Honoring those who’ve made a difference at our 2012 Annual Conference. From left: Volunteer of the Year Awardee and Peer Group Leader Carrie Redi; Executive Director Erin Lasker; Legislator of the Year Awardee and NH State Senator Matthew Houde.
2012 has been an incredible year for our organization. RESOLVE New England embarked on a bold new path this year, beginning even in 2011 as we restructured the organization, welcoming new staff and Board members. We set strong goals and crafted a clear vision of what we wanted this organization to look like and how best RNE could serve its consumer and professional members while still being THE leading infertility support organization in the New England region.
In February of this year, we relaunched our website: a brand new look and a brand new logo to reflect our newly reworded mission:
Since 1974, RESOLVE New England has been the leading voice and progressive driving force connecting the New England community on the many paths to parenthood.
In addition to our website, we added a weekly blog with guest posts from around the New England infertility and adoption community, sharing research, advice and ways to cope along your family building journey. Our Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn communities have continued to grow throughout the year as well.
Our core principles of infertility support, education and advocacy have been reflected in every avenue of the work we’ve done here are RESOLVE New England this year. We are proud of our many accomplishments in 2012, both big and small because ultimately: this work has been for you.
2012 Education Highlights
This year we offered more educational programs than we have in years past, covering a variety of topics. Our goal this year was to bring you the education you need from resources you trust. Our educational highlights this year include:
- A $10,000 grant from the TJX Foundation to fund our Lisa Fenn Gordenstein Access Scholarships, so that anyone who wishes to attend our educational programs can do so without worrying about the financial cost of attendance
- Combining our Adoption and Donor Egg/Surrogacy Connect & Learn full-day seminars into a one-day event at a shared location, so attendees can move from one track to another throughout the day
- Two panel discussions during National Infertility Awareness Week: “Coping with Infertility” and “Stories of Hope”
- 8 days of educational guest blog posts from our Circle of Support Sponsors during National Infertility Awareness Week
- Adding our printed Directory of Services as a downloaded PDF to our website
- Our first ever wildly successful “Guided Meditation for Women Coping with Infertility”
- A financial workshop on the costs associated with treatment and adoption: “Financing IVF, Donor Egg and Adoption”
- Over 40 educational sessions and workshops, including 8 “Ask the Experts” mini-sessions at our 2012 Annual Conference
2012 Support Highlights
Infertility and adoption support have always been at the heart of our work, especially when most of our staff and Board members have deep, personal connections to infertility struggles. 2012 has been an remarkable year for our support efforts for the New England infertility and adoption communities, including:
- Expanding our peer support groups into five of the six New England states
- Generous financial sponsorship from ViaCord for all of our peer led general infertility and topic discussion support groups
- A unique half-day training for all volunteer peer support group leaders
- Lunchtime Topic Tables at our 2012 Annual Conference that served as mini-support group opportunities for attendees to connect with fellow attendees and our peer leaders
- Our first-ever virtual support group via Google Hangouts during National Infertility Awareness Week
2012 Advocacy Highlights
This year, we faced an unexpected piece of legislation in New Hampshire that had serious repercussions for the infertility community of that state. House Bill 217 sought to update New Hampshire’s homicide statute to include fetal homicide; in the process, however, it threatened access to IVF treatments in the state through its murky definitions of a fetus.
RESOLVE New England, with the help of many volunteers and legislators in the state of New Hampshire, lobbied aggressively to help defeat this bill and protect the access to IVF treatment for thousands of New Hampshire families. When the bill narrowly passed the NH State Legislature, we ramped our advocacy efforts even more, working with the NH Governor’s office to educate Gov. Lynch on just how devastating HB 217 would be for the infertility community New Hampshire if signed into law. On June 18, 2012, Gov. Lynch vetoed HB 217 where the veto was sustained by the NH House nine days later.
On November 3, 2012, RESOLVE New England honored NH State Senator Matthew Houde as our 2012 Legislator of the Year. Senator Houde was instrumental in helping to preserve access to fertility treatments for infertility patients in New Hampshire by advocating for the veto of HB 217.
Looking Ahead to 2013
Our work is far from finished and we have much more in store for 2013, from additional educational offerings, to expanding our peer support network and continuing to fight the good fight for legislation that is supportive to all avenues of family building. We hope you’ve been as excited about our work this past year as we have been. And we hope you’ll help support our work into the New Year by making a contribution today or finding out how you can become involved with RESOLVE New England.
Thank you for helping to make 2012 a success for RESOLVE New England – and here’s to a year of even bigger and better offerings for the infertility community of New England in 2013!
Warmest wishes,
Erin Lasker, Executive Director
Honor the our accomplishments in 2012 and help support the work ahead in 2013 by making your tax-deductible donation to RESOLVE New England today!
Click here to give now and help us continue to offer education, support and advocacy services to the New England infertility community!
