The productive Will Stasi as President year has come and gone and now we have started the Kay Faris as President year. She, along with the new Secretary, Partha Dasgupta and new Treasurer, Terrie Ekin, got off to a great start with their first Board meeting this week.

Barring some important information, this will be the last E-News until next September so stay cool, be cool and I’ll see you next fall.

Board Discussions

• We receive nice thank-you notes from the people we have supported. Ginny Sylvester, Chair of the Adopt-A-Family Committee, recently had a nice note from our ASU adopted family. Jan Shore, Chair of the Scholarship Committee, mentioned that she also had received a nice note from this year’s scholarship recipient. The Board felt it was important to let our membership know the impact that their dues and donations have and suggested that these notes be published in Prime Times.
• The Video History Committee has been very busy this spring. After the first interview with Jeremy Rowe had to be postponed, the Committee rattled off three interviews, Barbara Stark, Anthropology, Jeremy Rowe, Technology, and Peter Lafford, Humanities and UTO. Roger Carter has completed the editing of the Barbara Stark interview and it is ready to be add to our library collection. The interview with Peter Lafford was unique. Peter was in Virginia and his interviewer, Pat Schneider, was in our Tempe interview room.
  
  
  
  Meanwhile Carl Cross, Video History Metadata Chair, was busy trying to get a process for posting interviews to the library’s digital repository, KEEP. Some progress has been made but we are still not able to load our recently edited interviews.
• Pat Schneider, Chair of the Seminar Committee, reported the committee is looking into a change for the open enrollment seminar next fall – something that would be more focused on comparing ADOA and ASRS options. Stay tuned, Pat has to find out if ADOA and ASRS are willing to do this.
• The Finance Committee, which I chair and includes Barry Bruns, Larry Carlson, Terrie Ekin, and Sheila Ainlay, our new Financial Operations Manager, was asked to consider the financial impact of paying for the next scholarship in the spring rather than in July. Currently we pay in July but the process has numerous steps and getting everything done by the start of the semester is unduly stressful on the Financial Operations Manager and the student recipient of the scholarship. The committee felt the financial impact of making this change was acceptable and the Board approved payment in the spring for the next year’s scholarship.

Annual Meeting

Kay opened up a discussion of the Annual Meeting and what changes might be considered.

• The feeling of those Board members who attended was that it was a good meeting. The venue is nice and the speaker was excellent.
• An early morning meeting seemed less than desirable for an older audience and maybe reduced attendance. It was pointed out that, pre-pandemic, the meetings were always held early in the afternoon.
• It was suggested that an early afternoon meeting might only need carrot cake and water.

If you have any ideas about how to increase attendance to the Annual Meeting let me know and I’ll pass it along to Kay.

Membership Renewal

It is that time of the year:  time to renew your membership. Notices will be going out in the next couple of weeks. We have just completed a very active year and our events committees (Luncheons and Special Events, Pre-retirement Seminars, Seminars, and Travel) are all busy with robust plans for next year. So don’t miss out. Renew when you get your notice.

Upcoming Events

You should periodically review the Events menu on our website to see what new events have been added.

Upcoming ASURA Fall Events (dates to be determined)

• Meet and Greet (September)
• Open Enrollment Seminar (September / October)

Pre-retirement Seminars (4th Monday of each month

• May 22 – Medicare
• June 26 – Panel
• July 24 – TIAA & Fidelity
• Aug. 28, Sept. 25, Oct. 23 (topics TBD)

IInternational Travel Events

March 11 2024 Costa Rica (contact Joyce Hartman Diez)

Barry McNeill

Editor