Price: $20.00 per person

Directions: Ferry Building Clock Tower, Embarcadero at the foot of Market Street, San Francisco. The Ferry Building is best reached using public transportation. Marinites can take the 9:15 Larkspur Ferry. Those with access to BART or MUNI can take either to the Embarcadero Station. The historic trolley cars (Line F Market) stop directly in front of the Ferry Building. If you must drive, there are parking lots at the north end of the Ferry Building at Pier ½ and the Pier 3 Washington at Embarcadero Lot. There is limited metered parking on area surface streets. There is also a reasonably priced parking lot at Bay and Embarcadero near Pier 33 but you will have a bit of a hike to the Ferry Building.

Links to:

General Directions
Golden Gate Transit
Larkspur Ferry
MUNI
BART
Others

The Mechanics Institute Library and Chess Room (website)

Plan to visit the beautiful Mechanics Institute Library and Chess Room. The Institute, a genuine treasure of San Francisco, is currently celebrating its 150th year of existence. Located downtown within one block of Market Street at 57 Post Street, the Institute is indeed a remarkable and unusual organization. First established in 1854 by tradesmen and engineers, a subscription library was soon organized which now encompasses the humanities and the arts as well as technologic subjects. In addition to serving as venue for a series of monthly lectures, the Institute also serves as the home of the Chess Club, the oldest continuously operating chess club in the United States. The current photographic exhibit covers 150 years of San Francisco history as well as that of the Institute in those formative years. We will assemble in the meeting room on the fourth floor of the library.

Date: Thursday, January 19, 2006.
Time: 10:30 am.
Deadline: January 5, 2006.
Price $ 15.00
Limited to thirty participants

Directions:
Take BART. Exit Montgomery Street Station. Walk up Post to Number 57. Take elevator to fourth floor.
If driving, one might park in the Union Square Garage or the garage at Sutter and Stockton and walk over to 57 Post.

Links to:

Golden Gate Transit
Larkspur Ferry
MUNI
BART
Others

This has been a very busy year for your membership chair. The Board decided to insure that addresses in our database were correct and current. We did this by printing "RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED" on all mailings last year beginning with our membership mailing in November 2004. This is a request to the Post Office to check each address against its current list and return to us any which is incorrect. This resulted in 280 items returned with the notice "NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED, UNABLE TO FORWARD." I removed these members from our current membership list and placed them in a special "bad address file." We will not continue to mail newsletters to these people, but will retain their information for future reference. If the Post Office had an address that differed from the one on our database, it returned the mailing to us with the current address for that person. Using this and the national organiz-ation’s latest list, I updated the addresses in our database with the new addresses so that in the future each of the members will receive our mailings. In all, I updated 245 addresses in our database. Hopefully, these people will now receive our mailings. We are sending out the Directory of members again this year. The Board voted to include in the Directory anyone who has paid any dues since the last Directory was issued in 2002. Thus even those who have NOT paid for 2005 will be included if they paid for any of the past three years. We felt this was fairer since it is easy to overlook payment occasionally and still be interested in being associated with Phi Beta Kappa, Northern California.

Respectfully submitted,
Letitia Sanders
Second Vice President - Membership

SPECIAL DUES NOTICE

In 2004 The Phi Beta Kappa Society raised the dues we must pay for each of our members from $0.50 to $2.00. That prompted the Board to examine our dues structure and our income from dues. After considerable discussion and soul searching, the Board recommended to the membership that our basic dues be raised from $25.00 to $30.00 per year. The members in attendance at our annual business meeting in May 2005 ratified the Board’s recommendation. Consequently, the minimum dues for 2006 have been set at $30.00, which is reflected in the dues envelope included with this newsletter. You are also reminded that the dues are for one calendar year beginning January 1 and ending December 31. Hence, everyone’s membership expires December 31, 2005. Please, pay you 2006 dues promptly.

A Fact Sheet and Invitation to join or renew your Association Membership for 2006!

A common question about membership: "Didn’t I already join the association? I thought it was headquartered in Washington, D.C."? To clear up the confusion implicit in this question, here is a brief primer on the difference between the national PBK Society and the Northern California Association:

The Phi Beta Kappa Society (PBK ) in Washington, D.C.

Once you are initiated into Phi Beta Kappa—usually in your senior year in college—you become a lifetime member of The Phi Beta Kappa Society. The society sends out yearly solicitations for donations and sustaining memberships in order to maintain its services at the national level. It also publishes a newsletter called The Key Reporter. The national society’s WebPages at: www. PBK.org are an excellent source of additional information about the structure of PBK .

Phi Beta Kappa, Northern California Association, Inc. (PBK NCA)

There are over 50 active PBK alumni associations across the nation that support the aims of the national society by promoting the value of education and awarding scholarships. Our association, PBK NCA, ranks among the top three in the nation--not only in the size of our membership--but in the number of social activities we sponsor, and in the amount of scholarship money that we distribute each year. Our primary goals are twofold:

• Recognizing excellence in teaching by honoring professors who have been nominated by a PBK member. Three inspirational educators, one from Stanford, one from UC Berkeley, and one from Mills College were honored at our May 2005 Awards Dinner.

• Helping outstanding graduate students by granting scholarships. We awarded $36,000 in scholarships at our May 2005 Awards Dinner to nine outstanding students.

A Board of hard-working, dedicated and talented volunteers runs PBK NCA. That means the only significant costs we need to cover are postage and printing of the newsletter, so we are able to put our members’ dues and donations directly into our scholarship and teaching excellence programs.

We also offer our members opportunities to get together socially, often for private tours of educational or cultural institutions. See pages 3 and 4 of this newsletter for examples of both our tour offerings and our wonderful Asilomar Conference. All of our events serve as social opportunities and fundraisers for our scholarship program.

Any Phi Beta Kappan who lives in Northern California—even if initiated at a university in another state—is welcome to join the Northern California Association. In fact, many of our most active members were initiated into PBK at a college outside of California, so we would be delighted to get to know you!

Please join PBK NCA in 2006 by going to our membership page.

ALL MEMBERSHIPS EXPIRE DECEMBER 31, 2005