FAQ

Our newsletters are sent to all alums who have provided a NorCal address* and opted to receive Club/Affiliate Groups emails in the Alum Directory (MHC login required). If you’re not receiving emails from us, go to your directory profile to check what address and email you’ve provided. You can follow these instructions to make any necessary changes. If your contact information is up-to-date, go to Email Preferences and make sure you’ve checked off the box next to Clubs/Affiliate Groups News & Events.

We’re unfortunately unable to offer assistance if you have followed the steps outlined above and still aren’t receiving our emails. You may find it helpful to contact the Alum Association. To stay in the loop, you can always view our newsletters on our website, follow us on social media, or check our events calendar.

If you feel like you aren’t getting enough advance notice for our events, you can regularly check our website and/or add us to your favorites on social media. While we want to broadly publicize our events, we also don’t want to spam people!

*By default, this excludes alums in the Mount Holyoke Club of the Peninsula, but Pen Club alums are welcome to connect with us on social media and/or opt in to our emails by adding a secondary address in San Francisco (or any Californian city north of it).

The Club cannot directly edit our mailing list recipients, so you’ll need to update your preferences in the Alum Directory (MHC login required) to stop receiving our emails. For your convenience, we have compiled step-by-step instructions.

We’re unfortunately unable to offer assistance if you have followed the instructions linked above and are still receiving our emails. You may find it helpful to contact the Alum Association or look up instructions on how to create a filter with your email provider.

Follow these instructions to update your profile in the Alum Directory (MHC login required). Please note that the Club is unable to offer assistance if you run into any issues. You may find it helpful to reach out to the Alum Association with any questions or concerns.

You can adjust the visibility of your information when you update your profile in the Alum Directory (MHC login required) by following these instructions. To read the privacy policy for the directory, visit this page.

Please note that the Club is unable to offer assistance if you run into any issues or have questions about how your information is protected, stored, or displayed. You may find it helpful to reach out to the Alum Association.

Unless otherwise specified, we welcome Mount Holyoke alums regardless of Club affiliation! Guests are generally welcome, but you can always reach out to us if you’d like clarification. If an event is aimed at a specific group (e.g., alums of color only, NorCal Club alums only), we will make that clear.

We often collaborate on and cross-promote events with the MHC Pen Club, and some of our Bay Area alums attend events for both clubs.

We use Open Collective, an open-source fundraising and budget management platform, to collect dues payments. You can now set up a recurring membership or make a custom contribution of any amount and frequency!

Additionally, we use Open Collective for most of our events (both free and paid); it allows us to track attendees, keep everyone up-to-date, and manage tickets and expenses. We previously used Eventbrite for dues and select events, but our profile there is no longer active.

While we encourage you to create an Open Collective account to fully utilize its features and engage with our events, you can also RSVP and make donations as a guest (i.e., without an account). Previous guest contributors can create an account at any time.

Many of our events are hosted at private residences. To protect the privacy of the alums who have graciously opened their homes to our community, we do not post their addresses publicly. After registering for an event, you will receive a ticket confirmation email from no-reply@opencollective.com with the event address and any location notes. Additional event updates will also be sent from that no-reply email.

Please note that when we don’t publicly post an address, the map preview on the event page is only a general approximation of the location.

Attendees cannot cancel their own event registrations. For free events, you can just let us know if you’re no longer able to attend. (We appreciate the heads-up!) For paid events, we’re generally unable to accommodate refunds, as most supplies/tickets/other expenses need to be purchased in advance.

The event description may have more details on refund availability. If there are extenuating circumstances, we may make an exception on a case-by-case basis. We recommend “donating” your ticket(s) if you end up not being able to attend; we can post to our social media to offer your spot(s) to other alums!

Follow these instructions to manage your contribution(s) and payment method(s). If you need additional assistance, check out the answer to the below question about technical issues!

Open Collective has fairly extensive documentation, so you’ll likely find an answer to your query by searching online. If you’re not able to resolve your issue that way, please contact their support team, as the Club is unable to provide technical assistance.

We’d love to hear from you! Reach out to us if you’d like to share your event experience, or fill out our quick member survey to tell us about the kind of programming that would most interest you. We also highly encourage all our Active Members to propose/host/lead ad hoc or onetime events.

The MHC NorCal Club includes alums living in a very geographically large region, from the state’s borders with Oregon and Nevada down to the Bay Area. As most of our Board and Active Members are based in San Francisco or the East Bay, our in-person events tend to take place in those areas (and occasionally farther south when we collaborate with the MHC Pen Club). We regularly offer virtual programming, so check our calendar for upcoming events!

We regret that we’re not able to offer in-person events in locations convenient for all of our alums. If you’d like to host a onetime event, you can read more about member-led events and the support the Club can provide. If you are interested in getting more involved and live in one of the counties listed below, our low-commitment Regional Representative position may be a good fit for you!

We’re always looking for fresh perspectives and new ideas! You can check out these ways to get involved and/or financially support the Club by paying your dues.

While this is not a question we have actually been asked, Adrianne (Comms Chair) is very interested in hearing about your experience with our website, especially if there’s any content you found particularly helpful or confusing. Please contact us if you have any feedback (positive, neutral, or negative) or if you find any out-of-date information, broken links, or typos!

Reach out to us! Please note that if your question is answered on this page, you may not receive a reply. If your question isn’t on this page and you haven’t received a response, feel free to send a follow-up, as we may have missed your email.