Greetings from our Co-Chairs

Greetings!

It is our pleasure as your Co-Chairs for the 2008-2009 season to extend our greetings. We look forward to an exciting year for our nation as well as our Club.   Indeed, as we contemplated our theme for this year, it was easy to focus on the young people in our country, who will be our leaders in the future.

As a result, our theme for this season, "Generation Next: We Can Learn From Them" is focused on the young people in middle school, high school and college who will lead our country in the next decades.   This demographic has been variously defined, but for our purposes, it includes people between the ages of 13 and 25.   So, who are the members of Generation Next?   Like our speakers for this year, they are a varied bunch. They are enrolled in college, but take longer to graduate than their parents; they are the so-called "boomerang" children who move back home after graduating from college; they do not expect to stay in one job forever and may wait to launch their career; they cannot imagine living without text messaging, an iPod, a personal computer or access to a social networking site; they have more diverse friends; they face a volatile and uncertain global climate; and they are a group that has a spirit of volunteerism that we have not seen in many years.

As you can see from our "This Season's Programs" and "About Our Speakers" pages, our speakers for this year are as varied as the generation they will discuss.  

Also as in previous years, each luncheon will include a short presentation by a local Public Affairs speaker. We will also continue our practice of reaching out to and honoring student groups involved in valuable community activities. We are very pleased that with our attainment of 501(c)(3) status , we are likely to be able to increase these outreach activities.

We are very excited about this year and welcome you and your friends to join us!

                                                Patsy Evans & Marcia Anderson, Civics Club Co-Chairs