Except for the twelve members who live in rain-drenched California and those frozen members who chose to move to the Midwest and East Coast, aren’t the rest of us glad we live in sunny Arizona; I sure am.

Board meeting notes

• Penny Dolin, President of the University Senate, spent some time with the Board giving it a boatload of interesting information while the Board let Penny know about several of our important activities including information about our Pre-retirement seminars. Probably the most amazing piece of information from Penny was the sheer size of ASU – 80K students on the ground; 90K online. You can read more of what Penny had to say when the meeting minutes get posted
• Barry McNeill, Video History Project Chair, reported that the first interview in several years was planned for the next day. The interviewee was Jeremy Rowe. Unfortunately, the interview had to be postponed and will be rescheduled. The scheduling committee has several other interviewees lined up for this spring.
• Mary Stevens, Luncheons and Special Events Chair, announced that Barbara Eshbach was coordinating a spring luncheon with musical entertainment at Friendship Village. You will want to keep an eye out for the announcement of this fun event.
• Barry McNeill put on his Finance Committee Chair and reported that a review of last year’s expenditures showed that they were reasonable and as expected. The committee submitted two proposals for consideration by the Board (see below)
• Kay Faris, ASURA Vice President, reported that Dennis Hoffman, from the W.P. Carey School of Business, would be the guest speaker at the Annual Meeting in April. There are plenty of economic issues floating around and you won’t want to miss out on this presentation.

Book sales money

The Finance Committee recommended relaxing the current restrictions on how the money from book sales is distributed. Currently the book sales are split 50/50 between the Scholarship endowment and the Video History Project. The Committee recommended removing this restriction and replacing it with a statement that book sales money goes to support the Scholarship Endowment and the Video History Project. The Board approved this change which will take place starting next fiscal year.

Move money to endowment

The Finance Committee recommended moving an additional $5,000 to the Scholarship Endowment. The Board approved this recommendation which will bring the endowment to $100,000, if you can believe it.

Holiday potluck and bake sale

Thirty or so members gathered to celebrate the holiday season during our annual Holiday Potluck and Bake Sale. Mary Stevens and her committee of Partha Dasgupta and Trudy Perez decorated the room and tables creating a very festive atmosphere.  You can read more about the event and view event pictures on the Event report page.

Committee of the month – membership committee

The Membership Committee is one of our more stealthy but important committees. Working in the background and reporting to the Board, three of its important tasks are:

1. Taking a lead role in proposing or analyzing proposed changes in policies, operations, or communications that would encourage new and continuing membership in the organization.
2. Assuring that the association has useful and accurate records pertaining to membership. This is done in cooperation with the Database Committee, the Business Manager, and office coordinators
3. Coordinating the membership drive which involves updating the membership drive documents and working with others to ensure the drive proceeds smoothly.

Carl Cross is the current chair of the committee.

Privacy and security

All of us worry to varying degrees about our electronic privacy and security. As time has gone by organizations have implemented measures to provide better control. But this better control has come with a price; it is taking more steps to just do what we used to be able to do in one step. Second factor authentication, don’t open a file because it was from a different computer, etc. are becoming more common. We recently had problems with members trying to register for our seminars from their Apple devices. Pat Schneider, chair of the Seminar Committee, uncovered the issue – the browsers were not permitting the use of third party cookies. If we want to stay connected electronically we are going to have to learn to live with the increasing complexity.

Barry McNeill, editor