Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Silicon Valley Women in HR… & Friends Mailing and Event Announcement

Dear Friends,

The first part of this email is dedicated to updates and musings, so if you want to skip to the invitation, discounts, and other information, please scroll down.

Our next event is September 21 and event details are on our website.  The event is open to the community, and if you’re bringing a friend, that person must register herself/himself.  Please follow directions for responding.  www.ourhrsite.com/hrw_RSVP.html  I will not be sending a reminder this month so mark the date!

I’ve seen a lot of articles and information about shows commemorating September 11.  We all remember what we were doing on that day, how we heard about it and what we saw.  For me, watching more shows would not help and would only distress me.  It’s a personal decision, and you may feel very it’s helpful.  I want to talk about the aftermath.

We had an HR Women’s event scheduled for the next night, September 12.  I made the decision to hold the event.  Our speaker was there to talk about women and personal self-defense.  It was hard for me to concentrate.  My feeling was (and is)  that no matter what happened, life goes forward, we need to be strong, be brave and carry on even when our hearts are broken. 

I remember how united our country was at that time, and I had never experienced such unity.  My sister and brother-in-law were abroad and strangers were coming up to them and expressing sympathy for our losses.  It felt as if the world stood with us.

And now, 10 years later, look at us.  Take a good, hard look and tell me if you like what you see.  I still see people who are smart, engaged in activities, getting new skills, creating and ready to build new things, and I also see the divisions in our country and it sickens me. 

I don’t really write about politics here and I’m not singling out any one party.  I’m disgusted by the way many of our politicians have been behaving, by their inability or unwillingness to act in the best interests of our country.  I am a news hound and I listen to many points of view, but the vitriol expressed and lies repeated on both ends of the spectrum are dangerous to our mental health and affects our ability to listen to other points of view and make necessary compromises. 

I wrote about our country in 2003 on www.ourhrsite.com/call_to_action.html and even held a rally about unemployment, but I stopped writing a couple of years later.  I started a blog called “Repair America” (http://repairamerica.wordpress.com) in 2008 and stopped writing that year.  Between other commitments and being totally frustrated with our state of being, I felt I was spending time venting and being annoyed and burning myself out. 

Maybe it’s time to be annoyed again and take to my keyboard or camera.  In a few weeks, I’ll post about an incident I had with a TSA inspector this summer.

For now, I’m taking a little time to reflect on life, help people at work, help others via our group, and breathe in – breathe out.  I hope you’ll join me.

Now back to the mailing.

REMINDER ANNOUNCEMENT:  You can earn HRCI recertification points through blogging and I’ve set up a site so you can be an occasional blogger. http://ourhrsite.blogspot.com  You are responsible for adhering to their guidelines, and I cannot guarantee your points. 
·               Read the HRCI information:  www.hrci.org/Page.aspx?id=6442451796
·               If you’d like to post, write your piece to the HRCI specifications.  (My first post is opinion and does not meet their criteria.)  Email your post to mstein@ourhrsite.com and be sure to include the subject line, your bio and links to your LinkedIn page and/or website/s.  I will not edit posts but will review them quickly if I have time.  Otherwise, I’ll simply upload.
·               You can subscribe to the blog, share it on Facebook or Tweet it.  Let’s get this off the ground!

Join us on LinkedIn.

Discounts are on our website.

A few of our pages have a “ShareThis” buttons on the upper left side of the page. If you’d like to repost on some of the other sites, this is an easy way to do so.

We have a resource page with links and downloads for job seekers.

In addition to this volunteer work, I have to earn a living.  Unfortunately, I can’t mentor you, and please don’t send me unsolicited resumes.  I wish I had the time to individually mentor you, but I don’t.  With the time I take for this group, my work and my books, I don’t have time left over.  Come to an event and meet someone who can help.  I receive a lot of unsolicited resumes (from our group and strangers) and if I’m recruiting for a position or I’m paid to work on the resume, that’s one thing, but other than that, I’ve got other things on my plate.  I refer people to the forum at www.ourhrsite.com/forum.   See the blog: http://marciastein.blogspot.com/2009/02/setting-boundaries-and-professionalism.html

A list of speakers and their downloads is on our site.  www.ourhrsite.com/hrw_past_speakers.html

Thanks to Karen Duffy for planning last month’s event with Gwyneth Anne Freedman.  Her topic was work/life balance and boy did I need that!  Thank you both.   


1. HR Women & Friends Event:  Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 6:30-9:00 p.m. 
2. Discounts
3. Using our Bulletin Board (Forum)
4. Spam Filter Alert
5. To change you email address
6. Unsubscribe
7. Additional Links and Information
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1. HR Women & Friends Event:  Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 6:30-9:00 p.m. 

Raymond H. Hixson is an employment attorney who has presented to many local groups.  His topic is “Getting Ready for the Prospect of Mandatory Audits: Wage & Hour Law Compliance.”  See details at www.ourhrsite.com/hrw_RSVP.html.

2. Discounts and Offers – view them at ourhrsite.com/hrw_discounts.html.
Please note: any discounts for health related products or services are solely used at your own discretion.  The group and I have no responsibility for these services or products.  Thanks for extending the discounts to our group!

3. Using our Bulletin Board (Forum)

When you contact me regarding jobs, events, and other issues, I refer to our Forum at www.ourhrsite.com/forum. 

You can view all messages without registering, but you must register to reply or post a message. You are not automatically registered because you receive this email – it is separate software. Please review the Terms and Conditions available under any topic on the forum.  It’s your responsibility to keep track of your user name and password, and if you change email addresses, please log in and update your profile.  If privacy is an issue, please be careful when you post anything: use a separate email if necessary and you can skip your street address if you’d like.

4. SPAM Filter Alert:  please add mstein@ourhrsite.com to your address book. 

5. To change your email address, send your old and new addresses to me at mstein@ourhrsite.com.

6. Unsubscribe

To discontinue mailings please respond with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line. If you receive mail at more than one email address, please note all addresses to delete.

7. Additional Links and Information: 

Randy Pausch was dying of pancreatic cancer, and as is the tradition at many universities, he gave a “last lecture.”  His lecture was created for his young children but delivered to his class.  www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/   

Don’t have insurance?  Breast Cancer Connections in Palo Alto WILL HELP YOU!  www.bcconnections.org  They’re also great if you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer, have questions and need support.

Click daily on The Breast Cancer Site at www.thebreastcancersite.com and help support people who don’t have insurance or money for mammograms.   You can send free postcards to a person serving our country.  www.letssaythanks.com  Build your vocabulary and send rice to hungry people through the United Nations!  http://freerice.com  If you want to donate to the community, many people need your help.  You can evaluate many organizations at Charity Navigator www.charitynavigator.org.  

Potential speakers/topics.  Our volunteers select speakers and topics in January.  You can still send ideas for speakers or topics with the understanding that this will be considered at the planning meeting next year.  If you want to publicize an event you can do so for free on our bulletin board. 

Notifying us of upcoming events and discounts.  If you email me right after I’ve sent a mailing, I can update the website, but I can’t send a separate mailing to the group.  It will be in the next mailing.  Please keep this in mind and plan ahead.

I hope to see you at an upcoming event.

All the best,
 
Marcia

Marcia Stein, PHR - www.linkedin.com/in/marciastein

Author:  Strained Relations: Help for Struggling Parents of Troubled Teens 
Blog:  http://strainedrelations.wordpress.com
Recruiters on Recruiting
www.tellmeaboutyourself.info
www.scribd.com/Marcia_Stein

Silicon Valley Women in Human Resources...and Friends
www.ourhrsite.com 

Stein Consulting
www.stein-consulting.com   


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