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Minutes 44th Annual State Convention West Virginia Federation of Chapters National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association May 19-20, 2009 1. West Virginia Federation President John Sheely called the 44th Annual West Virginia State Convention, West Virginia Federation of Chapters, NARFE, to order at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, 2009. The convention was held at the Cacapon State Park Lodge in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, and was hosted by District V Chapters: Eastern Panhandle, Martinsburg (Chapter 1236) Jefferson County, Charles Town (Chapter 2250) Morgan County, Berkeley Springs (Chapter 2263) Potomac Highland, Keyser (Chapter 2288) The colors were posted by the Martinsburg Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol Cadets. 2. Invocation and Pledge of Allegiance: After the invocation by Chaplain Anna Boggs, attendees recited the Pledge of Allegiance led by Wayne Mitchell. The National Anthem was performed by Sally Drury. 3. Convention Opening: Clay Ritchie, Federation 1st Vice President and Convention Host, opened the convention and welcomed everyone. Convention attendees were then welcomes by Tom Ambrose, Superintendent of Cacapon State Park, and Susan Webster, Mayor, Town of Bath. 4. Memorial Service: Anna Boggs conducted the Memorial Service honoring our 42 deceased members. A carnation was placed in an arrangement in memory of each deceased member. The Service ended with a hymn by Sally Drury. 5. Roll Call: Judy Cross, Secretary, called the roll of officers and reported all but one officer were present and identified. Kelley Sponaugle, 2nd Vice President, was not able to attend this year. Convention Attendance: Delegates - 72 Visitors, Guests and Others - 12 Total Chapters in Federation - 17 Chapters Represented by Delegates - 14
Chapters Represented by Proxy - 0
Chapters Not Represented - 3 6. Minutes: Reading of the minutes of the 43rd Annual State Convention was dispensed with as motioned. 7. Treasurer’s Report: Shirley Campbell, Treasurer, presented the annual Treasurer’s report. Balance as of May 19, 2008 Checking - $8,095.36 Savings - $5.02 Income - $12,073.87 Expenses- $12,715.12 Balance on Hand May 19, 2009 - $7,459.13 Treasurer’s report was approved as presented. The Electronic IRS Form 990-N for the Federation was filed and accepted for the 2008 tax year on March 5, 2009. District Vice Presidents were instructed at the last Board meeting to remind their chapters of the filing requirement for the e-postcard. Vice Presidents were again reminded at the beginning of May 2009 that reports are due to be filed with IRS by May 15th. This year, the account with United Bank was closed out. All Federation funds are now in the Premier Federal Credit Union. 8. President’s Report: John Sheely, President, West Virginia Federation of Chapters The Board agreed to keep the per capita dues at $3.00 per member. National Headquarters uses the Federal guidelines for gas mileage; it is currently 50.5 cents per mile. In the interest of time, I’m going to cut my report short and go ahead and introduce the Region X Vice President, Paul Carew. 9. Region X Vice President’s Report: Dr. Paul Carew, Region X National Field Vice President. I’m very pleased to be here the first time as your Region X Vice President. I want to take a second to clarify the mileage rate. It goes from IRS to GSA to us—in other words, IRS sets the rate. It was 54.5 cents; however, we all took budget cuts and NARFE elected to take 10% off of our mileage rate. I’d like to spend a few minutes discussing a very important issue that’s facing NARFE at this time—a proposed referendum on unified dues. Then I’ll call your attention to an event that’s coming later this summer that is also very important. First of all, we all know that the economy has not been kind to us. It’s been unkind to NARFE members, and to NARFE. Despite our best efforts our investments portfolio continues to suffer right along with other Americans who have risk-taking plans or 401Ks. All retirement plans are tied to the stock market—some have weathered the storm better than others. But I’m not here to talk about the economy today because I can’t do anything about it—it will turn around eventually and things will get better. One thing that is not showing signs of turning around is NARFE’s membership numbers—despite the efforts of our membership office staff, and those of you here in this room who carry the NARFE message to prospective members. We continue to recruit over 20,000 members a year, but we continue to lose over 24,000 members a year for non-renewals. That 24,000 does not include deaths which average 8,000 or 9,000 a year. A major reason for non-renewals is our requirement for chapter membership. For years we have been discussing the disadvantages of this issue. If we create a single NARFE dues, there will be no national dues and no chapter dues, there will be just one dues—NARFE dues. NARFE members could choose to participate in chapter activities or not. Either way they would have one simple dues. This would certainly help our retention efforts. At the last two national conventions, resolutions for implementing this change came very close to passing. The time for change is really now. For too many years, we have made it difficult to become a NARFE member. Remember the days when you had to work for Uncle Sam or the DC Government for 5 years to be eligible to be a NARFE member? I bet all of us remember when we were strictly a retirement organization. But that didn’t bode well for us when we approached active federal workers who were a few years from retirement. Then we changed the name of our organization to include the word “active.” We designed recruiting strategies aimed at those who were a few years from retirement and we had some success. Over the past couple of years the active federal employees who have joined NARFE make up about 20% of new members. But here comes the problem. Remember when I said we seem to make it difficult to become a NARFE member. Sometimes we also make it hard on ourselves to keep new members that we do recruit. As new members they join at a specific rate. Then a year later they get a renewal statement that is usually at a higher rate. Why? Because chapter dues are factored in. Now before you begin thinking that this is an anti-chapter message, please let me assure you that it isn’t. It is an attempt to make it easier to recruit new members and retain the ones we have. Let’s examine the new member who joins for the new member rate of $33 for the first year, then finds out it going to cost $5, $10, or even more to renew that membership. Sure many of them do renew, but all too many do not and let their membership lapse. According to our statistics, our retention numbers for the first year renewals are much worse than for those who have been members for up to 10 years. And there is another statistic which is even harder to think about—28% or more of our members drop out in 3 years or less. Is this solely because of dues increases? Probably not. But if you read some of the letters from those who don’t renew, it’s for that reason. Look at it this way, if you order a magazine subscription for $20 a year. When the year is over you get a renewal notice that says you now owe $30 a year for the same number of issues. What would your reaction be? My guess is you would tell them what they could do with that subscription. This is what we’re trying to get away from, and why we’re coming to you this year with the referendum to try to accomplish that. You can call it single dues if you want, but I prefer just to use the term “NARFE Dues.” No matter what you call it, it’s an idea whose time has come. At the Federation Presidents’ meeting in Louisville last September, the Presidents supported the NARFE dues plan by over 90%. The resolution as approved by the National Executive Board at its November meeting calls for a NARFE dues of $40 ($4, or 10%, goes to the Federation; $9 goes to the chapter; and $27 would stay with National). Right now the average chapter dues is around $8 a year. If you are in a chapter at the low end of the scale, this would be a slight increase; if you’re on the other end, it will mean a reduction in dues. The last thing we want to do is impact the operation of the chapters. Let’s say your chapter charges $15 a year, and uses this money for a well-produced monthly newsletter as well as other community outreach programs. There is nothing to prevent this chapter from asking their member to kick in an extra $5 or $10 a year to continue their programs. Conversely, if your chapter only charges $5 a year, there’s nothing to stop a chapter from returning some of that money back to its members or you can use the extra income to further NARFE programs in your chapter. But, that is a local chapter issue. Discussion of the NARFE dues proposal is not new. There have been very few national conventions in the past 18 years where there has been no resolution to implement unified, or NARFE, dues. And yet, at the past two conventions the majority of the delegates voted in favor of this concept, but came up short of the necessary two-thirds majority to amend the Bylaws. For example, at last year’s convention in Louisville the proposal received 3,929 votes, or 63.7%--but fell 180 votes short of passage. We could wait until next year’s convention in Grand Rapids to get this before you again. But to be honest it’s past time for waiting. By taking this proposal to chapters via referendum we can virtually guarantee that all NARFE chapters will have a vote. There are still too many chapters that do not send their voting delegates or proxies to a convention. This literally disenfranchises members of those chapters. But with the referendum, everybody will have a chance to vote. I ask you to search your hearts and do what is best for the future of this organization. You’re attending this Federation convention because you believe in this organization. You wouldn’t be here is you didn’t. Please go back to your chapters and encourage your members to support this NARFE dues referendum. You will get your ballots in September. I hope that every chapter will dedicate at least one meeting to discuss and debate the merits of this issue before the chapter votes. As men and women who are the heart and soul of NARFE, I would hope that you’ll be the ones to lead the charge for a “yes” vote. I know you’ve heard that NARFE is at a crossroads and we’re running out of time to fix things. It’s still true, and given what’s happened the last 12 months to our economy, the hourglass may be emptying faster than we thought. Please help us get the NARFE dues referendum the two-thirds majority it needs. The second event I want you to think about, in fact I want to encourage you to begin planning for “NARFE Grassroots Advocacy Month”—formerly known as “lobbying month.” The goal of Advocacy Month is to use the August through Labor Day recess to conduct visits with every member of Congress. As I said at the beginning of this talk, this is one of the vital issues that we’re facing this year. With the economy the way it is, and with the deficits before the President and Congress at this point, we know that our entitlements are going to be looked at closely. Those of us who went to Washington in March for the Legislative Conference remember that a lot of the Representatives and Senators we talked to said that entitlements are going to get a haircut. As much as we dislike the idea, we have to knuckle under and say we want a level playing field and don’t want to singled out like we have in the past for more cuts than our contemporaries. We have to face that bitter fact; we have to look at this rationally. But, that means we have to go to our legislators this summer and make sure they understand our position in NARFE. In the near future, more information about the “Grassroots Advocacy Month” will be sent to Federation and Chapter Presidents. I’ve already seen the package and it’s quite comprehensive and very helpful. In closing, let me share some great news with you. At the end of February, our members donations to Alzheimer’s Research have reached the $8 million level. In fact, as of March 31, 2009, it is $8,062,271.30. We can be very proud of what we’ve done since we joined with the Alzheimer’s Association in seeking a cure for that insidious disease that impacts so many of us, our friends, and our loved ones. Certainly there have been many gifts and grants as significant as ours, but the beauty of NARFE contributions is that it comes from individual members—money collected at chapter meetings and Federation conventions. Let me say, finally, that we as an organization, had some success this year on the legislative front but we have miles to go before we can say our earned benefits are secure. Again, I especially want you and your chapters to study and discuss the NARFE dues referendum. Question: Under the NARFE Dues, what will Life members pay? Answer: Unless waived by the chapter, they will pay the new chapter dues rate of $9 per year. Question: Is there still a discount for “dues withholding”? Answer: Yes, there is a 10% reduction. It’s interesting though that when I asked why people had “dues withholding,” 9 out of 10 said it was for convenience because they were tired of getting the “second notices” and “third notices” not because of the reduction. The 10% reduction was icing on the cake. Question: What is the process for voting for the NARFE Dues Referendum? Answer: Each chapter will get a ballot in September. You’ll be voting by chapters. Each chapter will have one vote for every 50 members, or portion thereof. You should devote one or more meetings to discussing this. Your chapter will vote—the vote does not have to be unanimous, it can be split (but must be split by whole number). Question: Can a spouse of a retiree have their dues withheld? Answer: I believe so. Question: For those of us with “dues withholding,” will NARFE notify OPM of the rate change? Answer: Yes. John: This shouldn’t be too hard to understand. Our organization is losing members. I was on a National committee to look at enhancing NARFE for the 21st century. One of the things that came out of that committee was that we need to come up with a “single dues”. We tried and couldn’t get it passed at the National convention. It’s up to your chapters as to how you want to handle the extra dues that will come back to you—it’s not a Federation thing, it’s a chapter thing. Each chapter will handle their dues differently. It does mean a dues increase for chapters in our Federation. I’m with Paul, I belong to the Moose, the Elks, those dues are $50 a year and I don’t get anything from them. They’re asking me to do stuff! This organization is fighting for your benefits—that increase to $40 a year will cost you $3.33 a month—about 11 cents a day! 10. NARFE-PAC: John Sheely, President, West Virginia Federation of Chapters Frank Perazzoli is manning a table across the hall for me. See him before you leave! Just yesterday I collected $195. It’s not important what we contribute, it’s important that we do contribute! 11. Committee Reports: Audit Committee: David Masto, Chair Members: Helen Holder, Sterling Mullinix, Coy Rahman The Audit Committee for 2009 finds no discrepancy and approved the books as correct. I’d like to commend Shirley Campbell for the work that she’s done. *********************************** Legislative: Robert Hardesty, Chair Members: Judy Crum, Mark Hobday, Brenda Layne, Wayne Mitchell, Bill Moore, Clara Nick I’d like to point out that when the Legislative Committee met, we represented Districts I, III, IV, and V. We had a really good discussion. We talked about a lot of things, but I’m going to narrow it down to three primary items. The first being the change of the legislative business month. The importance here is that although many of us on an individual basis will contact our representatives in the House and Senate. One of the things that we determined needs to be done is to make sure that when we make these contacts, we make them not only on our own behalf, but as members of NARFE. Don’t forget that you’re a member of NARFE. It is vitally important for our members of Congress to remember, and be reminded on a regular basis, that we are members of NARFE and we’re advocating on own behalf as well as other members of NARFE. So the more times that hear this, even though our membership may be going down, they might think we’re getting bigger and stronger! Second item: a number of us thought that maybe we should be pushing on a single issue, such as Premium Conversion, to be supported by multiple other organizations. Let our national representatives know that this is an issue. We would ask the District Vice Presidents to emphasize this particular area and make sure that when we do make contact with our congressmen and representatives that they understand that this is an issue that we’re pushing, and that it’s not a partisan issue. AARP works like this. They had this bill they wanted passed, and it wasn’t a partisan issue. They simply showed up at every rally that they could think of that was attended by a public official, or a “want to be” public official, and wanted to know whether this person was going to support protection of pension and retirement income rights and protection and promotion of guaranteed health care. There’s no reason why NARFE can’t do the same thing to let our representatives know that we are out there and our vote is going to depend on their involvement in the issues that we’re promoting; for example, Premium Conversion. The third item: the one that’s near and dear to a lot of our hearts, and that the $20,000 tax exemption that we’ve been fighting for in the WV legislature. As you probably know, in 2007 we actually got a compromise piece of legislation through the House; it went over to the Senate, but died in the Senate Finance Committee. The reason it died is that the Chairman, Walt Helmick, indicated that he didn’t think it should pass because he personally knew someone who received a pension of $72,000 a year and spent their time playing golf, and, therefore, they didn’t deserve a break. The point is that this is the attitude of legislators. The interesting part is that when he told the first group this, it was a group of State retirees so the person who received the $72,000 a year was a Federal retiree. When he got to talking to us, the person was a State retiree! What this tells you is that politicians will tell you what they want you to hear. We’re convinced that the Governor actually stopped this legislation. That was 2007. This year, we got the bill introduced into the House and Senate right away—we had some friends in both places. But it died! Those friends are not in the high levels. It went right to the Finance Committees in both the House and Senate. The House is not going to take action on it this year. I was told it is because last year they passed a bill that went to the Senate and it died. If the Senate isn’t going to take action, they’re not going to embarrass themselves by passing a bill once again that will die in the Senate! They’re like two kids in a sandbox! In spite of this, this year we managed to go to the Vice Chair of the Senate Finance Committee. We didn’t get a chance to talk to him directly, but we saw his assistant and we got her attention and we gave her copies of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that said that the State may not discriminate against one Federal pension versus another and it may not discriminate against one public pension versus another. She did a little research and work herself and found out that we were right. Of course they can’t take the special tax exemption away from the military, away from the State Police, away from the firefighters, and others. This all happened during the last few weeks of the legislative session, so things were coming right down to the wire. The next day they had a hearing scheduled for the Senate Finance Committee to talk about putting our bill on the agenda, but once again it didn’t make it. As a result of our work on the tax exemption issue, we decided three things. Number one, and I don’t think this is going to go anywhere, we going to ask Darrell McGraw, the Attorney General, if he would represent us on this. He won’t, but we might get a written decision out of it. The second thing is consider finding an attorney to represent us, or at least give us a good opinion on whether we have a case at all. I’ve made contact with an attorney, but have not heard back from him as yet. After that, if we do find that we do have a good case, we will consider whether we as a group can contribute a little bit of money for pursuing this issue—perhaps the organization could contribute maybe $10 a head to basically pay the lawyer. Even though a lawyer might not charge us a fee for representing us, there would still be administrative costs incurred. Number three is that we might contact the WV University School of Law to represent us against the State! You may laugh at this, but the WV University College of Business and Economics has done at least two studies concerned with the value of retiree income to the economy of WV. The last study was done in 2006. Their basic conclusion was that retirees are a boon to the State. Our income is virtually recession proof, we don’t cause much to the cost of the infrastructure, and our money turns around in the economy multiple times. The State has been looking at this issue as strictly a cost to the tax coffers; nobody will look at with regard to the potential economic interest to the State. We believe that the tax exemption would actually bring more money to the State. I apologize for taking so much of your time. But we welcome your comments and opinions on this issue. John: I’d like to make just a couple comments. For those of you in Senator Helmick’s district, I encourage you to write a letter to him and make no bones about the fact that if he can’t support you as a retiree, you’ll not be voting for him. That’s the only way you can get his attention. I’ve sent a letter to all newspaper editors in the State concerning his actions. He should have never made that statement and he shouldn’t be representing us. He’s working at the request for the Governor, not the constituents he was elected to represent. ************************************ Membership Committee: Clay Ritchie, Chair Members: Linda Baer, Anna Boggs, Grace Pemberton, Frank Perazzoli, Charlotte Trent, Clara Weston We talked about most of the same things every year. Get out into your communities, participate in groups, make yourself visible, and share information about NARFE. The walk that Morgan County sponsors is great advertising for NARFE. Clara Weston: It’s a 5K walk done during the County Fair. Their chapter receives half the proceeds and it is donated to Alzheimer’s. Get involved in parades, in fund raisers. Anything to get NARFE noticed. Publish your new memberships in your chapters. Have phone trees to get the word out about your meetings and encourage members to attend. Try to get current members to bring new members in—recognize them for doing this. Some of our members are getting elderly and might need a ride to meetings. Attending and manning a booth at Health Fairs is a good tool for membership drives. Call agencies in your area to find out when they will be having them and request space. Health Benefits seminars are also good. When you’re traveling around, keep NARFE information with you, you never know when you’ll run into a retired Federal employee. Contact your local public TV stations to see if they’ll advertise your meetings. Most newspapers have free meeting advertising. The best way to keep people attending your meetings is having a good speaker/program. You can’t always have politicians, so switch it up and get folks from Hospice or your Senior Center. Last year we had 2,006 members at the end of the year; this year we have 1,993. There are 15,000 plus retired federal employees in WV; current federal employees number over 19,000. That’s only 2,000 out of 35,000! We have had some accomplishments over the past couple of years. Our web site it up; there are still blank pages being held for those chapters who do not have information as yet. We’ve used matching funds to purchase new banners for chapters (again, not all chapters took advantage of this). We also purchased a banner to be used at health fairs, special meetings, etc., that is shared with all chapters. Before I sit down, I want to thank everyone for their support during my time as Federation 1st Vice President. ************************************ Convention Site Committee: Jean Ritchie, Chapter 1236 Members: Judy Asel, John Chittum, Iris Duckwall, Normal Malson, Shirley Moore Before I begin, I want to address a question that came up yesterday. We were asked about the schedule for conventions and particularly why was District IV holding a convention before District II. Last year it was decided to host the conventions by district, the order was determined so that the convention would not take place in the same area in two consecutive years. The committee’s recommendation for hosting future conventions is as follows: 2010 – District IV 2011 – District II 2012 – District I 2013 – District III 2014 – District V Next year’s convention will be sponsored by District IV. It will be held May 17-19, 2010 at Pipestem State Park. They will be asking chapters to bring an achievement board similar to the board Morgan County displayed at this year’s convention. ************************************ Public Relations: Lois Mitchell, Chair Members: Janice Nicholson, Babulal Pragani, Pat Sparks, Barbara Spitzer, Glenda Summers Barbara Spitzer presented for Lois. We came up with a lot of the same things that the Membership Committee came up with. Public Relations is getting out and talking to your members and potential members. Our first thought was to make sure your meeting information is in your local paper. Here in Morgan County, we have a lady who puts an article in every month. We also thought about maintaining a video/photo library of your group that you could take and give talks at local meeting to explain what NARFE is does, and show them what your group is doing. Something that we missed out on this year, and should have been done is writing a proclamation for your mayor to establish a NARFE week or day. Have a press conference for the signing so that that it can be recorded by the press. Set up information tables at county and health fairs. Sponsor and participate in local events. Don’t forget your nursing and assisted living homes. A lot of our members are getting older, and they may be in assisted living homes. If they can’t get to meetings, take a mini-meeting to them. Almost all clubs put out newsletters. Make extra copies and put them with extra copies of the magazine in waiting rooms in doctors or lawyers offices, or anywhere where people are sitting for a period of time.
Word of mouth is also good. Whenever you’re in a group, talk about NARFE. Talk about what you’re doing and let people know what’s going on. Write letters to the editors to let people know what’s going on. I came up with a couple things after our meeting was over yesterday. We meet during the day in Morgan County. Our group also includes current workers. Why not have two or three meetings in the evening during the year? Maybe your meeting day doesn’t agree with some peoples’ schedules? Maybe move it to another day? You need to alternate some of your meetings and maybe attract some other members. Why not sponsor a “Get To Know NARFE Day”? Have a few snacks, get someone from OPM in, and invite everyone who is a retiree or potential retiree. Paul Carew: I recently found out that if you have a public library and they will agree to place it on a rack, NARFE will send them the magazine free of charge. John Sheely: I know that putting the magazines in doctors’ offices works. I recently ran into someone who told me he didn’t know that I held an office in NARFE. I asked how he knew, and he told me he saw the NARFE magazine in his doctor’s office. One thing I do when I go into a doctor’s office is go through the pile of magazines and put ours on top! I want you to also remember the 50/50 money available from national for recruiting initiatives. ************************************ Resolutions: C. Donald Summers, Chair Members: Shirley Sigmon, Deb Zaken We had one resolution submitted. I’ll read it as submitted from Chapter 2250, Paul Burke, President: “Please consider the following resolution at the 2009 Federation Convention. Be it resolved that the West Virginia Federation ask the NARFE magazine for an article explaining each line item in the annual financial statement, in terms of the number of staff and main activities. I hope other delegates agree with our chapter that this would be informative and interesting for the membership.” We had a good bit of discussion on this and it centered around the need to know—do we really need this information. The consensus was that it may not be absolutely necessary, but it would be interesting and also give us an idea on how National is spending the money from our dues. The other thing we talked about was who really would be responsible for putting together this information. We felt that it should be submitted along with the financial report by the National Treasurer and his staff. We decided to change the resolution somewhat to: “Be it resolved that the West Virginia Federation requests that the National Treasurer submit an article for publishing in the NARFE magazine explaining each line item in the annual financial statement in terms of the number of staff and main activities. This article could be published along with the annual financial statement.” John Sheely: Any further questions on this resolution? No. Then we must vote on whether this should go forward or not. All voted in favor of forwarding the resolution to National. *********************************** Constitution and Bylaws Committee: Roger Dailey, Chair Members: Larry Cross, Charles Fridinger, Barbara Hobday There are three resolutions for changes to the Bylaws. Judy has made copies. They will be given out to chapter representatives. Take them back and review them; they will be acted and voted on next year. *********************************** President’s Committee – David Nicholson, Chair Members: V. Jane Lambert, Darrell Sigmon, Rita Smith We discussed many things concerning problems that chapter presidents might have. A big problem is membership and retention. We’ve already talked about these today. But I’ll repeat: carry membership information in your car, talk to people, leave magazines in waiting rooms. In order to get people out to meetings you have to have something they want to hear—you need have good speakers. The President should have an agenda—don’t get up and stumble around! Try to have the meeting as short as possible. Keep members informed. ************************************ Credentials Committee: Judy Cross, Chair Members: Ann Mullinix, Helen Pearson, Betty Richard Before I get into the Credentials Report, I want to mention two things. First, I have 50/50 raffle tickets! Second, I have the three Bylaw amendments here, along with a signature sheet. When you come to pick up your ballots, I’d like you sign for the amendments. If you prefer not to pick them up today, I’ll send them to your chapter president or secretary. We met to determine if there was a quorum, and also the number of delegates for each chapter. There is a quorum to conduct necessary. Our report is based on 1841 members. Following is a list of chapters, along with the number of voting members and delegates assigned to each: CHAPTER MEMBERS DELEGATES 166, Charleston 111 5 171, Huntington 153 7 174, Parkersburg 109 5 567, Wheeling 70 3 No rep or proxy 950, Beckley 148 6 No rep or proxy 994, Greenbrier Valley 98 4 1023, Fairmont 86 4 1236, Eastern Panhandle, 302 13 Martinsburg 1579, Central WV, 159 7 Clarksburg 1584, Appalachian. 71 3 Bluefield 1614, Mountaineer, 134 6 Morgantown 2226, Princeton 20 1 2250, Jefferson County 150 6 2252, Tri-County, 35 2 Point Pleasant 2263, Morgan County 85 4 2287, Tygart Valley 58 3 No rep or proxy 2288, Potomac Highland 52 1 Total 70 Delegate Votes
In addition, each Federation Executive Board member and Past President (if present) is assigned a delegate-at-large vote. The delegate-at-large total is 13 (current Federation Executive Board members plus Past President Darrell Sigmon). ************************************ Nominating Committee – Clara Nick, Chair Members: Dan Duckwell, Phyllis Garlow, Brenda Layne, Shirley Masto This is the Nominating Committee from last year. Before we began with their report, John recognized them for their excellent work. Running for President is Robert (Bob) Hardesty; 1st Vice President (Membership) we have Anna Boggs and Clara Weston; 2nd Vice President we have Wayne Mitchell; we do not have anyone yet for Secretary; for Treasurer Shirley Campbell; for Chaplain, J. Mark Hobday; for Sergeant-at-Arms, Bill Moore; for Public Relations, V. Jane Lambert. A requirement to call from the floor for nominations three times for each officer resulted in a nomination for Jennifer Honaker (Chapter 171, Huntington) for Secretary. The following positions are accepted by acclimation: President, 2nd Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Chaplain, Sergeant-at-Arms, and Public Relations. Voting was conducted for the position of 1st Vice President. The 2009 Executive Board is made up of the following: President - Robert (Bob) Hardesty
1st Vice President (Membership) - Anna Boggs 2nd Vice President (Legislative) - Wayne Mitchell Secretary - Jennifer Honaker Treasurer - Shirley Campbell Chaplain - J. Mark Hobday Sergeant-at-Arms - Bill Moore Public Relations - V. Jane Lambert
Results of the caucuses for District Vice Presidents: District I – C. Donald Summers District II – Dave Nicholson District III – Rita Smith District IV – Darrell Sigmon District V – Dan Duckwall Paul Carew installed the officers. ***********************************
12. Paul Carew, Region X Vice President. I think this presentation will help you understand why the NARFE Dues Referendum is needed. This diagram shows the NARFE membership. Right? Wrong, there’s another group called “other members.” These are dues paying, magazine receiving members who cannot either physically go to a chapter meeting or will not go to a chapter meeting. Their only means of communication is directly up from national and back down to them. I called Nat Brown, National Secretary, about this and he says he gets information all the time from this group. The question is, “How big is this group?” 88% of our organization is outside the chapter structure! What does that tell me? That tells me that 10% to 12% are the chapter membership. How many people here regularly attend chapter meetings? You’re it folks! You basically elect your delegates to this convention, and you also elect your delegates to the national convention, and that means you control the agenda. We have about 315,000 members right now. In essence, about 30,000 members are good solid chapter-going members and are in fact managing the organization. The other 80% to 90% are outside and have great difficulty in making their feelings known. Most of our new members who come in, the baby boomers especially, immediately zoom right into the chapters. They go to one or two of the chapter meetings and then they’re back out with 88% to 90%. One guy told me he went to a chapter meeting in June and they were planning the Christmas party! It only takes one or two meetings and out they go. They don’t see any response to their needs and don’t see NARFE doing anything for them. What can we do about that? This basically gets into our retention problem. We’ve been arguing for a long time that we seem to do a reasonably decent job in recruiting. I say reasonably—we recruit about 25,000 a year. But keeping them is something else again. They go through this process, then they go out the door. It’s frustrating dealing with this. This is something we have to face. This is why we’re looking at NARFE in the future. What does this mean? This is a shrinking group. Fifteen years from now, most of the chapters in NARFE will disappear. Why? Because it is our age group, those born before WWII (the Silent Generation), who are committed to the chapter structure, believe in it, support it, they’re joiners, they work through the system that way. When we’re gone, the organization will go with us. We believe in NARFE and understand what it means to be a NARFE member and what it does for our principal mission (to protect our earned benefits). What will replace this? That’s what we’re struggling with right now. President Baptiste’s article in the June issue was basically written to these people outside the chapter structure—so that they would get into the chapter structure, at least momentarily, to make a decision on this referendum. A NARFE Dues will sort of dampen this requirement to be part of a chapter. Some people say we’re trying to kill off the chapters, but we’re not. If the referendum goes through, new members will automatically be assigned to a chapter, they will be paying chapter dues. But then it’s on the chapter’s shoulders to recruit that person into chapter structure. Right now it’s sort of a “push” into the chapter structure. There are a number of models that we could use if we want to keep NARFE alive. One of the best examples of a large organization that transitioned is AARP. Take the insurance and everything else out of your mind. When AARP started back in the 50s they had a very powerful chapter structure, and they still do have chapters. But they are basically social and service in orientation. They’ve moved more to the “direct” communication route. The National Dues structure is a right step.Question: How do we get past the image that we are a social organization? Answer: That’s a big problem. A lot of our chapters would be uncomfortable with changing. But we are becoming a social and service organization. We support Alzheimer’s, a lot of chapters do volunteer work in their communities. But we have to remember what our purpose is—to protect our earned benefits. We have to realize that a chapter that views itself as strictly a social organization will eventually vanish. Comment: I think that National should have an “issue” or “agenda” every month that they feel chapters should be talking about and emphasizing, and it should be published in the magazine. Answer: We pretty much do that now. I did a study on generational views starting with our generation, through the Boomers, then Gen X’ers, and the Millenials. Ours is the only one that have lived with this. We can’t make a blanket statement that everything is true, but the vast majority of Baby Boomers are not joiners. Look at the other groups that you belong to. For example, the American Legion is looking at options other than the Posts—because their Posts are shutting down. The VFW, churches, other clubs, Masonic Lodges are going through the same thing—and that’s because folks don’t want to join. How many people here have served as an officer in their chapter more than once? More than twice? One of the reasons is you don’t have new members coming in with new ideas, new energy, and excitement. So you find yourself rehashing and rehashing your officers until somebody says “I’m not doing it anymore.” All of a sudden you can’t get officers and “whammo” that chapter is closed. I closed two chapters when I was Federation President in North Carolina. Question: If 88% percent of the members are outside the chapter, how are we going to get their input for the vote? Answer: Somehow, you need to try to get them there. If you have telephone trees, call them; if you send out correspondence, include that. Refer to the Magazine and ask them to share their views. I want to leave you with one last question: Do you really truly believe that NARFE today is protecting your earned benefits? Too many people believe that we’re too small now to do this. We don’t have the impact that we should have. Congress people can count like everyone else! We have to turn this around. There is no reason why NARFE can’t be a million member organization. Just think about this question, and it may stir up some ideas to be able to deal with this. 13. The colors were retired, Chaplain Anna Boggs gave the Benediction, and the business portion of the convention adjourned at 11:50 a.m. ************************************** Banquet Convention delegates gathered for the banquet on Wednesday evening. John Sheely welcomed everyone, and Chaplain Anna Boggs opened with a prayer of thanksgiving. John then introduced our banquet speaker, Kathleen McGettigan, Deputy Associate Director, Center for Retirement and Insurance Services, Office of Personnel Management. Kathleen provided us with a Retirement Services Overview. She talked specifically in three areas: Trust Fund, Federal Employee Health Benefits, and Customer Service. John presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Kathleen and told her that an Alzheimer’s donation had been made in her name. Certificates of Appreciation and Alzheimer’s donations were also presented Paul Carew and Sally Drury. Phil and Ann Spriggs were presented with a Certificate of Appreciation for their work on the Convention and their work with Cacapon Park. The Convention organizers from the four chapters were recognized for their hard work. Clara Weston, Alzheimer’s Chair, recapped the wonderful success of the year and told us that all chapters participated! Our final total was $6,135.35. Morgan County, Chapter 2263, raised the most money this past year--$828.13 Tri-County Point Pleasant, Chapter 2252, raised the most per capita at $13.80 per member. The winners of the $50 each from the Alzheimer’s raffle were: Sharri Satterfield Barbara Robinson Jean Samples The Afghan for Alzheimer’s was won by Sterling Mullinix. The 50/50 drawing was won by Janice Nicholson. Janice and the Federation treasury are richer by $116 each! John Sheely closed the convention by thanking Clay Ritchie and District V for all their hard work, and for all participants in the convention committees (especially the Nominations Committee who volunteered to serve for the coming year). Chaplain Boggs offered the benediction and the 2009 convention was officially closed. Respectfully submitted, Judy Cross West Virginia Federation Secretary
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