Chair Talk
February 2012
I have appointed Dave Cook to be the Membership Chair for the Coordinating Council. Mary Pollock and Dave Cook recently met with representatives from Civil Service and ING about SERA participation in future pre-retirement seminars.
I have been doing some research as to the number of SERA members we have had through the years. I went through Chapter Directories, Treasurer Reports and other documents that had been passed on to me by Polly and Lindy Guy. I did a history back to 1991 (22 years) and demonstrated the ups and downs in SERA membership. Currently there are about 56,000 state retirees and only about 9,000 are SERA members (less than 16% of eligible retirees). Mary Pollock and Maria Tomaszewski have done similar comparisons by Chapter. All 3 reports will be available at the CC meeting. Apparently, what we have been doing in the past 20 some years is not working. Chapters have spent a large amount of their funds in new member recruitment that have shown little results. I believe that it is time that we rethink how we attempt to entice retirees to join our association. Neither the Coordinating Council nor the local chapters have the funds to commit to a large scale new member recruitment drive. That is the number one reason I am interested in pursuing the new member proposals that have been put forth by VBS and APSA. Unless we do something that works we will not be able to convince retirees to join SERA.
Last month I appointed an ad hoc committee (Mary Pollock, Dave Cook, Dave Reusser, Maria Tomaszewski, Bruce Andrews, Tony Grudnoski and myself) to look into the proposed new member recruitment agreement that we had been discussing with VBS/APSA. At the end of their committee assignment I wanted them to make a recommendation to the Coordinating Council as to their thoughts on any agreement between the 3 parties. As part of the work on this committee they were to read the draft agreement proposed by VBS and to discuss any changes they would like to see in the agreement. As part of their duties, on January 23, 2012, they visited the Warren location of APSA. Four of the committee members (Mary Pollock, Dave Cook, Dave Reusser and I) met with VBS and APSA representatives to tour their facilities and discuss the content of the proposed new member recruitment agreement. We were in Warren for about 4 hours discussing the proposals of VBS and APSA. Mary Pollock worked on the wording of the agreement and the committee concurred that the new member recruitment proposal should be presented to the CC with a recommendation to accept the agreement. The agreement will be presented at the February 3rd SERA CC meeting for consideration.
ATTENTION CURRENT SERA MEMBERS
APSA is offering FREE TAX PREPARATION (this year) for current SERA members! If you are interested in this money-saving benefit call 855-318-2286 for further information.
Editor’s note: Bob Kopasz is Chair of the Michigan SERA Council. He may be reached at P.O. Box 692, Mt. Morris, MI 48458; phone 810/240-8380.