Category Archives: event

HKTour 2024 Great Event

SMASHING SUCCESSFUL TOUR/S THIS YEAR!

Click any photo to see larger. Read the story below the photos.

When the HKT team first met in December they hoped they might raise $10,000 through ticket sales and donations. They quickly got to work, creating an ambitious line up of 16 home tours, some live and some virtual.

Ticket sales opened in late February using a new online platform called Givebutter.  A two-page spread in The Leader and a booth at the Home and Garden Show sparked public interest, and impassioned phone calls to businesses and supporters netted generous donations.

By mid-March the HKT team realized this could indeed be a big year. They moved the goal posts to $15,000.

Ticket sales skyrocketed again in early April, surpassing $25,000, and the stunned HKT team wondered how to balance desire for more funds for scholarships with the need to keep the live tour challenges in check to ensure everyone would enjoy a quality experience.  In an unprecedented move, the team decided to cap ticket sales, declaring the live tour a “sellout” several days before the event. This occurred after 750 tickets were issued and we spent some time calculating how quickly people would need to be ushered through the homes to see what each home had to offer. We wanted each ticket holder to enjoy their experience rather than being rushed through. We were half-hoping that damp weather might cause some ticket holders to stay cozy at home and only participate in the virtual tour, which seemed to be the case, with approximately 145 ticket holders who did not check in for the live tour.

By Saturday April 27 the Home & Kitchen Tour had raised $28,000 in ticket sales and another $6,700 in donations/sponsorships, for a whopping combined total of $34,700.

Feedback from the (slightly soggy) live tour participants was glowing.  They called the tour “a magnificent success,” praised the team for being “well organized” and said it ran ”pretty darn smooth.. and [was] fun, too!” They raved about the beautiful homes, with each visitor having a personal favorite. They reported that the parking and traffic was well-managed, and the lines at even the Windship to be sometimes only 5 minutes long and never more than 45.

What made the tour so successful? Certainly the fabulous Windship and Starrett mansion were big draws.  There were a variety of home styles on the tour. Some homeowners participated in the tour to answer questions and provide some history of their home. But that’s only part of the story.

Tour participants loved that the homes were within walking distance, making for a pleasant day exploring Uptown on foot. The Givebsutter ticket system was easy for volunteers to use, and the participants liked the convenience of curbside check-in with volunteers coming to the drivers’ doors.  They liked the attractive maps, packed with home profiles, essential information, and a QR code to access an interactive map. Also new and popular this year were early check-in at the branch meeting and early access for AAUW members to some of the live tour homes.

Contributing to the tour success was a comprehensive publicity campaign that utilized some creative new tactics as well as traditional channels of communication. At every step of the way the AAUWPT webpage was the nexus for activity and public information.

A shout out to the generous sponsors, homeowners, Bayside Housing, Jefferson Transit, and the posse of enthusiastic volunteers who powered this event, including over 70 well-trained docents, 20 parking and traffic wranglers, 14 Welcome Center ambassadors, and  our membership who bought tickets and talked it up with their friends and neighbors. We also received feedback and input from docents about their experiences and what could be improved in the next live tour, with well thought out input that will be invaluable for the next HKT team.

The event boosted AAUW’s reputation as a positive and impactful force in the community.  We are proud to be part of such a passionate and engaged organization.

We excelled at this together.  Thank you all!

The HKT Team

Teri Nomura, Home and Kitchen Tour Chair and Virtual Tour Chair
Eileen Baratuci, Live Tour Chair
Katherine DeForest Evans, AAUW Publicity and HKT Publicity Chair
Laura Guth and Leslie Roubal: All things technical including ticket sales, creating virtual tour website, videotaping for presenters and many other roles!
Donna Hengeveld, Welcome Center Chair
Lynn Meyer, UWF Development VP – sold most of the SPONSOR ads
Bill Myer, Parking and Event Planning
Ruth O’Meara, writer of home summaries
Debbi Steele, Jean Stastny and Marilyn Sandau along with Eileen Baratuci, Home selection Committee
Debbi Steele and Jean Stastny, Docent Coordinators

UWF Celebrates 30 Years

Our University Women’s Foundation of Jefferson County was certified as a non-profit WA State organization on February 11, 1994. Later, the IRS declared us as an official 501(c)(3) organization on March 14, 1995. This status as a non-profit organization allows us to raise money to carry out our charitable, educational, and public service endeavors, which promote education and equity for women and girls in East Jefferson County. Our Port Townsend Branch of AAUW is one of the few branches nationwide to have this certification and 501(c)(3) status, thereby allowing us to keep our raised funding just for our local girls and women. All AAUW branch members are automatically members of UWF, so this celebration is truly one for all of us!

We had a 30th Anniversary Celebration during the March 2024 Branch meeting.

The original investment was a $7,566 seed grant from members and branch fundraisers like the Centrum Food Concession (1986-91), piano concerts, and theater events.  The branch named its first Named Gift Honorees and UWF made a donation to AAUW National’s Education Foundation.

The original investment was a grant from members and branch fundraisers like the Centrum Food Concession (1986-91), piano concerts, and theater events

 

Hospice Program April 20 2024

Jill Newsome, RN Community Liaison for Jefferson Healthcare Home Health and Hospice will speak with her partner, Pandora Canton, Spiritual Care and Bereavement Coordinator, on the topic of End of Life Care. Points of emphasis will be what Hospice is about and the supportive services provided by Hospice and Spiritual Care.

Jill K.Newsom RN, BSN RN – Community Liaison Home Health and Hospice
Jill has been an RN for 28 years. After receiving her BSN from Marian University, she began her nursing career in Port Townsend at Jefferson Healthcare then left for Seattle for 20 years, returning home to the only place she wants to live, Port Townsend. Her career focus – all specialties of women’s health with focus on postpartum, birth and lactation. She eventually became drawn to all things at the end of life and the normalizing of death in our culture and community. Jill has been in the role of Community Liaison / Manager Hospice Ancillary Services for the past 2 years, overseeing Spiritual Care & Bereavement, Volunteers and Comfort Therapy for Jefferson Healthcare Hospice.

Rev. Pandora Canton M.Div. B.C.C. – Jefferson Health Care, Spiritual Care and Bereavement Coordinator
A Clinical Chaplain for over 17 years she is deeply passionate about teaching about death and dying in our community. She as attended thousands of deaths during her career. “It is an honor for me each time I attend, I learn something new about the process of dying. Because of my studies as an interfaith minister, I am knowledgeable about most faith traditions, spirituality, agnostics and atheists.”

Lori Tschohl – Mar. 2024 Speaker

Lori is on a mission to bring more women into the trades, and she has a passion for helping in communities where she conducts business. Lori speaks to us on current opportunities, trends, and training for women in trade positions which have historically been held by men.

She is the owner of Eagle Pipe Heating & Air and is a leading HVAC contractor specializing in commercial Gas Pipe, Plumbing, and HVAC systems. She’s also a founding advisor of Women in Plumbing and Piping. Lori serves as President of WHVACR and President of Jefferson County Home Builders Association. She is a member of Kitsap Home Builders Association, Poulsbo Chamber of Commerce, and a board director of East Jefferson County Habitat for Humanity.

Chemakum Tribal Elder – Rosalee Walz

Rosalee Walz, Chairperson of the Chemakum Tribal Council. Photo by Brian Goodman

Rosalee Walz, as a Chemakum Elder, was inspired, pushed, to reclaim and weave into history the difficult story of the Chemakum by Howard Hansen, author of Twilight on the Thunderbird. She wrote the text for Still Here: Portraits (by Brian Goodman) of the Chemakum.

Indigenous to Chemakum Territory, she is a graduate of the University of Washington, and Antioch University, holding an M.A. In Whole Systems Design.

While she had a career in human resources; her passion was serving on the Seattle Indian Health Board for 20+ years with several years as its president. She has been an executive coach and is a writer.

November 2023 – Rosalee Walz speaker at AAUW PT branch event. “Walz says she was most influenced by her “father’s love of nature and his attention to details from tiny to huge”, and her love of nature is evident in her storytelling. As the tribal chairperson, she is working with others to re-learn the almost lost original language of her tribe, as well as creating a Chemakum dictionary.”

Speaker – Dr. Linda Rosenbury

Dr. Linda Rosenbury, Superintendent Port Townsend School District, WA
— Short Bio

She was born in Indiana, attended elementary school in Rye, New York and middle and high school in Sioux City, Iowa. She looked up to her three older siblings as they attended Columbia University, Harvard University and Williams College. Linda received her undergraduate degree in the history of art from Yale University.

At age 28, she became a principal in New York City at a middle school still recovering from being named one of the twelve most violent schools in New York City. She restructured the school into three small learning communities, built students’ identities as readers, and led community walkthroughs to involve students, staff, and families in instructional improvements. For her next principalship, she joined a group of local parents and community members to create the Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School (BUGS), an intentionally diverse school focused on the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic, and equity.

A 2021 graduate of Harvard’s Doctorate of Education Leadership Program, Linda served on the superintendent’s cabinet in Highline (WA) Public Schools before becoming the superintendent of Port Townsend Public Schools in July 2021. In the past two years, she has led the district in creating an equity policy, increasing their use of data, adopting a more balanced school calendar, expanding early childhood classes and dual credit courses, and deepening the district’s place-based learning approach. She lives with her husband Matthew, a physicist, and their dog Walter, a treeing walker coonhound.

Interest Groups Photos

photos updated 2023

Tech Help for Home & Kitchen Tour

Hello! Glad you can join us taking the 2023 Home & Kitchen Tour VIRTUALLY!

We recommend taking the Tour via your Internet browser on a full-sized screen device to get the WOW effect of wandering through homes in the 3-D video. Plus, you have more control over the screen functions using a mouse or touch screen/your finger!

VIEW TOUR ON YOUR BIG SCREEN

The 3-D videos move and swirl around the whole house on tour. You’ll want to view on a large screen that has access to the INTERNET and BROWSER or some way to type/link to the tour HTTPS: web address

  • Option: Use your smart TV on Internet with REMOTE CONTROL POINTER
  • Option: Hook up your laptop or computer via HDMI cord to the big screen. On your laptop, make sure SETTINGS are made to use HDMI output for screen.
  • More info on Wikipedia, click here…

NAVIGATE AROUND THE TOUR

INTERNET TIPS

To give your Internet more power, remember to view one home video at a time and close any full screen videos after you view.

PRACTICE TOURING 3-D HOME

How about practicing taking the Tour? Here is a practice 3-D video to test out your Internet and screen and mouse/finger/remote control navigation:

https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=cuMwNm21t2Z

 

 

Silent Auction 2023

Thank you everyone for successful auction 2023!

Over $9,000 raised to support equity projects and education – wow!

Click to see list of business supporters –>

Click on any photo in the gallery below and it opens a slideshow of full-sized photos –>

Dr. Molly Parker – January 2023

Eradicating the Childcare Desert in Jefferson County

January 20, 2023 Program AAUW Port Townsend
For our first program of 2023 we welcome Dr. Molly Parker, Chief Medical Officer of Population Health at Jefferson Healthcare as our guest speaker. Dr. Parker will provide us with an update on child care in Jefferson County from a population health perspective, along with information about some of the work being done to fill the need.

Dr. Parker divides her work week between her role as a family physician and as Chief Medical Officer of Population Health at Jefferson Healthcare (JH) in Port Townsend. She grew up in rural Wisconsin and re-located to the Pacific Northwest in 1993 where she obtained a Master of Public Health degree in Maternal and Child Health and her medical degree, both at the University of Washington. She completed her family medicine residency and obstetrics fellowship at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle and then practiced in New Zealand and Bellingham before settling in Port Townsend in 2010. Molly lives with her husband and two incredible daughters, ages 14 and 17 who attend Port Townsend schools.

To Learn about the JH Population Health department, click here…

For specific documents regarding child care:

The Caring For Our Future Report, June 2021 [Summary of needs assessment, feasibility study, site assessment, concept development].

Jefferson County Early Learning and Family Support Center overview