Worcester committee advances Women of Consequence plans as organizers report few young-woman applicants

The Advisory Committee on the Status of Women in Worcester City moved forward with final planning for the Women of Consequence and Young Women of Consequence awards, asking members to send keynote nominations and help boost applications for the Young Women award.

Patricia Lafore, executive director of human rights and accessibility and staff liaison to the committee, told members the office had received few applications: “currently, we have 3 applicants from young women,” and noted multiple duplicate nominations that affected the count. Lafore said the office had asked the city manager’s communications department to push out notices to increase submissions.

Committee members said they will collect keynote nominations by email and allow Pat to facilitate an email vote if needed to meet the event timeline. “If we take a week and put some names forward and then bring them to Pat, and then Pat can facilitate votes in that way,” Lafore said; members agreed to send names to her by the end of next week.

Why it matters: the award is a public-facing committee program that the group uses to highlight local leaders, and the committee must finalize speakers, presenters and promotional materials in advance to secure participation by city leadership and vendors.

Members discussed possible keynote candidates from outside the meeting and flagged conflicts of interest. Member Lauren Morocco said she would recuse herself from choosing between two potential speakers because of prior funding relationships: “I would have to recuse myself because we are grantees of the foundation that Kim is in charge of, and Tiffany is on our board,” Morocco said.

Staff reported logistics work underway: food, trophies and folders are being procured, the meeting room has been reserved, and staff will assemble materials for distribution at the event. Hannah Morris told the group that ticket sales stood at about 540 and that staff expect attendance to increase as the event approaches.

The committee also reviewed the form letter sent to nominees who were not selected. Member Stephanie Silva read a draft and members asked for clearer language stating nominees were not selected this year. “I don’t think it’s unkind to be clear that they were not picked this round,” Lauren Morocco said; members asked staff to revise the letter to explicitly note that nominees may be encouraged to participate or re-nominate in future years.

Discussion v. direction v. decision: the meeting recorded discussion about recruitment, speaker choices, materials and messaging. The committee directed members to submit keynote nominations by email and authorized Pat to coordinate follow-up and finalize materials. No formal vote on awards or keynote selection occurred during the meeting.

What’s next: members will email nominations to Lafore; staff will circulate revised nominee letters and the exhibitor/volunteer logistics so members staffing the committee table can prepare.

Ending: The committee closed the agenda item and moved on to a guest presentation on career-access programming.