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October 11, 2005
The meeting was called to order at 12:02 p.m. The
Pledge of Allegiance was led by Walter Stewart and a
moment of silence was held for all the people who are
suffering through floods, hurricanes and earthquakes.
There were four new members in attendance and one new
member brought a guest. President, Norman Briggs,
announced that handicapped and the head table would get
their lunch and then the order of the tables would
follow.
President, Norman Briggs,
introduced our guest speaker, Eric Barthel, who is the
Health Insurance Benefits Consultant for Kern County.
Eric spoke on Medicare Part D. Medicare Part D is a
very confusing concept. Eric explained the different
choices that members have. If you plan to stay with
your current Medicare HMO, then your rates will
decrease. If you have the Blue Cross Gold the same also
applies. For those members who have Blue Cross Silver
call the Blue Cross Office because they will have
options for you. If you decide not to sign up for
Medicare Part D and at a later date you do sign up there
will be a penalty. For every month that you wait
following your initial eligibility they will add to the
cost of the program. Right now funding for this program
is guaranteed for at least two years, but after that
nobody knows. Eric announced that members will be
bombarded by advertisements, either by mail, radio or
television for premiums at very low cost or no cost. Be
sure you compare the coverage that you have to the
coverage that they are offering. If you choose to opt
out of the County plan, you will lose your stipend. You
will not be able to get back into the County plan until
the next open enrollment period and you will have to be
enrolled continuously for three years before you will
get your stipend back. Eric reminded everybody of the
Health Fair at the County Administration Building on
Thursday, November 3rd at 10:00 a.m. The County open
enrollment period runs from the time you received your
packet until November 10th.
BUSINESS MEETING:
TREASURER, John DeMario
gave the Treasurer’s Report for September 2005. The
report stated that REOKC membership as of September 30,
2005 was 3,445.
President, Norman Briggs, asked for
Linda Parker and June Ennis to be recognized for the
decorations on the tables this month. Thank you, Linda
and June.
CRCEA –President, Norman
Briggs, announced that Everett Julkowski has resigned as
CRCEA delegate due to his wife’s health condition. Dave
Merritt has been our alternate delegate and has moved up
to delegate. We will need a replacement for Dave as the
alternate. The CRCEA Conference will be held in Modesto
on October 17 – 19, 2005.
EYE GLASS – Helen Heath
reported that she has collected 10 pair of glasses and
13 cases since our last meeting.
SUNSHINE – Belva Jared
reported that she sent out two get well cards and three
sympathy cards to families of deceased members. One of
the sympathy cards was sent to Yvonne Blansfield, a
member of CRCEA.
HOST/HOSTESS PROGRAM – Mary
Lou Bennett reported that for the month of September
there were 32 volunteers who worked 97.5 hours and
assisted 892 visitors to the County Administration
Building. Since the Host/Hostess Program began in 1992,
we have assisted 226,240 visitors. Mary Lou also stated
that she could still use more volunteers for this
program.
NEWSLETTER – The deadline
for articles for The TREND is October 15th.
We are trying to get The TREND out early because of the
November meeting being held a week earlier than usual.
REMEMBER – November meeting is November 1st.
OLD BUSINESS: No Old
Business
NEW BUSINESS:
NOMINATING COMMITTEE
REPORT- Dave Merritt, Chairman, reported that at our
November meeting there will be an election for the 2006
Officers and 2006-2007 Directors. The slate of Officers
are President, Norman Briggs; 1st Vice
President, Jeanne Berkshire; 2nd Vice President, Elinor
Wells; Secretary, Ginger Mello; and Treasurer, Mary Lou
Bennett. There are 3 Director position’s up for
election this year. There are 5 candidates, as
follows: Walter Stewart, Incumbent; Earlene Smith,
Incumbent; Alan Annis, Don Hoffman and Greg Salas. Dave
Merritt asked for any nominations from the floor so that
ballots could be made up. Hearing NO nominations from
the floor, the ballots will have the names above.
COMPUTER GIVE AWAY
– REOKC received six computers from KCERA and after
John DeMario went through them and got them up and
running there is five computers which we will raffle
off. Starting in January we will give the members a
chance to win a computer. The only stipulation was that
you cannot come and just buy a ticket, you have to come
and buy lunch as well.
October 26th
KCERA Retirement Board will be having their meeting
and after their regular meeting they will meet regarding
increasing the death benefit from the current $1,000 to
$2, $3 or $5,000. A letter was sent to Anne Holdren,
Executive Director of KCERA, by CCEOK (a group of Union
Reps and REOKC Reps) requesting an increase in the
amount and to pay for it out of surplus funds in SRBR
accounts. It is hoped that the meeting will start
between 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on the 3rd
Floor of the County Administration Building. It would
be helpful if there was a large group of members in
attendance to let the Board know this is something that
we are interested in.
The attendance prize was won by
Linda Parker. There were 37 - $5 amounts for the
giveaway. After the distribution of prizes, the meeting
was adjourned at 1:50 p.m.
Respectfully submitted this
16th day of October, 2005
Ginger Mello, Secretary
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