Dear Members and Visitors,
On behalf of Executive Women of the Palm Beaches (EWPB), welcome to our website.
I am honored to be President as we celebrate our 30th year in Palm Beach County. That is the inspiration for this year’s theme: “Reaching Our Potential.” This theme reflects the goal of many organizations and individuals as they reach the thirty year milestone. And it isn’t a static goal. Our potential, both as individuals and as an organization, changes and grows over time. Because this is a dynamic process, we are always reaching for our potential, but the journey never ends.
Thirty years ago women were trying to get a seat at the table. Today, some of us strive for a place at the head of that table. As women, our dreams and aspirations grow and evolve, and we want our organization to be a source of support as we attempt to reach our potential each day, each year, each decade, and each lifetime.
My goals as president for the organization this year are:
To develop our advocacy agenda with the new Advocacy Committee.
Our membership voted to place a new role in our By-Laws this year, that of advocacy. We have always advocated for the empowerment of all women in Palm Beach County. By adding advocacy to our By-Laws we make it a permanent part of who we are, an ingredient in our institutional DNA. This joins our signature event, the Women In Leadership Awards Luncheon and our charitable arm, Executive Women Outreach (EWO) as major facets of our organization and its culture.
To continue to build on our excellent programming.
We must have a forum for our membership to meet and share, and programs are the backbone of that effort. Business programs, educational enrichment, career development, networking, and simply having fun are all components of our programs. We need to balance all of those and at the same time make programming high quality and worthwhile. Our goal is to make our programs the most compelling of the many choices our members have to fill their valuable time.
To foster our most valued asset, our membership.
While we continue to attract and maintain the best and brightest executive women in Palm Beach County, we need to continue to invite those new to our county to join us. At the same time, we must recruit and retain exceptional women who are already part of our community. Another special category of membership is our scholarship recipients, called Junior Executive Members or JEMs. This is where our scholarship effort comes full circle and we ask our scholarship recipients to join our group and obtain our greatest gift – that of our time. We want JEMs to experience the best EWPB has to offer: mentoring, exposure and connectedness so that they too can be executive women one day. We must continue to grow that effort and reach out to that very dynamic group of women.
To support Executive Women Outreach.
EWO is our equally important other-half. By supporting the EWO mission and achieving our EWO goals, including the success of our annual Women In Leadership Awards Luncheon, we are able to make a difference and have a real impact in our community.
Finally, I want to make special mention of an extraordinary group of women known as the Gracey Society. This is a group named after our founding president, Cynthia Allen Gracey. It is comprised of members who have led our organization throughout the past thirty years. They are leaders whose wisdom and experience is something we can draw from as we face the challenges of the coming year. They are the light that shines so that the path ahead is clear for the rest of us.
I ask that all our members re-commit during this 30th year to making our organization and our community stronger than ever. By helping us reach our organization’s potential, we can in turn help you to reach yours as an individual.
Sincerely,
Monica Manolas
President 2011-2012
"Reaching Our Potential"
