Recapping the club’s last fiscal year (July-June), the club sponsored activities including: a family-fun fairy hunt benefitting UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, a dinner at Magic Castle benefitting Make-A-Wish Foundation America, private tours with luncheons at the Hammer Museum, Virginia Robinson Gardens, Holocaust Museum LA and The Getty, meeting the lifetime retrospective honored artist there herself, Barbara T. Smith. The club also sponsored BHWC tables at the Library Council’s literary luncheon at the California Club, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham and The Colleagues Annual Spring Luncheon at The Beverly Hilton.

BHWC’s 1926 Gable & Wyant designed clubhouse also hosted: two author talks, four veranda socials, a festive Halloween costume party and Open House. We continued the club’s traditional annual events including: December’s Holiday Celebration, benefitting the Downtown Women’s Center, February’s Valentine’s Day Luncheon, May’s Mother’s Day Luncheon and June’s Annual Meeting, which was immediately followed by an impressive obedience demonstration by the Beverly Hills Police Department K9 Unit in the club’s back garden. BHWC members also enjoy twice-weekly mahjong and Pilates with Oov classes on most Saturdays.

The LA Philharmonic brought a Steinway to the club’s stage, along with numerous performers. Skylight Theatre kicked off their season of all female playwrights at the club. The House of Creed celebrated their newest fragrance, Spring Flower 2023 (the original Spring Flower created in honor of Audrey Hepburn in 1951). Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, Kaleidoscope Orchestra and The Radcliffe Pitches, Harvard’s oldest treble a cappella group, all performed at the club. We hosted another successful Red Cross blood drive co-chaired by our own Founders Circle Member, Valeda Andler, who has been a club neighbor for 65 years and Red Cross nurse volunteer for 75 years straight (not a typo!).

We have received numerous guests, including leaders who have accomplished many “firsts”. Visitors have included: Beverly Hills Councilwoman, Dr. Sharona Nazarian, the first Iranian American female to serve on the Beverly Hills City Council; Beverly Hills City Manager, Nancy Hunt-Coffey, the City’s first female Chief Executive Officer; Senator Jacky Rosen (NV), the first former synagogue president to serve in the United States Senate; Senator Mazie Hirono (HI), the first Asian American woman to serve in the United States Senate. Also, five Congresswomen: Katie Porter (CA-47), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Dr. Yadira Caraveo (CO-8), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-3) and Zoe Lofgren (CA-18), who noted at the club in June, “we all stand on the shoulders of women like those who founded this club.”