Mother’s Day Campaign 2008
Connecting Mothers' Voices

POWER Loop Guests & Members in Conversation…
Mothers & More Connects Mothers’ Voices Online

We care.
        We work.
                 We count.

Join our POWER Loop guests to discuss what our society would look like if it truly supported mothers, what we can do to work toward changes that will benefit us, and how mothers can be counted.

We will explore the power of our personal voices and the collective power of all our voices.

Guests for the 2008 Mother’s Day Campaign will join us for the entire month of May, unless otherwise indicated.  They include:

Betsy Bagley, Your On Ramp
Shirley Clark & Patricia Reed, Choose 2 Lead
Ellen Cooperperson, Women’s Leadership Development Center
Pamela Paul, author, “Parenting, Inc.”
Kiki Peppard, activist
Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, CultureRX, May 12-16
Amy Wilson: actress, playwright, “The Mother Load”

Members across the country are going out into their communities for the 2008 Mother’s Day Campaign, taking with them their chapter’s information displays, InvisiMom, and information on how to save the American Time Use Survey. Our discussions will include hearing about our members’ experiences in these efforts.

Betsy Bagley, Your On Ramp

Betsy Bagley is the Director, Business Development, Texas Region for Your On Ramp, a resource for women in career transitions providing social networking, career resources and job opportunities.  She is passionate about harnessing the current work-life cultural shift and advocating for the untapped, talented resource of professional women who have taken career breaks.

The majority of Ms. Bagley’s career has been in the field of marketing research. Evaluating options after the birth of her first child stimulated her interest in the area of work/life balance. She now makes a difference in the quality, variety, and number of flexible options for women. With the benefit of her own off-ramp and on-ramp experiences, she assists other women who may have waning confidence but also desire access to career opportunities.

Shirley Clark and Patricia Reed, Choose 2 Lead

Choose 2 Lead Women's Foundation is a non profit organization that is a catalyst for changing the paradigm of the 21st century workplace, bringing together facts, economics, and social needs to support informed choices by women, employers and policymakers.  The Department of Labor’s Employment Training Administration recently published a Choose 2 Lead report entitled Are We Losing the Best and the Brightest? Highly Achieved Women Leaving the Traditional Workforce.

Shirley M. Clark, a founding partner of Choose 2 Lead, has over 25 years of business and management experience in venues ranging from entrepreneurial endeavors to Fortune 500 companies. She is an active speaker, trainer and consultant. As a former business owner, Ms. Clark also has experienced the challenges of managing and running a business. As a corporate employee, she has experienced the struggle to juggle career options, life and family.

Patricia S. Reed, a founding partner of Choose 2 Lead, has over 24 years of experience spanning the private, nonprofit and public sectors, including roles as Director of Programs at The Independent Women's Forum, Program Manager in the management consulting industry, a U.S. Presidential Management Intern in the federal government, and as the sole proprietor of her own business. She has spent the last 16 years balancing her career and family obligations, including multiple cross-country relocations.

Ellen Cooperperson, Women’s Leadership Development Center

Ellen Cooperperson is the Executive Director of the Women’s Leadership Development Center in Hauppauge, NY and is the President of Corporate Performance Consultants, Inc. (CPC), an award-winning organizational development and leadership training organization. In 2003, she was selected as one of Long Island's Top 50 Women by Long Island Business News' distinguished panel.  Ms. Cooperperson was also a founding board member of the Long Island Center for Business and Professional Women, and served on the Advisory Board of the Suffolk County Office of Women.

Ellen Cooperperson has been standing up as an activist for herself and other women throughout her volunteer and paid work life. She created a film in the late 1970s to answer the questions being asked about women’s activism – why would women become members of NOW, the National Organization for Women? The film has now been adapted for DVD in order to inspire intergenerational dialogue and a new generation of women’s leadership.

Pamela Paul: author, Parenting, Inc.

Pamela Paul is an author and journalist who writes about social and cultural issues, demographic trends, consumer culture, psychology and health, and family. Her latest book, Parenting, Inc. is an investigation of the "parenting" business.  Ms. Paul currently writes for Time magazine and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review.

In a blog featured on the Huffington Post, Ms. Paul recently reported on pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. In another article, this time for Time Magazine, Ms. Paul references the high cost of raising children and the cutting of American Time Use Survey from the Bush administration's budget proposal.

Kiki Peppard, Activist

Kiki Peppard lives in Effort, Pennsylvania. She is the proud mother of a daughter and a son. After being repeatedly turned down for jobs when responding to questions asked about her marital and childbearing status during job interviews, she began a years-long campaign to get legislation passed that would prohibit employers form asking personal, invasive questions during a job interview. Employers stated to her that "they don't hire single women with kids - they take too much time off from work". Legislation is still pending....

As a result of her exposure to injustices in the workplace through questionable job interviews and other work place experiences, Ms. Peppard became the Northeast Pennsylvania response team member for 9to5 National Association of Working Women to help others empower themselves with employment issues. Ms. Peppard’s work was featured recently in an UK article in Guardian.

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, CultureRX, May 12-16

Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson are the founders of CultureRx and creators of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). Their first book, WHY WORK SUCKS AND HOW TO FIX IT, will be released June 2008 by Portfolio, a Penguin imprint. They have been featured on the cover of BusinessWeek, as well as in the New York Times, TIME Magazine, HR Magazine cover story, and on 60 Minutes and National Public Radio. Ms. Ressler and Ms. Thompson are also nationally recognized keynote speakers and have presented to numerous Fortune 500 companies and prominent trade associations. Prior to founding CultureRx, they worked at Best Buy and led the corporate headquarters into a Results-Only Work Environment.

The ROWE workplace model, under study by researchers Phyllis Moen and Erin L. Kelly at the University of Minnesota, is “anticipated to become an innovation with broad adoption and impacts.” (Flexible Work and Well-Being Study, Univ. of Minn., Fall 2007)

Amy Wilson: actress, playwright "The Mother Load"

“Mother Load” is an expose of the cutthroat world of competitive parenting. Modern motherhood, this show tells us, is not for sissies. Moms have always felt the pressure to do right by their children, but “our generation of parents has turned that pressure up.”

Amy Wilson has appeared on and off-Broadway, on television, and in films.  She has three young children—Connor, Seamus, and Maggie-- whom she raises with her husband, David Flannery, in New York City.

“The Mother Load” will be going on tour this fall.

The POWER Loop is a members only forum.  Join Mothers & More to participate in these thought-provoking discussions!