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I am writing in very strong support for the Zonta Club of Melbourne Area for the
Governor’s Cup this year. President Doris Larson and her club members are vibrant and
active in Zonta International affairs.
Their membership is now up to 23 members, they are active in club (average
attendance is 15 per club meeting), area (two attended the area meeting in Ocala) and
district (three attended the last district conference at Hilton Head) activities. They have
one new classification in the past year. Their club offers new member orientation.
On the Status of Women, they had a nominee for the Young Women in Public
Affairs, and gave a scholarship of $1,500 to their awardee. In addition, they had a Jane
Klausman Young Woman in Public Affairs award winner as well, and she received a
$500 scholarship. They were active in all five categories for Status of Women, especially
Legislative Awareness & Advocacy (partly with the UN Association of Brevard County).
This club is noteworthy in the local service, with 266 hours clocked by just 23
members, averaging 10 hours per member. In addition, they spent just over $2,000 in
cash or donated through the club treasury plus $5,100 in-kind donations, with 100%
participation in two of the seven service areas.
This club is particularly active in providing facilities for the Sue M. Pridmore
Center for Homeless Women and Their Children, establishing a library and providing
computers, printers and office furniture. In addition, this club helps the women at the
center with professional clothing and a Christmas party for the residents. They teach a
class once a month on topics that would help get these women into the workforce. The
Melbourne Area Club has a good working relationship with the Salvation Army that
administers the program.
Five fundraising projects keep this club busy, raising an amazing $14,556 with
731 fundraising hours with between 75-100% participation on all projects. In addition,
another $7,000 went to the Pridmore Center with the professional clothing and jewelry
for the resident and office furniture for the Center.
For Organization and Extension, two of its members live in Orlando and have
started to develop a list of women in Orlando who would want to join Zonta. So far five
persons have committed to join.

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Another strength of this club is its Community Image with excellent Public 
Relations. I invited Doris Larson to speak on this topic at our Area 4 meeting, because 
she and her club are very good at this, with numerous articles in the newspaper. Also, one 
of their service projects is to pick up road litter on a bridge, so people driving on the 
bridge see Zonta’s name. This club has a club Web site and a regular newsletter. One 
hundred percent of its members are registered on the Zonta International Web site! 
For long-range planning, they do have a plan that is reviewed annually by the 
Board. 
For service contributions, their club donates an amazingly large value of $4,850 to 
Zonta International. This is a very high amount, considering they only have 23 members. 
This averages to $210/member to international projects. In addition, the club contributed 
$5,237 to local projects (or averaging to $228/member). 
In summary, the Zonta Club of the Melbourne Area is very impressive in all 
aspects. I recommend them for the District 11 Governor’s Cup. 
Sincerely, 
Penny J. Gilmer 
Area 4 Director, District 11