AROUND TOWN: Newcomers Club enters 49th year: Come join!

By KRISTIN BOYD Special Writer
    Attn: The Princeton Newcomers Club is looking for a few good members.
    No special talent needed. No age or gender requirements, either. In fact, you don’t even have to be new to the neighborhood, or live all that close to Princeton.
    “The idea is people who are either new to the area or who’ve had a life change can join,” says club president Kirsten Braley. “So, we have a lot of retired women and new moms, and their ages vary. It’s largely women, though, men can join.”
    The group’s first meeting for the 2008-09 year will be held Friday (Sept. 12) from 11:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Princeton YWCA on Paul Robeson Place. Those interested in learning more about the club are invited to attend.
    “I encourage people to take that first step, and I think they’ll be amazed at how welcoming everyone is,” says member Betsy Bacon, who served as the club’s 2007-08 president. “It’s a very active club, full of wonderful, outgoing, friendly women.”
    New residents and longtime residents looking to make friends are welcome to join. And you don’t have to be a Princeton resident; many of the club’s members live in Hillsborough, Hopewell, Lawrence, Montgomery, Ewing, Pennington, Plainsboro, West Windsor and Bucks County, Pa.
    The Newcomers Club, whose motto is “Bloom Where Your Are Planted,” encourages members to participate in the more than 25 member-led interest groups, including Pins and Needles, Wine Exploration, Coffee and Kids, Visiting Great Gardens, Great Decisions, and Book Talk. General interest groups, such as walking, tennis golf, couples dinners. and scrapbooking, are also popular.
    Don’t see something you like? Members are also encouraged to start their own interest groups or revive inactive groups like the Article Club, Broadway Bound, Creative Writing, Scrabble, Saturday Morning Movies, Exploring Art. and bridge, Ms. Braley says.
    There are also other opportunities to mingle during the Friday with Friends meetings, held the second Friday of each month at the Princeton YWCA, and the monthly Social Coffees, held the third Thursday of each month at the YWCA’s Bramwell House Living Room.
    “Almost every weekday of the month, there’s an activity,” Ms. Braley says. “It’s a great way to find other people who have the same interests. People get out of it what they put in it.”
    Ms. Braley, a financial adviser, moved to the Princeton-area after graduating from Penn State. She planned on living here temporarily, but 10 years later, she realized she had “planted roots” in this area and decided to start making friends.
    “I would work, go home, watch TV and go to bed,” she says. “And I thought, ‘It’d be nice to bump into somebody in the supermarket who I know.’ At that point, I wanted to forge friendships.”
    Those friendships proved invaluable for Ms. Braley, who learned about the Newcomers Club through an online search in 2006 and joined shortly before her father died.
    “There’s this support system, and I have people I can count on,” she says, adding members, many of whom had just met her, sent cards and offered condolences. “I feel more a part of my community.”
    Ms. Bacon wanted to feel a part of the community, as well, after her husband’s job relocated to Central Jersey and they moved to Montgomery.
    “When I moved here, I had no friends or family in the area,” says Ms. Bacon, a new-kid-on-the-block veteran whose family has lived in France, Connecticut, Delaware, Dallas, Denver and Atlanta. “My children were almost in high school and I wasn’t working, so I wanted to find some activities.”
    Ms. Bacon joined the Newcomers Club in fall 2004 and has participated in numerous interest groups; she particularly enjoys the golf league, hiking group, Teen Talk, Visiting Great Gardens, and Great Decisions.
    For more information about the Princeton Newcomers Club, call the YWCA at 609-497-2100 or visit the group’s Web page, www.ywcaprinceton.org/ NewcomersWebsite/index.html.
How to join
    Membership for The Princeton Newcomers Club is open to anyone age 18 and older. However, because the Newcomers Club is part of the YWCA Princeton, membership in the YWCA is required.
    Those interested are invited attend one Friday with Friends, one Social Coffee and one interest group activity before joining the club. The club year runs from Sept. 1 through June 30, and membership renewal is required each September.
    Also, in celebration of the Princeton Newcomers Club’s 50th anniversary in 2009-10, the group is currently looking for previous members, who are asked to e-mail club president Kirsten Braley at [email protected].
    “Whether you’ve moved across the state, across the country, or across the ocean, the Princeton Newcomers Club is here to make your ‘transplant’ easier,” Ms. Braley writes in a welcome message posted on the group’s Web page. “We’d like to help you ‘grow your roots’ in your new community and bloom where you are planted.”