by Kathy Rahtz
Happy New Year from CMERA!
The new slate of officers you elected last October officially took office January 1, 2020. As President, I thank you for your support, and I invite you to share your concerns and suggestions with me and the rest of the officers.
Here’s what the leadership of our organization now looks like:
- President: Kathy Rahtz
- Vice President: Steve Dietrich
- Secretary: Jane Kettlehake
- Treasurer: Don Beets
- Past President: Tom Gamel
- Sergeant at Arms: Paul Smith
You may notice a new title in the list of officers: Sergeant at Arms. The executive committee proposes to add this position in order to enable our organization to continue to access the experience of seasoned officers. This change will require modification to the CMERA By-laws, which is being developed now. It will be presented to the membership for approval at a general meeting this year.
I am very grateful for the willingness of each of these leaders to step forward and serve the members of CMERA.
The “QT”
If you are subscribed to the emailed discussion board known as CMERA-QT, you may be aware that Yahoo has made changes to how they operate Yahoo Groups. These changes did not end CMERA-QT, and it will continue to operate as an email platform for discussion among members. However, over the years, the administrator credentials for the QT have been lost. This means we have not had the ability to add any new members to the group for quite some time. The result is that we have a “closed group,” which clearly limits the scope of input and ideas we can access and share using this forum.
We want to include everyone in our discussions. CMERA is for all retirees. So, we’ve been looking for alternatives for the QT. One possibility is to create a discussion forum on our website; another is to establish a discussion group on Facebook or one of the many other platforms for discussion groups. If you would like to be involved in evaluating these alternatives, please email me at [email protected].
THE FUTURE OF CMERA
Do you know anyone who has recently retired? Please talk to them about joining CMERA. Invite them to come with you to the meeting in May.
In “the old days,” CMERA had an easier time reaching out to new retirees to invite them to our group. In fact, the City used to provide CMERA with regular updates including complete contact information for all new retirees. But as we all know, our relationship with the city has become quite adversarial, and they discontinued providing us with new information a number of years ago. They will not even consider including a flyer or handout on CMERA among the materials they give to people getting ready to retire.
So, we have to rely on ourselves to find our new members. We need your ideas and your help to do this. CMERA will not survive if we do nothing. Talk it up! Thank you.
Next General Membership Meeting
The next General Membership meeting is set for planned for Saturday, May 16, 2020, at the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, 536 Linton Street, 45219. Sign-in and meet-and-greet starts at 9:30 a.m.; meeting begins at 10. Please mark your calendar and talk to other retirees about coming! I hope to see you there.
And, as long as your calendar is out, please mark October 10, 2020 for the fall General Meeting. Same time, same place!