Annual General Meeting
The AGM was held at the offices of WorkSafeBC on April 13, 2016. Sev-enty (70) members attended the luncheon and the meeting afterwards. Everyone enjoyed visiting with friends and catching up on all their activi-ties. The food was excellent and plentiful and the deserts were divine. At 1:00 p.m. members adjourned to the auditorium for the meeting where President Maryanne Schulz introduced the current Executive. Nomina-tions were held for two posiNomina-tions; secretary and director at large. Ruth Friesen was nominated as a new director and accepted the position. Ruth previously worked at WorkSafeBC from 1995 to 2000 as Manager in the Rehab Centre for various departments such as Medical Rehab, Registra-tion Reps, Residence etc. In Sept. 2000 Ruth and her husband Cliff left the dock at Shelter Island in the Fraser River and sailed their 45 foot boat " Icicle" to 16 countries ending in Malaysia in 2015.
Christine Lucovic was also nominated as a new director for the position of Secretary and accepted the position. Christine was at WorkSafeBC for 28 years, working both full time, in a job-sharing program and also worked part-time. She officially retired in 2003 and then permanently in 2013. She was an Administrative Assistant in Communications and Research. Our guest speaker was Director, Loraine Fraser. Loraine demonstrated how to access our website and walked us through the links to be found on the home page. (www.wcbra.com)
20 members were fortunate to win a Tim Horton’s Gift Certificate in a draw just before the meeting adjourned at 2:p.m.
April/May/June 2016
Special points
of interest
• 2016 Calendar of Events • Business Meeting And Lunch • Christmas LunchInside this issue:
Pg New Members 7 Current Executive 1Report from the President 2. 3 In Memoriam 8 B Social Club - Movie Tickets - PNE Tickets 7
Hastings Race Day 5 5
Contact Us 8
Vol 9 Issue 2
WCB
RETIREES ASSOCIATION
Current Executive
Maryanne Schulz President Carol Sallenback Treasurer Christine Lucovic Secretary Eldon Johnston Director Rina Luchin Director Margaret Perry Director Carole Peterson Director Ruth Friesen DirectorCarol Christopher Associate Director Wendy Pantages Director, Editor Loraine Fraser Director, Web Master
5 8
President’s Report
Our year started with a visit to the Starlight Casino in New Westminster. 12 people attended, and though we didn’t hear about any big winners, we did hear the food was excellent.
Next was the Lunch & Learn presentation on June 12th. Eldon Johnson, Margaret Perry and myself facilitated an audience participation event titled, Life after Retirement. You may remember that we asked you for some feedback to include in these discussions in the Fall 2015 Newsletter.
The next group event was a visit to Hastings Park on June 14th. This is always a great event and I would encourage you to participate. On this occasion we had a $70 winner!
Next, our semi-annual lunch and art/hobby show on Oct 14th. 74 members attended. We have many artists in our group – Wendy Pantages, Pam Cohen, Mary Jacobs, Margaret Perry, and Judy Alexander displayed their amazing art. After lunch we had an inspiring travel presentation by Viking Cruises with a slideshow of a beautiful river cruise.
On Oct 20 we provided a booth at the WorkSafeBC Wellness Fair. Eldon Johnson and Carole Peter-son hosted this event.
The Christmas Party was on Tuesday, Dec 8th. Wow, again, this was an exceptional event. The food is always wonderful, and it really is ‘the party’ of the year. Diana Miles provided a great review of what had been happening at WorkSafeBC. But this event is always about friends. It’s the best time of the year to catch up with all your WorkSafe friends and to make new ones.
What else?
On February 25, Margaret Perry and I had our annual meeting with WorkSafeBC. We met with Barb Messenger and Scott McCloy to share ideas. Of interest, WorkSafeBC will soon have a new website available to the public and clients.
Also of interest, we have just updated our Application Form and accompanying letter for new retirees wanting to join our group.
Last year we added 2 new services on our website:
1. Upcoming Retirement functions when we were provided with the information. This has gone really well.
2. We also decided to consider advertisements for events that meet certain criteria. We were thinking of events that would benefit our retirees and were non-profit. Nothing came our way last year so if you know of an event, let us know.
MOVING FORWARD
Our first event this year is almost ready to go. We are returning to the horse races at Hastings Park on June 26. This is a great event - a buffet, horse racing, a little betting and maybe another big winner. Then on Oct 12, 2015 we have our semi-annual meeting. This year we will have lunch and a guest speaker. We don’t think we will have another art/hobby show this year because we haven’t had enough new participants. We are looking at options to keep you entertained by a guest speaker.
Next on Tuesday, Dec 6th our fabulous Christmas lunch. We have kept it on Tuesday to ensure we get the bigger room.
Also, we have 2 other possibilities for social events:
Firstly, I have found out that we can book the buses from Richmond’s Community Leisure Transporta-tion Fleet. The cost is reasonable. I figure about $6 per person for lower mainland locaTransporta-tions. Now, we just have to decide where to go. Some ideas: Sea to Sky Gondola in Squamish, a visit to Van Duesen Gardens, or what? Send an e-mail to the web site with your preference or new suggestion.
The second idea is Fraser Downs in Cloverdale for lunch and the Sulky races in the fall. Our next news-letter will have further details if that is to go ahead.
ISSUES
The biggest issue facing our group right now is that we no longer have access to a colour copier. This means we will not be mailing colour copies of the Newsletter. We currently mail 91 copies. This is too many. We again encourage you to provide your email address so that we can send you a colour copy by email. Our only other choice would be to raise the membership fee and have the Newsletter printed ex-ternally. This would be expensive and still require Rina to pick up the copies and go into WorksafeBC and manually mail the Newsletters.
We plan on continuing to update our picture board and bring it to each meeting; alternatively we may be able to put our pictures in a Drop Box online.
Another issue facing our Executive this year is the need to update our Bylaws. The BC Societies Act is changing and all associations are faced with this task. Luckily, since we are solely a social group without any paid staff the changes will be minimum for us. The update may cost us $100. One of the new rules – all the directors must be 18 years old!
The last issue is our concern that we do not provide enough for our Area Office Members. My only new idea is to encourage retirement announcements so that all our members can receive this information. This may result in renewed friendships, you never know. We would also love to see Area Office retirees at our meetings and especially the Christmas lunch.
- Maryanne Schulz
Hastings Park Race Day
Sunday June 26, 2016Doors open at: 10 a.m. Buffet: 12:00 p.m. Races: 1:50 p.m. Place: Silks Restaurant at Hastings Park
Parade to the Post between 1:30 to 1:40 Cost: $30.00 (Includes Taxes and gratuity)
Parking: $12.00 Program: $3.00
Please contact Rina Luchin by phone at 604-253-8547 or 778-228-2840 or by e-mail ([email protected]) no later than June 15, 2016. Payment of $30.00 is to be made payable to Carol Sallenback at 2555—127 St., Surrey, BC V4A 6J8. Payment must be received by Carol no later than Friday, June 17, 2016.
Please expect contact from the Phone Committee to confirm your reservation. If you do not
normally receive a phone call about an upcoming event, please contact Rina directly at: 604-253-8547 or 778-228-2840 or e-mail at [email protected] no later than June 15, 2016.
Deadline to sign up: June 15, 2016 Deadline for Payment: June 17, 2016
Page 6
Notes from the Editor
W
e
ll, I don’t think any-one expected this, right? A newsletter in black and white. Our contacts at WorkSafeBCadvise that I have been using too much colour and I have broken the photocopy machine so it was suggested I only do one or two pages in colour and the rest in black and white. You see, we have several members who do not have a computer and so must have a hard copy of the newsletter sent to them. Several of our members retired before the computer age, and it is unfair to assume they should become computer literate at this late stage. Addition-ally, some of our members for whatever reason do not wish to share their e-mail address so we cannot send them an electronic version of the newsletter. The ones who have a computer can download the electronic PDF version of the newsletter and enjoy a colourful copy of the newsletter on line.
Once again, members are encouraged to send us their e-mail addresses. Also, as the news-letter is available online through our website, members can always read it at their local li-brary.
W
e actually photocopy and mail outabout 91 newsletters. Therefore for an 8 page newsletter, this entails photocopying 728 pages in colour, which we can no longer do. So while I could do the on line copies in colour, I have decided for this issue that everyone will receive the same black & white issue.
D
rop me a line and tell me what you think.N
ow for an extra dose of not so good news, we must once again weed out those members who are two or more years in arrears of membership dues. At only $5.00 per annum, it is easy enough to forget, but some members pay once then we never hear from them again. If you find yourself in this category, please drop a line to Carol Sallenback who is in charge of our membership at 2555—127 St., Sur-rey, BC V4A 6J8. This may be your last newsletter and the last notice of upcoming social events.W
e hope to hear from you!-
Wendy Pantages, Editor
Travel Tips
Following the AGM, a member forwarded me a link to the Canadian Snowbird Association (CSA) when she advised that travel insurance through them was really cheap. Once again we are not advocating any specific organization to purchase insurance; every member should do their own research as far as what is covered, pre-existing conditions, who is the 1st payee etc.
The website states:
The Canadian Snowbird Association (CSA) is a 100,000 member national not-for-profit advo-cacy organization. It is dedicated to actively defending and improving the rights and privileges of Canadian travellers. Their travel Insurance is through Medipac. The telephone number for insurance queries is 1-888-MEDIPAC. The website for The Canadian Snowbird Association is
Welcome New Members
JACOBSEN, Lenore MATHEWS, Florentina (Tina)
PICKARD, Jane STONEBERG, Sue STRACHAN, Sue
URQUHART, Sharon
The “B” Social Club
- allows members of the Association to participate in WorkSafeBC’s sponsored “offers” and events.
PLAYLAND DISCOUNT TICKETS
WorkSafeBC 2016 Online Promotion Code is 28tqmq89
This promotion code will enable employees (as well as retirees) to purchase discounted tickets for Playland, the PNE, Fright Nights, and other special events at Hastings Park, such as Disney on Ice. To purchase tickets online, visit the PNE group sales online Ticket Program Events Web Page www.pne.ca/ groupsales<http://www.pne.ca/groupsales to purchase tickets for the event of your choice. Then just follow the on-screen instructions.
Movie discount tickets are available at $8.50 each and must be paid for in ad-vance. Please contact Sally Melo at [email protected]. Further tick-ets will be available in the fall and Sally will put your name on a list for when she gets an order.
Ticket information is not yet available for football or soccer. Hopefully there will be further information available by our next issue.
Contact Us Social Committee Margaret Perry 604-583-0025 Phone Committee Rina Luchin 604-253-8547 [email protected] Treasurer Carol Sallenback 2555 127th St. Surrey, BC V4A 6J8 [email protected] Newsletter Editor Wendy Pantages [email protected] General Inquiries [email protected]
Updated web site
www.wcbra.com
Calendar of Events
June 26 Sun Hastings Park Races October 12 Wed Semi-Annual Meeting/ Lunch
Dec 6 Tues Christmas Lunch at
Marine Drive Golf Course
In Memoriam
SMITH, Bill April 2016 (Field Investigation)
Sign up to receive your newsletter via email and send your e-mail address to [email protected] Send in letters, articles. Comments to your editor at
View the updated web site at www.wcbra.com Remember Dues are Due
If you are a retired member of an Area Office and get together regularly with your former colleagues, perhaps as a coffee group, lunch partners, golfing or travel buddies, please drop us a note and some pictures. Our members would be inter-ested in seeing current photos of former co-workers and would love to see what you’re up to!
