UC San Diego Retirement Association Report
October 2022 Report
Submitted by Matt Xavier, UCSD Retirement Association President, 2022-2023
The UC San Diego Retirement Association continues its active roles, both as a stand-alone organization and in close partnership with the UC San Diego Emeriti Association. The two organizations share facilities in the UCSD Retirement Resource Center under the able direction of Suzan Cioffi. Fall 2022 marked the move to hybrid programming.
Membership of the UC San Diego Retirement Association remains by far the largest in the UC system, with some 2500 members. Dues for annual and life memberships remain at $30 and $300, respectively.
The Retirement Association Gazette, the organization's newsletter, is published nine times each year and is a 12-page, full-color newsletter format, with the Fall issue including a six-page section of year-long programs. The Gazette contents include details about upcoming activities, requests for volunteers, a President's Message, and a calendar of events. The UCSD Retirement Association Gazette moved entirely online in 2020. The RA also publishes a weekly events calendar email "Next Week/+ at the UCSD Retirement Association", listing all RA Zoom events for the coming two weeks, with relevant time/RSVP details. Members are required to RSVP online to receive the Zoom event link.
The Retirement Association offers three list-serv choices; one for all campus flyers plus RA and benefits news, one for UCSD-RA and benefits news, and the third limited to the electronic distribution of the Gazette and Next Week.
The UC San Diego RA has a large group of active volunteers who typically contribute more than 1,000 hours each year. This year, the RA offers a variety of virtual volunteer events: CSP Networking nights, mentoring opportunities, a Holiday Food Drive, a Marine Holiday Toy Drive, donations of Gently Hugged baby items and knitting of NICU Preemie caps. The volunteer Board and Committee members provide approximately 2,000 hours of volunteer service time to various meetings throughout the year. Total RA volunteer hours exceed 5,000 each year.
The Membership Committee hosted two virtual Meet the RA Board events last year and is planning another for 2023.
The Program Committee organizes numerous activities annually which this year are mostly virtual, including community and campus tours, educational seminars (aging and financial topics, distinguished lecture series, healthy living and eating lectures and food demos. In addition, there are several annual events that members look forward to which are all now being reimagined in the virtual world). Program offerings range from 15 to 20 each month! An online RSVP system generates a confirmation email to each registrant, and a roster of event attendees for check in and for sending the Zoom link. The RA has planned more than 200 new programs and activities for the year ahead. Neighborhood Exploration walks and fitness walks give members the opportunity to walk and socialize.
Most all RA programs are recorded and shared on the very active RA YouTube Channel. Access to these informative and/or entertaining videos is open to the public. The RA already has more than 150 videos on its channel, with viewership surpassing 25,000. According to your interests, you may find it more productive to explore the RAYT via its many playlists. With RAYT playlists, video recordings are grouped by area of interest or specialty. The RAYT currently has seven active playlists.
The amount that the UCSD Retirement Association contributes to the Chancellor's Scholarship fund is $7500 annually and it increased its award to Nursing / Health Sciences to $2,000, with an additional $1200 sponsorship to the UCSD International Center to support study-abroad scholarships. The recipients of these funds attend virtual luncheons to accept the awards.
Several UCSD Retirement Association members are actively involved as mentors with the Emeriti Mentor Program. This program provides mentoring to some 80 freshmen and sophomore Chancellor's Scholars, and 80 upper division scholars. Mentoring is continuing via Zoom. Several other RA members participate in the Networking Corp to support Chancellor's Scholars.