Wellesley League of Women Voters to e-host international security expert

October 2, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Juliette Kayyem, Wellesley League of Women Voters speaker — Juliette Kayyem

The League of Women Voters of Wellesley invites the public to attend its fall Opening Meeting on October 8, 2020 at 7pm. The featured speaker will be international security expert, Harvard Kennedy School Lecturer and best-selling author, Juliette Kayyem.
Ms. Kayyem will speak on “COVID-19: Elections and the Road Ahead”.

More on Juliette Kayem

Juliette Kayyem is Belfer Senior Lecturer in International Security at the Harvard Kennedy School and Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Over the last two decades she has managed complex policy initiatives and organized government responses to major crises in both state and federal government.

She is currently the faculty chair of the Kennedy School’s Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects and is a frequent on-air national security analyst for CNN. Previously, she served as President Obama’s assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, where she played a pivotal role in major operations responding to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and H1N1 pandemic, and she was the homeland security advisor to Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

Ms. Kayyem is the author of the best-selling book Security Mom, and a Pulitzer finalist for her opinion columns in the Boston Globe. She is the founder of Kayyem Solutions, Inc, which provides strategic advice in cybersecurity, resiliency planning, risk management, mega-event security, infrastructure protection, and cybersecurity.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been advising mayors through the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, as well as governors and CEOs, on crisis response and recovery efforts. Now a contributor for The Atlantic, she has a new book, Beyond 9/11: Homeland Security for the Twenty-First Century, that was released in August 2020.

How to register in advance for this webinar:

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Morses Pond extends the beach season in Wellesley to August 23rd

August 13, 2020 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

The Morses Pond season will be extended to August 23rd, 2020. The beach hours and the reservation process will remain the same until August 23rd. Beach access is available to Wellesley residents only.

To register for a 2-hour time slot for a blanketing area, go to this link. The time slots start at 10am. The last slot is 5:30 – 7:30pm. the Turner Road gate closes at approximately 7:45pm.

Wellesley Rec is looking for additional staff to keep the beach available and extend the season through Labor Day or later. So if you have a college student who is studying remotely this semester and would like to pick up some work hours, contact Rec via email at [email protected] or at 781-.235-2370.

Wellesley Rotary Club speaker to be Political Affairs Ambassador for The Borgen Project

August 12, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Wellesley High School graduate and New York University student Lara Smith will be the featured speaker at the August 18th, 6:30 – 8pm meeting of the Wellesley Rotary Club. Smith is currently a Political Affairs Ambassador intern for The Borgen Project, a national campaign that works to make worldwide poverty a focus of United States foreign policy. The Politics and Journalism major’s presentation will focus on the work The Borgen Project does to benefit those in need around the world, and how that work has direct domestic benefits.

Lara Smith, Wellesley Rotary Club — Lara Smith will be the Rotary Club’s speaker at its August 18th meeting.

The Borgen Project’s mission

The non-profit organization mobilizes constituents to contact their congressional leaders and urges them to support legislation that benefits impoverished countries. At the moment, the US spends just about 1% of its federal budget on foreign aid. The Project encourages investing in global communities that are in need as a way to build up those populations while creating more consumers for American products. This in turn benefits the US economy and creates US jobs.

Furthermore, the Project maintains that investing in impoverished communities and countries around the world protects the US’s national security. The Seattle-based group takes issue with the notion that military action and/or strength is the key to
national security. Instead, it suggests that investing in impoverished countries stabilizes them and in turn, stabilizes the countries around them, as well as the US.

Join the conversation

If you are interested in attending this Zoom meeting, send an email to [email protected] and the club will send you an invite to the August 18th, 6:30 – 8pm online meeting.

The Rotary Club of Wellesley is one of Wellesley’s oldest community service groups and conducts local programs to benefit the Town of Wellesley. The public is always invited to any Rotary program. Please check the web site www.wellesleyrotary.org for times and location.

Wellesley Rotary Club to host speaker via Zoom meeting, May 19th

May 18, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Rotary Club, Wellesley The Rotary Club of Wellesley will meet via Zoom meeting on May 19, 6:30 – 7:20pm, with Geoffrey Woglom as the club’s speaker.
Prof. Woglom recently retired from Amherst College as the Richard S. Volpert, ’56 Professor of Economics. During his career, he has held visiting and consulting positions at the Federal Reserve Board, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and the International Monetary Fund.

During his talk, “The Economic Consequences of the COVID-19 Crisis and Recent Fiscal and Monetary Responses,” Woglom will provide a rundown of the impact of the pandemic on economic activity, labor markets and financial markets. Then he will turn to the unprecedented responses of fiscal and monetary policy and why these policies are different from the responses in the 2008 financial crisis. Finally, he will talk briefly of the prospects for economic recovery.

Woglom has published articles in major economic journals on finance, macroeconomics and monetary policy. He and his wife, Susan, are enjoying retirement as part-time residents of Seabrook Island South Carolina and Lenox, Massachusetts.

If you are interested in attending this Zoom meeting, send an email to [email protected] and the club will send you an invite to the online meeting.

Pinnacle Residential Properties — finding “home” now

May 14, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

SPONSORED POST: Teri Adler of Pinnacle writes about her experiences in real estate during this time:

As a local Wellesley resident, Pinnacle real estate agent, and mother and wife I am always seeing this great town of ours through so many lenses. Now, with the pandemic, the lens is a little more cloudy, but through the new guidelines that have shaped our lives, there is so much about Wellesley that has become clearer than ever.

Pinnacle, Wellesley — In Wellesley Square, before the mandatory mask ruling — from left: Anna and Eliza Lazzarino relax on a bench with their dad, Jeff.

I’ve really not stopped working once during the quarantine. When it became clear a shutdown was imminent in March, there were families, who for pressing personal reasons (not discretionary moves), still needed to buy or sell a home. Pinnacle quickly put every recommended precaution in place so that we could safely conduct those showings. I have watched tired doctors and other essential workers gather their families and drive into Wellesley to find a home where they could live comfortably and have access to outdoor space.

The buyers who are calling for showings are mostly young couples coming from Boston. I see in their eyes now more than ever how they are ready to breathe deeply in their own backyard and not have to share a staircase and elevator with neighbors. I smile knowing they are about to gain so much more by choosing to live in Wellesley and I am excited for them to discover it. I am actually grateful to have been there helping people find their ray of sunshine during a dark time in the form of “finding home.”

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International Women’s Day event in Wellesley, March 8th

March 1, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Wellesley Women’s Initiatives in partnership with the World Of Wellesley invites the community to join them in celebrating International Women’s Day 2020 at Wellesley Congregational Church, 2 Central St, on Sunday March 8, 2pm – 4 pm. There will be music, dance, art activities and speakers to inspire girls and women of all ages. This year’s theme is to celebrate women, support equity — regardless of divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, socio-economic or political — and acknowledge that women must gain full and equal participation in global development.

Women's Day, Wellesley

A registration link is available at World Of Wellesley, which is co-sponsoring the event.

EVENT: International Women’s Day
WHEN: Sunday, March 8, 2pm – 4pm
LOCATION: Wellesley Congregational Church, 2 Central St., Wellesley, MA 02482
QUESTIONS: Please contact [email protected]

Wellesley’s Hardy School principal to step down

February 4, 2020 by Deborah Brown Leave a Comment

Hardy Elementary School Principal Charlene Cook will be retiring at the end of the academic year, the Superintendent’s office has announced. Cook has led the K – 5 Weston Rd. school since 2013, capping off a career devoted to public education.

Before coming to Hardy, she served as principal at the J.L. Mulready Elementary School in Hudson, Mass. for nine years. Before that, she was as assistant director for teaching and learning in the Boston Public Schools and was a classroom teacher at the Mather Elementary School in Dorchester.

In a message to the school community, Supt. Lussier said, “We remain grateful for Charlene’s strong leadership at Hardy during the past seven years and for her 34 years of service in public education in Massachusetts. Charlene has touched the lives of thousands of students during her career, and she will be sorely missed both at Hardy and as a member of our District leadership team.”

As the search process for a new Hardy principal begins, Lussier will be working with PTO leaders and parent representatives as part of the interview team. A candidate pool is expected to be winnowed down to a selection of finalists by March, in hopes that a final appointment will be made by the beginning of April.

The last new principal hire for the Wellesley Public Schools was in summer 2019, when Leigh Petrowsky was appointed as principal of Sprague Elementary School. Petrowsky replaced Susan Snyder, who served as principal 2015 – 19. At that time, potential principals were clamoring to get into the WPS system. Petrowsky beat out 51 applicants for the position.

Wellesley has had little turnover among school principals in recent years.