It was almost pleasant when I went for my morning walk today. The operative word is “almost” but the trend is in the right direction and the worst of summer temperatures are behind us. This issue of Enews covers the following 3 items:

1. The September ASURA Board Meeting
2. The 2019 Meet and Greet with Panel
3. A new ASURA webpage menu – Retirement Info

September ASURA Board Meeting

Barry Bruns presented the budget for the 2019/2020 year which was approved. The budget includes money to upgrade the ASURA Office computers and continues to support the ASURA scholarship at the ten-thousand-dollar level.

At least partially because of the number of calls ADOA received from you, Jeri Meeks and Larry Carlson reported that ADOA had pulled its proposal to eliminate the opportunity to obtain coverage under an ADOA plan during open enrollment provided you kept your ADOA dental plan. But both Jeri and Larry indicated there was pressure from the state government to make this change, possibly via the legislative avenue. They will both keep an eye on this issue.

2019 Meet and Greet with Panel

Jean Duncan’s and Bev Buddee’s committees hosted a very successful Meet and Greet Pizza Party with Panel. There were around ninety attendees, fourteen Introductory Members. The event was held in the Conference Center at Ability360 on Washington Street in Phoenix, giving us enough space to host this record setting number of attendees. If you would like to read a short story about the event you can find that on the ASURA Past Events page for 2019. If you would like to see some pictures taken by Elmer Gooding, Don Nilsen, and myself check out the ASURA Photo Gallery.

New ASURA Webpage Menu

While reviewing our sister Arizona retirement associations’ websites this past summer we noticed a particularly interesting item on the NAU site – a menu item for Retirement Information. This is clearly a logical menu item for a retirement association’s website and so during this past summer Connie McNeill generated the new menu Retirement Info. The menu has seven sub-menu items:

• Retiree Benefits and Discounts
• Choosing Health Insurance
• ASRS and ADOA Health Insurance
• Technology for Retirees
• Life Care Planning
• If Your Spouse Dies
• Other Retirement Topics

Some of this material is new, e.g., the section on If your Spouse Dies which was suggested by the NAU RA website, while some is previous material that has been updated, e.g., Technology for Retirees. I encourage you to visit the ASURA website and review the material in the Retirement Info menu. Let me know what you think about this material and any suggestions you have for improvement or additional topics.