New One WILPF Call Format, Calendar, and Feedback Survey
Published on January, 53 2023
By Ashley Carrington and Marybeth Gardam
One WILPF Call Team
February 2023
Our One WILPF Calls for 2023 are now quarterly. Our format is shifting a bit, and we’re asking for your feedback in a short survey.
Starting with our January 12th call, we’ve shifted to a quarterly pattern for these calls. Since we began the calls back in 2016, WILPF has become a much more digitally engaged organization. Now each of our national Issue Committees has events and meetings through Zoom, and they offer many more opportunities for organizing across the country. One WILPF Calls are still a great opportunity to do Solidarity Action planning and hear about topics of broader interest to our membership. But capacity limits and calendar conflicts necessitate less frequently scheduled calls/Zooms.
Our format for the calls, starting in March, will shift so that we begin with announcements at the front end of the Zoom, for half an hour, and welcome guests at the half-hour mark. This hopefully will allow attendees more time to linger longer during the Q&A with speakers if they wish.
“We’ve tried to respond to members’ requests to keep the calls to 90 minutes. And we’ve been doing a good job with that,” notes facilitator Marybeth Gardam. “But if we move the speakers to the second part of the call, and members want to linger longer, those who need to drop off after 90 minutes are free to do that. It’s a format we’re testing out in March.”
We’re also asking members to weigh in with your feedback on One WILPF Calls. Here’s a very short survey that’s easy to fill out and will give us a window into member preferences during the next couple of years. The last time we did a One WILPF Call Survey was about three years ago. Now’s a good time to share your thoughts.
2023 Call Schedule for the Rest of the Year
The 2023 call schedule is as follows – always the 2nd Thursday of the month at 7 pm Eastern / 6 pm Central / 4 pm Pacific:
Thursday, January 12
Our January 12th call featured the topic Women. Life. Freedom: Voices from the Iranian Protests, with speaker Sally Rahima. The call recording is posted on our One WILPF Call webpage, along with the TEXTPAD and CHAT, and also on our WILPF US youtube channel.
It was a great call. Sally’s energy and passion to support her Iranian sisters in envisioning a brave future for themselves and their children was palpable. There were also important Announcements from our Issue Committees of events and actions called for in the next few weeks and months.
Thursday, March 9
The March call, scheduled for Thursday, March 9, is being planned around the topic of International Women’s Day. Speakers are being proposed now to broadly fit within that topic. Note that there are resources on the WILPF Website to help branches and members mark International Women’s Day. And a social media post about our March 9th call will be posted on the WILPF Facebook page in plenty of time for members to share it widely and help promote the March One WILPF Call.
Thursday, June 8
Topic TBD
Thursday, October 12
Topic TBD
