February 2023 Minutes
UM President’s Council of Retired Employees
umaine.edu/retirees
February 3, 2023
8:15–9:45
Minutes
Foster Board Room, second floor Buchanan Alumni House, and Zoom
Attendees: David Bagley, Louis Bassano, Richard Borgman (Vice Chair), Richard Kent, Sarah McPartland-Good (ex-officio), Thomas Sandford (Chair).
Absent: Richard Judd (Secretary), Meredith Whitfield (ex-officio)
Call to Order: Chair Tom Sandford called the meeting to order at 8:15 a.m.
It was noted that John Diamond has retired and is no longer an ex-officio member. Thomas Peaco replaced John as the new President and CEO of the UMaine Alumni Association. Sarah will confirm if he wants to be on our email distribution list.
Minutes and follow-up: In two separate unanimous (5-0) votes, the committee approved the minutes from February 2022 and January 2023.
While there are no changes to the February 2022 minutes, one item required a follow-up. Louis reported that Cooperative Extension Gold Card retirees do now qualify for a free gym membership (i.e. New Balance Student Recreation Center). Details were being worked out last February.
Then it was suggested that retirees who chose the Medicare Supplement route, instead of the Aetna retiree health insurance plan (which includes Silver Sneakers), should also be considered for a membership if desired. Tom will pursue that with the President’s office.
Membership: The committee wishes to thank five former members who have recently stepped down. We thank for their knowledge and contributions: Dusty Dowse, Marian Dressler, Michael Pullen, Sue
Randall, and Phyllis Thibodeau.
Two new committee members were proposed.
Tom nominated Brenda Collamore for the Gold Card Eligible vacancy. Brenda is a forty year employee who has worked as an administrative specialist in Philosophy and more recently Civil Engineering. Dave indicated that he knows Brenda and supports her nomination. The committee members voted unanimously to forward her nomination to the President.
Rick nominated Dr. Gail Werrbach for the NSFA vacancy. Gail was a faculty member at the University of Maine School of Social Work for 31 years and past Director of the School for 18 years. She retired in 2019. She was awarded the University of Maine Presidential Outstanding Teaching Award in 2008. Her research interests and publications were in the areas of child mental health, community mental health training, Indian child welfare services, and international social work. Gail lives in New Hampshire and will attend meetings via Zoom. The committee members voted unanimously to forward her nomination to the President.
Sarah asked Rick to encourage Meredith, after the President approves, to get acceptance letters out this month, before our next meeting in March so that Brenda and Gail can attend the next meeting.
Tom encouraged all of us to ask colleagues to find candidates for our open positions: Member-at-
Large, Classified (2), and Professional.
Membership updates:
Rick informed the committee that the proposal to add an Honors College category to membership has been forwarded to Meredith to bring to the President for consideration. Rick will also follow up with Meredith about retiree lists (as well as talk with HR about the annual retirement lists they must have for the annual retiree dinner). He will also inquire if she was able to reach out to appropriate people regarding retired classified and professional possibilities.
Richard Kent will also follow-up with Meredith about UMaine Machias retiree lists.
Tom provided an update on Mazie Hough. She is too busy to join our committee, but she is willing to be a mentor regarding the Oral History Project from All Maine Women.
Retiree Homecoming update: Rick provided an update.
The Homecoming will be Friday June 16 at Wells, room1. The room is reserved 8 to 3.
Habib Dager will be the featured speaker.
Two tours have been arranged:
- Tour of Composite Center featuring the printing of houses.
- Tour of new Engineering building.
Opening coffee and Lunch are being coordinated with Events and Hospitality. Cost estimates should arrive very soon.
We are working on parking—likely pdf parking passes which we can send out as an email attachment or print and mail out.
Rick suggests we invite last year’s Hikel awardee as well as the person we select this year. If possible, the student Brown scholarship winner will be there. The President has been invited to make some remarks. No answer yet.
Sarah will provide door prizes that will be given out at the end with Jeff Mills making remarks.
We have an agenda being built that follows prior agendas. That has us starting at 9 AM with registration and coffee.
There is still more to be done: additional speakers for comments and introductions, tables, swag bags.
We can use some help with some of these things. Please volunteer. Especially:
- Swag bags are created by the committee seeking donations for them from around campus.
- The tables are organizations that set up from about 9 to 1. Rick will send out a list from a prior year (thanks Sarah) of who was asked. We may have additional ideas.
- Three are already being pursued: Louis will ask Cooperative Extension about a table on nutrition and diabetes care, Richard Kent will write the Director of Upward Bound, and Rick will contact Senior College. But many more to contact.
Silver Tracks newsletter:
It will be a 4 page newsletter, like most of the prior editions. Mari Smith from the Foundation is helping us set up the formatting, word counts, etc.
A lot of it are set pieces (e.g., note from University President, note from committee chair, note about last year’s Hikel winner and this year’s Brown Scholarship winner).
I’d like a theme to be what services retirees might get from the university, and how retires might contribute and engage with the university.
Toward that, Louis is going to write about engaging retirees in university activities (he is interviewing the Dean of Cooperative Extension), and Rick would like to include some information on “Retiree Resources.”
It will have information on the Retiree Homecoming and the Retiree Filed Trip (see below).
We will seek to obtain email addresses.
We would like it completed by end of month.
Hikel Award: Rick will follow-up with Meredith about getting the request for nominations for the Hikel Award to go out asap. (HR was to do it.)
Website: Tom has regained access and is updating the website regarding members and so on. Louis had shared a link from SUNY Retirees Service Corp: https://www.suny.edu/retirees/about-us/. This site has their newsletters and much else. One intriguing thing they do is solicit “Retiree Stories” which they post online. This is something we can do. We will include a solicitation in the newsletter (if we can fit it!). They also have the results of a retiree survey which we should look into doing also.
Retiree Field Trip: There was a broad discussion of potential retiree field trip activities for early next fall. There were a number of wonderful ideas including an apple and cider theme, hiking with goats up Mt Waldo (how can one resist), and an Aroostook farm tour.
But the committee chose two to explore first. #1 a schooner trip out of Camden, and if that does not work out, #2 a trip to Monhegan Island. Tom will first talk to a captain he knows to explore the schooner idea.
We would like to include an announcement in the newsletter.
Our next meeting is March 3 at 8:15. It will be hybrid, and the zoom and boardroom will be open as of 8 AM.
Meeting adjourned at 9:45 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Rick Borgman