are asking each Big Sir (or representative) to respond AS SOON AS POSSIBLE to indicate “yes” or “no” to the following questions: 1. By a majority vote, does your BEC approve of allowing women to join your branch as members? 2. By a majority vote, does your BEC approve of allowing other branches to have women join their branches as members? Click here to record your opinion on these 2 questions Thank you very much for your guidance on this important topic. Click here if you have a question or want to make a comment, you can also send me an email directly. Sincerely, Dave2023 State SIR President |
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