UC San Francisco Retirement Association Report
April 2021 Report
Submitted by Sandra Norberg, President and CUCRA Representative
- UCSFRA Membership: This has been a difficult year for membership. Because New Retiree Fair was virtual, we were unable to secure email addresses of the new retirees who normally attended the in-person event. In addition, volunteers were not able to come into UCSF to do the mailings normally sent out to all retirees. Currently we have 494 paid members and 2240 contacts, many of which do not include email address. Unfortunately, new retirees who would like us to have their email address are not always given the opportunity to provide it. We have been promised a list from RASC but have never received one.
- Monthly Activities for Members: Our Program Committee has not met for the past year. Even though things are easing and opening up for most of us, many of the venues are not ready to resume their tours and activities. We have stepped up our educational programs on Zoom from quarterly to monthly to make up for not being able to have in person events.
- Volunteer Activities: These programs have been put on-hold.
- Educational Programs: We have partnered with the UC Berkeley Retirement Center to offer virtual monthly programs, which have been very popular and well attended—sometimes up to 700 individuals. We have been able to take advantage of the expertise on both campuses in recruiting speakers and in selecting topics. The most recent topics include: "The History of Golden Gate Park", "Resilience during Difficult Times", and "Mindfulness to Overcome Depression". Future topics include: "Cybersecurit"â€, "Muscle Loss in Older Adults", and "The New Deal in Washington". Louis Gutierrez, our administrative support, has put up links on our website so that retirees can view a recording of the past programs. The virtual programs have been so popular that we will consider continuing them post-COVID.
- New Retiree Welcome Fair: This is normally our most successful and well attended event, and this year we held a virtual fair. Although attendance was down from previous fairs, the virtual event went off well and our speakers were more than happy to participate in the new venue. Because the event was virtual we were not able to get the names and email addresses of new retirees as we normally do. Our thanks to Louis Gutierrez and his support team who have shown us that there are new ways of doing things during these times.
- UCSFRA Clubs and Interest Groups: We continue to sponsor a number of interest groups, which did not meet during the past year. Our Hiking Group resumed their hikes a couple of months ago, restricting hikes to 8 individuals and of course requiring masks. We’re looking forward to the further loosening of restrictions but are following the UCSF guidelines.
- UCSFRA Virtual Luncheons: We cancelled our Spring Luncheon but scheduled a virtual Holiday Luncheon in December and will do the same in the spring. In December we put together a program which included a holiday cocktail demo from a SF bartender, a couple of musical videos, and break out rooms for retirees to discuss what they had been doing during the COVID lockdown. Although the attendance was lower than usual, the attendees were very enthusiastic about the virtual get-together. We also send out UCSF Retirees Association masks to all of the attendees.