The Red Hat Society - Fun and Friendship after Fifty by Sue Ellen Cooper

March 11, 2005

Location: Joanne’s home
Members: Françoise, Louise, Carmen, Margaret, Joanne, Louise P., Bea, Marvel, Wilma

This was a combined International Dinner and Bookends meeting. It was also a celebration of Carmen’s 60th birthday. The “food” theme for the evening was Italian and everything was assolutamente delizioso!

In keeping with the theme of the book everyone wore a red or pink hat – red for those over 50 or pink for those under 50 (Joanne and Marvel). Françoise took some great pictures and distributed them to the group. As usual a good time was had by all!

All members were in agreement that the entire book could have been covered in a pamphlet recommending the Red Hat Society. The first twenty pages of the book were excellent in describing the contentment of the women that became members and the descriptions of how today’s women live. It pointed out that life’s treasures are people not things and that we matter because we exist. These first pages told it all and the rest of the book was like reading a Chicken Soup for the Soul book -- cute little anecdotes, however after the first 30 or so it was very repetitive.

Some comments from the group follow:
Loved the philosophy and the terminology – anti-parliamentarian – a disorganization
“I never realized I should have been shaving my big toe!” [Refer to Françoise’s picture of toes] also see page 175 for The Summer Shoe Pledge
Some woman need to have a club like this to be told that it’s ok to have fun
Some woman don’t have a good support system and this type of group is great for them
It was like a self-help book and I wouldn’t do this in public!
Good way to expand your circle of friends
The Bookends group all agreed that we already have a sort of Red Hat Society – see page 217 “Get Together With a Few Old Friends”. We don’t need to create a special “chapter” we are way beyond that within the circle of woman in Bookends and the International dinner club.
Book was boring – been there done that!
Some cute stories; may keep the book around and read a page here and there but could not finish the book before the meeting – too repetitive


Someone mentioned Stuart MacLean’s story from the Vinyl Café on his wife Morley’s book club. One member always sits in the same seat so that she is last to speak and she says “I agree with everything that has been said”. Fortunately (in this scribe's opinion anyway) every Bookend member always has plenty to say so we don’t have that problem.

In this “Pink-hatters” opinion we had a wonderful evening – absolutely full of fun and friendship and we do not need a special chapter or a special ‘disorganization’ to continue having a good time!

It was unanimously agreed that we did not want to form a chapter; however we did feel that it would add to the entertainment if everyone brought their red/pink hat and something purple/lavender to wear to Wilma’s annual cottage party. After all we can’t let our lovely red/pink chapeau’s go to waste.

Respectfully submitted by: Marvel on April 12, 2005