Melrose Menopause Summit Coming This Saturday
By Ellen Putnam
Photo From Shannan Hanson
On Saturday, the first-ever Melrose Menopause Summit will take place at the Knights of Columbus to provide women in midlife with health information and help them build community with other women who are going through the same changes.
The Melrose Menopause Summit was started by Shannan Hanson, who runs Cairos Coaching. She officially became a menopause and midlife coach this year following a career in the tech industry.
Hanson’s path to coaching began when she started an executive women’s leadership group a few years ago. “I thought that the participants would need help in the office,” she reflected, “but all they really wanted was a place to talk, to share what was going on with them, and to feel normal.” After running an online menopause support group, Hanson started an in-person group in 2024 in collaboration with Mel Landon, who runs The Worklery.
Hanson’s own personal experience solidified her belief in the need for neutral spaces where women can discuss their experiences with menopause and gain knowledge. She recalls that once, when she went to her doctor with menopause-related concerns, her doctor dismissed her symptoms as entirely mental health-related.
The Menopause Summit arose out of the Knights of Columbus Women’s Auxiliary, who were looking for speakers about menopause as a topic that members might be interested in hearing about. When the group connected with Hanson, the event soon became a full-day summit for all interested women with a variety of Melrose-based and Melrose-connected speakers.
Hanson has organized the event around three pillars: education, community-building, and storytelling. The event features a number of speakers throughout the day, with a community-building lunch for participants. Participants are welcome to come just for the sessions they are most interested in, or to stay for the entire day.
The speakers will include:
- Kristen Herlihy, psychotherapist, talking about creating science-based healthy habits
- Dr. Nicole Kocan of Refined Performance, talking about pelvic floor health
- Magen Price of Mystic Valley Sexual Wellness, talking about hormone therapy
- Jenine Wright of FitLife talking about nutrition
- Nicole Wade from the YMCA, talking about strength training
- Kathy Peterson of Breathe Easy Organizing, talking about decluttering
- There will also be a panel with Erin Browning, speech pathologist at Evolved Therapy, and Nicole Pichette of Live Well Collaborative, about sleep and stress
“I went back and forth on putting the word ‘menopause’ in the title,” said Hanson, “not because I’m ashamed, but because there’s sometimes a stigma attached to it. People might say, ‘I’m not there yet’ or ‘I’m over that,’ but honestly, the event should be helpful for women in their late 30s, in their early 60s, and anywhere in between.”
The event also aims to highlight a wide variety of approaches, from medication-based to more holistic, although Hanson emphasized that all of the presentations are evidence-based. “The goal is to have enough variety within the event that people will gravitate toward what’s important to them,” she said, noting that all of the speakers are experts within their fields.
Magen Price of Mystic Valley Sexual Wellness will be one of the speakers at the Menopause Summit
Photo Credit: Nancy Clover
In addition to educating participants, Hanson also aims to help attendees build community and to provide a safe space for women to share their stories. She talked about the relief that women in her support groups have felt on sharing their experiences and discovering that they aren’t alone - and how sharing those experiences helps reduce the stigma around menopause.
Hanson and I talked about how, in recent years, discussion of women’s health issues seem to be gaining traction in the mainstream. I reflected how it has become more acceptable to publicly discuss the challenges of pregnancy and postpartum in recent years, and she noted that celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Naomi Watts discussing their own menopause experiences is slowly making conversations about menopause more mainstream.
This increasing openness has led more businesses that focus on women’s health challenges to open in Melrose in recent years, including pelvic floor therapists and the new Mystic Valley Sexual Wellness. (And if you missed The Society of Shame, Melrose author Jane Roper’s hilarious and thoughtful novel exploring women’s health and midlife issues, grab a copy at Molly’s Bookstore and make it one of your fall reads!)
But being open about menopause is “really still in the early adopter phase,” Hanson said, noting that she sees local events like the Melrose Menopause Summit as the first phase, and the next challenge will be to bring this information to communities where it is not as accessible.
Hanson will continue to run her monthly menopause discussion groups, and she hopes to make the Menopause Summit an annual event. “Let’s get the first one under our belt,” she said, “and learn from it, and hopefully it’s so successful, people say, ‘Absolutely, let’s do this again.’”
