• An inaugural board of directors took on the responsibility for forming the 501(c)(3) organization and preparing the proposal to purchase The Land, etc. The inaugural WWTLC Board of Directors included: Karen Colton, Rae Fehring, Leslie Gallagher, Nedra Johnson, Annemarie Serra, and Karen Thompson.
  • Here’s a brief history of how the board came to be:
    • In the fall of 2015, right after the 40th and final Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, Rae Fehring and Annemarie Serra took on the ambitious initiative to explore how to move forward with the next incarnation of the Festival. In the Facebook Group “Planting Something New,” they seized on the idea of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, with a focus on providing various enrichment programs for women and girls. Karen Colton researched and presented a plan in that group to purchase The Land separate from the programming entity, as a foundational step for the larger idea. For lots of reasons, momentum stalled and the group fell dormant.
    • In mid-July 2016, Leslie Gallagher, Nedra Johnson, and Allison Porch had a conversation, and the idea of purchasing The Land as a first step resurfaced. Then, seeing in writing Lisa Vogel’s plans for selling The Land on the open real estate market and selling the Festival inventory at auction launched conversations into fullspeed-ahead mode. Leslie reached out to Rae, Annemarie, and Karen, and, with the addition of Karen Thompson, the core of our organizing team was formed.
    • Later, the following women joined the board: Tara Ayres, Anne Drake, Brooke Levandowski, Papusa Molina, and Camellia Pisegna.
    • At various points along the way, board and committee members have needed to take short term breaks; some board members have resigned. As a start up organization, some turnover is not unusual. WWTLC has experienced lots of growth and change, progressing through the organizational behavior dynamics commonly referred to as “storming, forming, and norming,” while remaining true to our mission of preserving The Land for women and girls, forever. And the contributions of all who have pitched in to help, whether as a board member or volunteer, are very much appreciated.
    • When Lisa Vogel sent her announcement to the worker community, Toni Armstrong Jr. began her own initiative to gauge community interest in raising the funds to purchase The Land. Very quickly, we began working together, because we realized that we share one single common goal: to preserve The Land for the use of our community.
    • Toni Jr. offered to continue communicating with the community for this endeavor, and we gratefully accepted. Toni Jr. chose her own role in this effort and has kept you entertained and enticed, managing the WWTLC page on Facebook (5575 members and counting as of August 25, 2020) as well as recruiting Janis Kidder and Lynn Siniscalchi to create/manage an e-mail list of interested “Sisters of the Ferns.”
    • Together, we laid the groundwork of recruiting volunteers for WWTLC. Together, we’ve compiled Q&A for frequently asked questions, starting with the questions we ourselves asked when exploring this organization’s effort.
    • Our goal remains to share as much information as is practical, as transparently as possible. The reality is that it sometimes takes us longer than we’d like to answer questions, simply because we are also investigating and learning as we go. We are taking into consideration all kinds of questions that are raised, including legal,
      financial, organizational, philosophical, and practical.