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Ms grant/34
Outside of the FSW and the Extension Program, the Building relies heavily on its memebers to generate new programs. Membership, at one end of the spectrum, means nothing more than yearly dues of $15 and receiving in return reduced rates for Extension courses and special events, plus regular mailings. At the other -- and from our point of view, preferable -- end, it means taking initiative, imagining what you need from the Building and causing it to exist.
This is what film maker Judy Reidel did last spring. She organized a series of discussions with women from the upper echelons of the film industry, "because these were women I wanted to meet. I figured if I invited them to come and speak at the Building , I'd get to meet them. Which I did. Also, most of these women had never heard of the Building before, and were just delighted to discover it. And a lot of women who work in the industry, who'd also never heard of the Building, came because of the series. In fact, I met the woman who's now my writing partner because she came to hear one of the speakers."
Judy's experience is an ideal model of how the building would like its members to relate to it: the organizer's needs are met, new constituencies are drawn in, people meet and connect and stay connected; and often, women's work reaches a substantial audience for the first time.
The Building also generates work which spreads out beyond our walls.  Last year, though writing workshops at the Building, a group of seven women met and decided to work together. It began,