March 2024 Minutes
President’s Council of Retired Employees
Friday 1 Mar 2024 at 8:15 am
Foster Board Room, 2nd Floor, Buchanan Alumni House and Zoom
Members Present: David Bagley, Louis Bassano, Richard Borgman (Vice Chair), Richard Judd (Secretary), Richard Kent, Thomas Sandford (Chair), Claire Strickland, Cindy Eves-Thomas, Althea Tibbetts, Gail Werrbach, Ex Officio Members. Sarah McPartland-Good
1. PCRE welcomed new member Althea Tibbetts to the Council and Isabella LoRusso, Director of Communications.
2. Council approved minutes from 2 February, 2024.
3. Oral History Interviews: Tom Sandford and Marian Dressler were in attendance. This year the participants were interviewed together. Only two, Maxine Harrow and Bill Dalton, were able to attend; Mike Scott and Kathy Elliot were unable to participate at that time. The interviews went well, and the entire interviews and notes will be kept on file. The edited 15-minute segments will be available to the public in the library, on Digital Commons, and on the PCRE website. The entire interview took about 50 minutes.
4. PCRE Membership: Council needs a retired hourly (classified) employee. Claire will contact Larry Corbett again.
5. Hikel Award: Tom asked Isabella the status of the letter, which needs to be signed by the president. The announcement should be timely. Since Gail was chair of the Hikel Award, she should send a letter to the nominators of the Hikel awardee and invite them to the presentation. Gail needs the names of the nominators. Isabella will look into ordering the clock, and Tom will get the inscription. Rick will convey the wording of the inscription.
6. Website: Cindy will need photos from Althea and Isabella. On the website she added a form to subscribe to Silver Tracks. All past minutes are on the site, and the homecoming speaker is added to the homecoming page. Cindy will check the Gold Card form on the President’s website and add a link on the PCRE site. Isabella will check to see if the form could be filled out online.
7. Newsletter: Louis and Rich are working with Rick on the newsletter; they hope to have everything together in two weeks. Tom will need to contribute a column on the front page as last year. The homecoming will be featured there as well. Readers can use the back page to notify PCRE if they are attending. Rick will need information on the tours, and we will need to determine the maximum number of participants for the tours and have attendees reserve spots on the form.
8. 2024 Retiree Homecoming:
The speaker for the homecoming will be Jacquelyn Gill. Tom has asked her for a title and a summary of the content. It would be nice to have Dean Diane Rowland of the College of Earth, Life, and Health Sciences (ELH), or an associate director, say a few words about the College of ELH and perhaps the Climate Change Institute. Tom will contact Dean Rowland. We will also need the President to hand out the Hikel Award; the Homecoming is on her calendar.
The tours are set: the Littlefield Gardens, Rogers Farm, the Astronomy Center, and Hotel Ursa. Attendees will provide their own transportation to Rogers Farm, the Astronomy Center, and the Littlefield Gardens, but they will need a map. We need to reserve the parking lot by the Gardens/Astronomy Center and indicate in the newsletter where attendees should park. We will need better signs for the parking. PCRE discussed parking passes. Rebecca Huffstutler in Events and Hospitality could help with this. PCRE discussed a maximum of 30 participants for the tours, with one PCRE person per tour to organize the trip. We will need to provide a list of tours in the newsletter with attendees indicating first and second choices. We could do more than one tour of the hotel, starting at the same place but going in opposite directions to the Holmes, New Building, and Coburn sites. The tour of Rogers Farms will be at the Master Gardener Demonstration Garden and will be conducted by Kate Garland at the Rogers Farm. Brad Libby will do the Littlefield Gardens tour. We will need a shuttle for the Ursa tour for those who need it. We will need campus maps. We will need a more obvious sign for registration to be sure everyone registers, or a person directing visitors to the registration table. The Versant show is on future moon missions.
Tom distributed the prospective program timetable for comments. We will need signs for gathering places for the tours.
Althea will help Tom on the Information Tables. We had 24 tables last year. Aetna and Alight will need separate tables. Claire suggested the workshop on health insurance be held at a different time. Tom will contact the organizations next week.
9. Outing: The outing will be a Puffin Watch out of Bar Harbor on a catamaran that will hold up to 350 people or another than holds 150 people. It will cost $73.58 and take two and a half hours to travel to Petit Manan Island and back. Binoculars are available for rent on the boat. The cabins are enclosed. The tours, managed by the Bar Harbor Whale Company, leave at 9:30. PCRE could reserve 20 places, but others could make reservations independently. Parking is available but puffin-watchers should arrive early. The tours take place between May 15 and August 15. Tom suggested July 12, but this is tentative. Perhaps we could get a group rate.
10. The Retiree Health Benefits Advisory Committee: Claire and Althea are on the advisory committee. It would be nice to have a workshop with both Aetna and Alight. The workshop would need a person from PCRE to meet with the advisory committee. The Advisory Committee meets March 21, 3:00-4:00; Rick tentatively will attend. (The meeting is by Zoom.)
11. Other: Rick announced that AFUM sponsors a meeting on preparing for retirement scheduled for Friday, March 29 at 4:00 in the Union and on zoom. The meeting is titled “Making the Leap; Perspectives on Retirement.” PCRE could help with this. Louis reminded PCRE that we need something from the President about reappointing members. Isabella will check on this.
Motion to adjourn: Moved by Louis and seconded by David. Approved unanimously.