UC Santa Cruz Retirement Association Report
October 2021 Report
Submitted by Frank Trueba, UC Santa Cruz CUCRA Representative
The UCSC Retirees Association (RA) Board meets bimonthly and in conjunction with the Retiree and Emeriti Center focuses on providing social and educational programs for all UCSC retirees as well as fund-raising for scholarships on behalf of veteran & staff pursuing a degree at UCSC. The RA Board publishes a quarterly newsletter, The Silver Slug Newsletter and maintains a website (https://retirees.ucsc.edu/). While we represent all retirees, our "official" membership currently stands at 253.
Due to the COVID pandemic we have had no in-person events since March, 2020. However, we continue to communicate with our members through on-line newsletters and direct e-mails.
Scholarships:
The Retirees Association continues to sponsor and fundraise for two scholarships, the Bruce Lane Memorial Scholarship for UCSC students who are Military Veterans and the "Silver Slug Award" for current and retired staff and their dependents studying at UCSC who need financial assistance.
Programs/Events: (unless otherwise noted, these events were virtual, using zoom):
- Scholarship "Luncheon" (May, 2021) where 10 Bruce Lane Memorial Scholarships for veterans and 3 Silver Slug Awards for employees/dependents were presented. "Welcome to Retirement" event (June, 2021) including remarks by the Chancellor.*
- Fall "Picnic" (September, 2021) including "breakout rooms"
- Guest Speaker (October, 2021) novelist Leslie Karst covered a range of topics, including career transition, writing (in general) and mystery novels (in specific) and getting published
- Craft Virtual Pop-Up (October) various crafts created by members offered for sale to raise money for our scholarship funding.
Retiree & Emeriti Center (REC):
We continue to work jointly with our REC contributing to the REC newsletter and co-sponsoring information blasts and events.
Other Notables:
We continue to use Zoom for our quarterly Association Board meetings.
We continue to offer a free initial year membership to new retirees who attend the Welcome to Retirement celebration.
*Signifies events Co-Sponsored with the Retiree & Emeriti Center (REC)