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The Retirees' Newsletter

The Faculty and Librarian Retirees' Association, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada

Issue #19 -- October, 1996

MEETING TIPS

Parking: Always a drag. With luck you can often find metered spaces right in front of Vanier Hall off Wyandotte Street. Best bet, if you don't mind walking, may be the church lot off University Avenue. ( Retirees can get, at half-price from the Campus Police, books of 10 tickets for that lot.. Price is $12. Till a year ago the U allowed us free parking there for our meetings. Then came the clamp-down.

Coffee: The one perk at our meetings! Lots of coffee! (We quit donuts years ago). After all, on 10 bucks a year...!?

Meeting Room: The Rose Room lies deep within the cavernous entrails of Vanier Hall. It seems to have been intended to produce mild claustrophobia to guarantee short meetings. If you get lost, ask directions from a student. Say that you're in Windsor representing the Ontario government...NOT!

Camaraderie: An important part of a retiree's life, even at meetings. Come early, prepared to enjoy some up-beat pre-meeting camaraderie with former colleagues. That makes the heavy stuff easier to take.



Dues Payment: Another drag! Dues for 1996-1997! But, hey, we'll have receipts ready, to try to avoid line-ups, if you'll try to have a ten-spot ready to avoid change-making.

Timing: Business should start at 2.30 pronto, and (with luck) be finished by 4. You may even have time to grab that donut at Tim Horton's on the way home.

ASSOCIATION INVITING MEMBERS TO BECOME

INCREASINGLY INVOLVED IN ITS ACTIVITIES

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, meeting Sept 25th, decided to issue a strong invitation to all members to get directly involved in Association's activities. If you are interested, there are many options open to you. And you may have good ideas which your colleagues would like to know about. Let's hear them!

Would you like to work on a committee? The most active of our committees is the Social Committee. Year round, it organizes wonderful events of all kinds. John LaGaipa is its chairman and you can help -- with your time and your ideas. We have a Bursary Committee too. In two years, it has built our Bursary Fund for Needy Students from zero to nearly $12,000.00! Cormac Smith is its chairman

Another committee, just getting started, (see below), is the Membership Committee. Its objective will be two-fold: to recruit new members who are eligible to join but haven't done so, (of whom there are surprisingly many), and to oversee dues collecting).

Maybe interest groups are more to your liking. These are still not highly developed in the Association. . Aranka Kovacs reports a successful discussion group that meets regularly. There is also a computer group, described in this issue. The possibility for such interest groups among retirees (especially in an academic milieu ) seems unlimited.

Remember that The Newsletter is here to help you share your ideas with your fellow retirees. Use it! And this means not just our local group.

We have members living far away. We in Windsor long to hear from you. Write us and tell us about yourselves and how it is where you are living. That makes retirement interesting.

Whatever your talents, whatever your interests, why not share them with your Association?

PROPOSAL TO SPLIT SECRETARY -TREASURER POST

A constitutional amendment which would divide the secretary-treasurer post into two, was approved by the Executive Committee at its meeting on September 25th, and will be placed before the Fall Meeting for consideration. The Executive Committee felt that the responsibility for recruiting members, collecting and recording annual dues, and maintaining membership records (name, address, phone, University affiliation, year of retirement, etc.), should properly devolve upon a Membership Committee, which in turn would be responsible to, and chaired by, the Treasurer.

The Committee deemed that the present structure, under which the foregoing duties are combined with the normal duties of secretary, results in placing an unduly heavy load upon one person. Under the proposal for splitting the two posts, the duties of the Secretary would continue to include the normal ones of keeping minutes of all meetings, maintaining all non-financial records of the Association, and doing necessary correspondence.

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