UC Retirees Association at Berkeley

October 2020 Report

Submitted by Toni Sweet, UCRAB Representative to CUCRA

The University of California Retirees Association at Berkeley, UCRAB, has a Board of Directors that meets once a month for ten months of the year and it normally has four luncheons during the year. However, during the Pandemic the luncheons have been eliminated and other activities cancelled or postponed. We will, however, continue to have quarterly speakers.

In June, we had a virtual "luncheon" which was also our Annual Meeting. Normally, the voting of new members and officers takes place at this meeting. However, this year we had to create a process of balloting electronically. Patti Owen is our new President, Nancy Horton is the new Vice President, Marian Gade continues as Secretary and Elise Wood continues as Treasurer. We welcomed three new board members. The speaker at this meeting was Dr. Vernard Lewis, an Emeritus Cooperative Extension Specialist whose topic was "Bugs: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

Our Fall speaker via Zoom was Dean Henry Brady of the Goldman School of Public Policy and Class of 1941 Monroe Deutsch Professor of Political Science and Public Policy. His topic "Trust in the Age of Trump: How the erosion and polarization of trust in basic US Institutions have made American politics even more contentious and fractious." Needless to say, the webinar was very well attended.

We publish a quarterly newsletter which is normally formatted and printed at UCSF. It was decided that since we only mail 35 of them to those opting out of our email version, we would save money and produce the newsletter "in house." Our able newsletter editor, Bill Roberts, produced and distributed the Fall newsletter. We plan on continuing this practice.

At our July meeting, the UCRAB board voted to eliminate dues and to have "universal" membership, effective July 1, 2021. As a result, the By Laws are currently under revision to reflect this decision, as well as, the need to have an electronic voting process.

Covid has required many changes in how business is conducted and has illustrated how dependent UCRAB has been on the Berkeley Retirement Center for data, mailings, information, mail collection, etc. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Kris Thornton, the Associate Director, for all of her help and patience over the past 5 years. She is joining our retiree ranks in November. We wish her all the best.

Download PDF version of the University of California Retirees Association at Berkeley report.