Paula Toi Heads Newtown Newcomers Club

The new president of the Newtown Newcomers Club has moved several times and has been a member of a Newcomers Club in every community in which she has lived; so it isn’t surprising that Paula Toi joined the Newtown club soon after she moved to Newtown two years ago.

Prior to moving here in October of 1997, Mrs Toi lived in various areas of the country, including Texas, Illinois, and Iowa. She is originally from the Toronto area of Canada.

“In all my moves, the Newcomers Club is what has made it easier for me,” Mrs Toi said this week. She noted that the local club has been of great help, since this is the first time she has lived in a more rural area. “We’ve always lived in the suburbs,” she said.

She said the Newcomers Club offers people a way to make new friends and provides a support system for finding out about their new community.

“Newcomers is really important to help them to get to know their neighbors,” Mrs Toi said.  It offers women a place to meet other women and gives their husbands the opportunity to get to know other men outside of their businesses.

It is also a place to network, to find out about local activities and services, she said.

The local club has a membership of about 140 to 160 families, Mrs Toi said. “The largest club I was involved in was in Texas, which had 265 families. There have been clubs in all the areas I have lived.”

The Newtown club is unique because it is primarily a social club, she noted. It does get involved in some community service projects, notably holiday food baskets, making sandwiches for blood drives, and sponsoring a family through Social Services.

“We do a tree at the Holiday Festival, but we don’t get heavily involved in community service,” Mrs Toi said. Instead, the club encourages its members to get involved in community service organizations, she added.

 The Newcomers Club also makes monetary donations to the Volunteer Ambulance Fund, the Sandy Hook Fire Department Iris Fund, Family Counseling Center, and the Visiting Nurse Association.

While Mrs Toi had served on boards in other Newcomer clubs, she has held no other office in the local club. “I had only been a member for a short time when I was asked to take the presidency,” she said.

“This is the first time I haven’t worked full time. It was time to give back to the community,” she said.

She is a chartered accountant by profession and has taught at the university level. She has also been involved in volunteer work in elementary schools. She received her education at the University of Guelph, University of Windsor, and Ontario Institute of Chartered Accountants in Canada.

Mrs Toi and her husband, John, a vice president with General Re in Stamford, have been married for 22 years. They have three children, Erika, 17, a senior at Newtown High; John, 16, a junior at the high school; and Stefan, 9, a fourth grader at Middle Gate.

Mrs Toi serves as treasurer for Middle Gate PTA and has volunteered to work with Superintendent of Schools Dr John R. Reed, “Hopefully on the school budget.”

 She also works as a substitute teacher at Middle Gate. “I love doing that. The kids are great. There is a great community of children in this town.”

Mrs Toi speaks highly of her new community. “Newtown is such a great town. It has a strong sense of community. I love the Labor Day parade and the Edmond Town Hall movie theater. There are so many wonderful things in this town.”

She also spends a lot of time at local baseball and basketball games, watching her sons play and her daughter cheerlead. She likes to ski, but her free time will be mostly taken up with Newcomer activities. “There are a lot of fun things to do,” she noted, such as a recent hike in Simsbury. People just need to get involved, she said.

The Newcomers Club is not just for new people but also for anyone who has undergone a life change. “We have quite a few members who are retired,” she noted.

She said it is important not to limit the number of years a person can be a member. “The transient rate is changing in Newtown. Some people move in and in two years they are gone,” she said. Newcomers offers a way to keep meeting new friends.

“Everywhere I go, there’s somebody I know,” Mrs Toi said. “It gives you a comforting feeling. Our goal is to make Newtown feel like home.”

The Newcomers Club holds a monthly coffee on the second Tuesday of the month at 9:30 am at the Newtown Meeting House, which newcomers as well as current members are invited to attend. Coffees are also held in the evening, and there is a monthly board meeting. Dues are $30 per year, which includes a monthly newsletter with the calendar and a sunshine corner for announcements, such as the birth of a baby.

People can join at any time, Mrs Toi said.

“The August coffee was well attended,” Mrs Toi said. “At the kickoff in September we had 35 new families at the coffee plus 10 calls following it. I am thrilled with the response to our club. I’m hopeful the coffees will be well received.”

The club offers many activities, Mrs Toi said, including an adult playgroup for women on the first Wednesday of the month. The members have gone hiking and shopping. A haunted house tour is planned.

There are day and evening book clubs, a breakfast club for moms and children at a local restaurant, and Bunco, a social game for adults. There is also a children’s play group for moms with young children.

A decorating and crafts club, new this year, recently took a field trip to an interior decorator and will prepare crafts for the holidays. There are also dining groups of six couples that sample local restaurants.

A recipe exchange group has a different theme each month. Members make a favorite recipe, sample each other’s cooking, and exchange recipes.  Girls’ movie nights and tot tours, in which children are taken on specific excursions, such as to McDonald’s, as well as a dinner social for the entire membership, are also offered. An end of the year picnic in July was very fun, Mrs Toi said.

The club is also interested in offering more activities for men.

“We offer something for everybody,” she said.

Members can begin groups for interests not currently offered, she said. A babysitting coop was recently formed by one member, in which they take turns baby sitting for each other.

“Each group has a coordinator,” Mrs Toi said. “It makes my job so easy. They have taken the ball and run with it. They are motivated and willing to put time into it.”

Encouraging current members to attend the monthly coffees was Mrs Toi’s idea. “It’s important for people to know who else may be members. It’s important  for newcomers to know there is life after a move, even though it’s hard to see that while you’re going through it.”

Meeting other people with similar experiences is what Newcomers is all about.