The Board held its third Zoom meeting last Tuesday and it is slowly getting to be more comfortable. We practiced “raising” our Zoom hand to ask a question which turned out to be fruitless since as usual we all waited for a small crack in the conversion to jump in with our two cents worth. Sending Carl a speed up or slow down emoji did not have any effect. We have not yet twigged onto sending notes to each other but maybe at the next meeting.

Well so much for this nonsense, in this issue there is material on:

• The Board Meeting
• Open Enrollment
• Virtual Social Events
• Upcoming Election
• An AROHE Webinar

ASURA Board Meeting

The main business was the review and approval of the budget for this year. ASURA is financially sound and can continue supporting the $10,000 / year scholarship. There was also discussion about health insurance and virtual social events which triggered the two following items.

Open Enrollment

The health insurance open enrollment period is upon us or will be soon. For those using ADOA plans you have to make a choice or lose your coverage. For those using ASRS plans this is a passive year so you don’t have to make a choice to keep your current coverage. The amount of informational material available is almost overwhelming, snail mail, webinars, websites, etc. Following are some information sites that Larry Carlson, ASURA /ADOA health insurance liaison, or I thought could be useful.

• ASURA 2021 Medicare and Open Enrollment Seminar
• ADOA (retired) 
• ADOA (active) 
• Blue Cross 
• ASRS (YouTube) 

Virtual Social Events

It is becoming increasingly clear that ASURA is not going have any in-person social events for the remainder of this year. The three spring seminars are currently Zoom meetings. It may be possible that the April Annual Meeting can be conduced in-person; we will see. So, what can we do in the meantime?

Trudy Perez, ASURA Events Chair, told the Board about a Zoom social event she organized. Zoom has breakout rooms that let you create smaller collections of attendees. Trudy and co are just beginning to think about what might be good for ASURA. Let us hope they come up with an interesting event.

If you have participated in a largish virtual social event or have some ideas about such an event drop Trudy a line telling her about your experiences or ideas.

Upcoming Election

The 2020 election is less than a month away. ASURA encourages all of you to vote. Early voting has started. You can go to one of the voting centers today and vote or drop off your mail-in ballot. Go to iwillvote.com/AZ to find voting / drop-off locations near you.

AROHE Webinar – Wellness and Social Connection

Join a conversation related to the importance of social supports to one's individual and collective wellbeing and explore the opportunities and roles institutions and retirement organizations may provide to enhance the wellbeing of their members, communities, and institutions. This webinar will be presented via Zoom on Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 9:00 AM - 10:00 am PST. Since ASURA is a member of AROHE you are a member as well and can login in and register.