Las Vegas women’s club fosters social connections with host of activities

There are card-playing groups, food-oriented meet-ups and a slew of recreational pursuits.

The Westside Newcomers Club, a Southern Nevada women’s social group, sponsors an extensive and diverse roster of activities for its nearly 500 members.

Walking, talking proof of that can be found in the club’s hiking group, which recently brought several woodsy wanderers to Mount Charleston’s Fletcher Canyon trail for a 3-mile-plus outing.

While there are other hiking groups around Las Vegas, most of them probably weren’t designed with an eye toward serving women whose goal is simply to meet other women. But that’s the reason the Westside Newcomers was created, using an eclectic array of activities as its foundation.

“We do a formal hike once a month,” Leslie Levine says. That’s preceded by a more informal trek by hike leaders to “make sure we don’t get lost,” jokes Levine, who has chaired the hiking group since 2022 and has been a Westside Newcomers member for about five years.

She recalls being impressed, at the first Westside Newcomers luncheon she attended, by how many different activities it supported. Among her first activities with the club were golf and an urban walking group.

Making connections

The Westside Newcomers Club was founded in 1992 by four women who were new to Southern Nevada and looking for ways of connecting socially, says the nonprofit club’s president, Marice Bronstein.

Those founders called it Westside Newcomers because they lived on the western side of the valley. From the outset, the group was geared toward social connection. There are no service projects or outside fundraisers or other key components of many women’s clubs around the valley.

While it’s still aimed at women, the club’s membership long ago expanded to include longtime residents as well as new Las Vegans.

“We’re strictly a social club,” says Linda Egge, the club’s marketing chair, with membership open to any woman living within the valley.

Some members are retired. Some work part time. Most are 50 or older, she says. Membership stands at about 475, and the club hopes to reach 500 by the end of the year, she adds.

Many members learn about the club by word of mouth. Bronstein was introduced to it by her sister-in-law. She had moved to Las Vegas in 2017 after retirement and, like many newcomers, was looking for friends and activities as she grew acquainted with her new home.

It’s a common dynamic, Bronstein adds. Members include people who move here for Las Vegas’ retirement advantages, women whose husbands died after they relocated here, and married and single women who are seeking new friends.

“It is hard to connect,” she says. “Particularly retirees. It’s hard to make new friends.”

“Most of the friends I have out here I have met through the club,” Bronstein notes.

Egge became a member in 2004. She and her husband moved into Sun City Aliante after retiring in 2000, and a fellow Aliante buyer recommended the club to her.

“She took me to my first new members’ coffee, and I knew this was someplace where I was going to find new friends,” Egge says.

‘Put yourself out there’

Egge has held several positions with the Westside Newcomers over the past 20 years and has participated in many of its activities. The more informal networking opportunities the club provides can also be useful, she notes.

“For most women the most important thing is we need a girlfriend and need a place to get a manicure or get our hair done,” Egge says.

When she lost her husband to pancreatic cancer during the COVID pandemic, “that was a difficult time, and I was surrounded by women who supported me,” Egge says.

The club is designed to foster social connection. The number of activities — more than 30 monthly — “gives you the ability to put yourself out there,” Bronstein says, while monthly luncheons offer additional chances to meet other club members.

Anyone can petition to create an activity within the club. Levine once participated in a group that convened to seek out Las Vegas’ best burgers. (The Burger Night group still meets.)

Annual dues of $45 cover a badge and a monthly newsletter and directory, and some activities require an additional fee. Membership is open to women of any age.

Bronstein says most members probably participate in more than one activity.

There’s almost always something to do, she adds: “You can do as much or as little as you want to do.”