Inspiring Women SUMMER 2020
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In addition, I hold down the fort managing two households and a rental property. We, of course,<br />
enjoy a lot of travel and I am the family travel agent.<br />
When did COVID-19 first become part of your FAWCO<br />
work and what were your first thoughts about it all?<br />
Being on the Foundation Board, we had been heavily<br />
involved with the Interim Meeting (IM) in Luxembourg,<br />
planning Foundation Night, the Backing <strong>Women</strong><br />
Boutique, quilt raffle, celebration of Roberta Zöllner’s<br />
25 years of making quilts and other fundraising<br />
opportunities. As a new Treasurer I had put substantial<br />
time into looking for ways to make the payment<br />
process at the conference easier and more efficient<br />
for attendees as well as for myself. Anytime you are<br />
dealing with multiple countries and currencies, the<br />
banking process becomes quite a challenge. I was<br />
very excited to be going to Luxembourg with a new<br />
point-of-purchase payment process that I hoped<br />
would accomplish my goals. As COVID-19 began to hit<br />
hard in Italy, concern began over what this meant to<br />
the conference. A few members began dropping out<br />
but the optimist in me believed we would prevail. A<br />
couple of Board members began questioning their<br />
ability to attend but I was confident I would be fine<br />
and the conference would continue in some fashion.<br />
It was literally the day before I was to depart for<br />
Europe that the conference was cancelled and I<br />
deemed it probably not prudent to travel. Indeed I<br />
think it was just a few days later that the US began their<br />
travel restrictions.<br />
Manning my workstation at home<br />
Tell us about a typical day “FAWCO COVID-19” day for you. Cancelling the Interim Meeting<br />
brought the Foundation Board on high alert and a call to action. This is our ONE fundraiser of the<br />
year, we had grants and awards to announce, silent and live auction items collected, raffles to<br />
hold, etc, etc. Led by our fearless President, Barbara Bühling, we all quickly stepped up to find<br />
solutions and new ways of carrying out the tasks at hand. Lauren Mescon, VP of Fundraising,<br />
deserves so much credit for making a Live Auction take place virtually, only two weeks after the<br />
cancellation. She had previously driven the selling of raffle tickets and conference charms<br />
online before the conference so this was currently taking place. For me personally, my drive for<br />
payment efficiencies went out the<br />
window as I began to collect and<br />
process payments one by one, from<br />
members around the globe and through<br />
multiple payment options. It sounds<br />
simple, but my Treasurer's role became a<br />
full-time job. I had to check multiple<br />
sources for payments, from foreign<br />
exchange processors to the mailbox<br />
and confirming the receipt of those<br />
payments. Then I had to notify those<br />
mailing charms and tea towels,<br />
preparing raffle tickets, and Auction<br />
item certificates. The depositing and<br />
transferring funds involved me recording<br />
each individual payment and reporting<br />
Mexico with my daughters in 2014<br />
it, not to mention the follow up I had to<br />
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