The input and votes of the members of the League of Women Voters of Bucks County that are normally gathered at their annual meeting in May were instead, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, gathered online. Members voted to welcome Monica Weninger and Jean Weston as co-presidents for the 2020-2021 year. Julie Becker and Barbara O’Donnell were elected as new co-treasurers, filling the position that Hiltrud Koehler has served in since 2007. Many of the current Board members were elected to an additional year of service in their offices.

In a Board meeting shortly after, League volunteers were approved for the Board-appointed positions. Newly engaged members in these Board-appointed positions include Chris Flynn as one of the Board members at large, Betsy Bishop as co- web master, Sharon Forte as office manager, and Donna Welsh as the editor of the LWVBC monthly member newsletter.

Membership in the LWVBC continues to rise in double digits, with the local League seeing a twenty percent increase in this past year to present. Members continue to express interest in voter registration and voter education efforts, including to younger and new voters, as focuses for engagement. Support was reaffirmed by members for a continuation of informing voters through the League of Women Voters’ Vote411.org platform, the one-stop-shop for voters and the online home of the voters’ guide.

With a membership numbering the second highest among local Leagues in Pennsylvania, LWVBC will be able to have four voting delegates at the 54th Biennial National Convention of the League of Women Voters in June. Long in the planning stage and intended to be a huge celebration of the League of Women Voters’ 100th anniversary, the convention will still take place remotely and, as LWV President Chris Carson and LWV CEO Virginia Kase noted “… we are certain this year’s convention will be filled with commemoration, connection, and celebration. Our foremothers worked through a pandemic – the 1918 flu pandemic – to get the vote over 100 years ago, so it almost feels fitting that we honor them a century later by moving the work forward through the COVID-19 pandemic.”