President’s Message

Greetings and Welcome to the 2025-2026 WRJSL Fiscal Year.

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all as we begin another promising year together in WRJSL.

Today, we gather in a spirit of gratitude and anticipation—to honor the leadership that has brought us to this moment and to welcome the new leadership that will guide us forward.

To our outgoing chairwomen: Thank you. Thank you for your time, your commitment, and your unwavering dedication. Over the past year, you have led with strength, with grace, and with a clear sense of purpose. You lifted others with encouragement and upheld the mission of our organization with integrity.

Your efforts have made a lasting impact. You’ve laid a strong foundation that will support everything that comes next. Please know how deeply appreciated you are, and how much your service as chairs have meant to us all.

To our incoming chairwomen: Welcome! We are so excited to have you step into these vital roles. Your leadership will shape this year’s journey. You bring fresh perspectives, new energy, and bold ideas that will carry our mission forward.

You may feel a sense of excitement—or maybe even a little nervousness—and that’s perfectly okay. Leadership is not about having all the answers. It’s about listening, learning, showing up, and lifting others as you rise. And the beautiful part is: You are not alone! You have a network of sisters, past leaders, and fellow members who are here to support you every step of the way.

As we begin this new fiscal year, I invite all of us to reflect on why we serve. We do it not for recognition, but for impact. Not for titles, but for transformation. We serve to empower one another, to strengthen our communities, and to model the very leadership we hope to see in the world.

So, to those passing the torch—thank you for lighting the way. And to those receiving it—may you carry it with pride, purpose, and passion.

To all members; Active, Transitional, Sustainers and the Incoming Provisional class of 2025-2026, I am so excited to have you all as members and look forward to an amazing year of collaboration, creativity, and continued success as we further our story, the legacy of Western Reserve Junior Service League.

I would like to briefly discuss our expectations on monthly meetings. It is very important that we make every effort to attend the meetings each month. Additionally, it is preferred that everyone also attends the meetings in person.

We have the entire year of the monthly general meetings planned out with dates published in advance, this is to help us all plan our individual schedules.

We also will often have a guest speaker or special program planned for the meeting. Our Meeting Management committee works hard to plan each meeting; It is disheartening when a guest has been invited and we have low in person attendance. I do understand there can be special circumstances that arise which make being in person difficult such as an illness, inclement weather, some of our members do travel to warmer weather in the winter, as well as our employer may have late evening work events. This is understood. But I hope we will all try as much as possible to limit attendance via zoom but for these special arising circumstances.

More importantly, I feel it is our duty that we encourage our members to attend meetings monthly as this is the essence and spirit of WRJSL, Our Community. Our founders felt strongly that meeting as a community of like-minded women was the foundation of WRJSL. We are strength in numbers and camaraderie. I’m excited to continue that legacy and feel it important that the only way to foster Community is to be present with each other, mingle during our social gathering hour before the start of the meeting and develop sisterhood through our monthly in person meetings. I hope you agree and encourage your committee members to attend in person as much as possible.

In closing, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to each of you for joining and remaining active in WRJSL. I know we will have an amazing year. It is through this collaborative work that we will continue to build our Mission for years to come.

With Gratitude

Paula