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July 2022 NorCal Club Newsletter

Dear fellow alums,

Thank you to those of you who attended the NorCal Club’s Hybrid Annual Meeting on June 9th. We had a lively dialogue, caught up with many alums we knew and met a few we didn’t, went over Club business, confirmed our new slate of Board members, and toasted this past year and looked ahead to the next. 

We welcomed two new Board members: Natasha Payés ’10 who will take on the Communications Chair position and Rebekah Rabiroff ’03 who will join Leah Hellerstein ’08 as Membership Co-Chair. Many stayed in their roles for the next fiscal year. We said goodbye to Olivia Lucas ’18, Steph Corrales ’16, and Hannah Fairbanks ’03. We’ll miss their presence on the Board, and wish them all the best in the future! Check out this slide deck showcasing Club events from the last year and featuring bios of the 2022-2023 Board members. 

In Memoriam

The NorCal club would like to acknowledge Northern California Club member Glenna Breslin ’60 who recently passed away from Alzheimer’s Disease. Described by her daughter as “brilliant, grateful, kind, hard-working, energetic, and passionate,” Glenna was an English professor at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga for nearly 40 years. During her time at Saint Mary’s, she created exciting courses, inspired generations of students, founded essential programs, and generously mentored new colleagues. In Glenna’s courses, her students hiked and wrote about nature, studied Flannery O’Connor, the Southern novel, and storytelling women. Members of one MFA course she taught continued to meet regularly with her long after the semester ended, reading together and sharing their writing. In her most famous course evaluation, a student labeled her “the goddess of English.” In addition to her passion for English, Glenna loved music, theater, art, traveling, hiking, reading, gardening, and chocolate ice cream. She is survived by her two daughters, Jennifer and Susannah. 

Read Books by BIPOC Authors with Us!

The NorCal Book Club gathered via Zoom on June 29th and mapped out its books for the next four meetings—check out the selections and meeting dates below. We have read incredible books together over the last couple of years and look forward to digging into our newest selections. We have a small but devoted group and welcome any new faces. The more the merrier!   

Pay Your Dues

Many thanks to our dues-paying members and those who became Lifetime Members during the 2021-2022 fiscal year. If you want to pay membership dues for 2022-2023 or become a Lifetime Member, please do so here. All dues payments and donations are tax-deductible and help keep our volunteer-run Club afloat. As we return to gathering in person, your donations are more critical than ever as they allow us to plan and subsidize events, ultimately reaching a greater number of alums and creating more chances to build community. 

As we begin to plan events for the coming months, please reach out if there is programming you’d like to see, an event you’d like to host, or you simply want to say hello. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram (tag your photos from our events with #mhcnorcal 🤳) and join our Club’s Facebook Page!

Our very best wishes,

– The Board