Club notes - Oct. 22

Curry County Association of Educational Retirees

Our Program featured the five delegates who attended the state’s AER’s 80th convention, reporting on the proceedings of the convention held Sept. 21-23.

• Eileen Massey reported on the keynote speaker, Stan Rounds, concerning the history of the Educational Retirees Association. As costs go up, there is talk of consolidating the state’s healthcare system into one.

Continuing her report, Massey spoke on retiree healthcare and of the two requests we are making to the legislators during the next legislative session. The first is about the retiree healthcare solvency status. Currently we are at 43% solvency, but our goal is 50%. We are asking the Legislature for a one-time appropriation of $150 million. The second request is our hope to get a joint resolution to protect retiree healthcare given to us in the Constitution.

• Pam Wallace presented information on the history of NMAER.

• Pat Archibeque gave us the wrap-up of the end of the convention. Next year’s state convention will be held in Las Cruces, with the dates to be announced. Currently, we have 6,229 members at the state level.

• Leslie Scroggins spoke of the time of remembrance portion of the convention. Scroggins read the Curry County AER members’ names to us.

• Loyce Hodges gave us a report on the volunteer hours for the year. We had 59,755 hours from our group, making us the highest number of total hours in the state. The highest ranking CCAER members will receive their certificates at a later date.

CCAER meets the first Tuesday of the month at K-Bob’s Restaurant at 11 a.m. for lunch; 11:30 a.m. for the meeting. Our next meeting will be held Nov. 7.

Contact Sandra Bates at 575-714-2491 for information.