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National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association

Florida Federation of Chapters

Your Future is Our Focus

Newsletter

September 2007

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President’s Podium

By Don Stewart

It has been a busy, busy

first three months since I

was elected. Finding

replacements for appointed

officers who for personal

reasons could not stay on

proved to be tough.

Fortunately, all appointed

positions, except for two,

have been filled.

Federation Presidents Meeting. In mid July, I

attended a meeting of Federation presidents in

Louisville, KY, which I found very useful and

informative. As a group, we selected

Membership, Legislation, and Communications

to discuss. We were divided into three equal

groups. In my group, there were 6 newly elected

Presidents. By and large, discussions were

proactive and concentrated on what we thought

should be done.

Membership, which has been one of my major

concerns, brought out some creative ideas.

There was a presentation on the demographics of

NARFE, just who makes up our membership and

who is joining NARFE. It was pointed out that each

group has specific interests that we must take into

account. Our newer members tend to prefer

getting their information on line. Many of them,

after they retire, go back to work in non-

government jobs or go into business for

themselves.

Communications was the second topic

discussed but it was difficult to separate

communications from membership. It was

pointed out that the more recent NARFE members

have a preference for getting information on line

and in many cases are used to interactive modes

of communicating. Principal among the items

discussed was the concept of a Federation

Chapter, a Virtual Chapter and/or a Blog log.

National will look into establishing guidelines for the

possibility of such programs.

The third topic discussed was legislation.

National has implemented a legislative blitz for

August-September to seek support for WEP/GPO

and the Premium Conversion Bill. In July, National

held a teleconference with each NARFE Regional

Vice President and constituent Federation

Presidents. This was felt by all to have been an

excellent initiative and one that should be used

again in the future.

There were many other items covered but these

were the highlights of the discussion. Among the

other issues were single dues, making the National

website more user-friendly and other similar topics,

many of which were referred to the National

Executive Board when we met jointly with them to

present the summary points of our discussion.

Membership. As I mentioned in the last

Federation Newsletter, with the concurrence of the

Federation Executive Board, membership at the

Federation level has been divided into Recruitment

and Retention Chairs to recognize that each of

these responsibilities is a full time job and the

membership problems we face have to be

addressed. Ed Fleck is the Recruitment Chair.

Jake Maestas is the Retention Chair and also

Chair of the Dues Withholding Contest..

Strategic Planning Committee. Dave Whalen

(Chair), Sam Girson and Herb Sicular have agreed

to look into ways the Federation can meet the

challenges of the 21st Century.

Florida statewide issues. All of you, I am sure,

have been following in your daily papers the

discussion on property taxes. Soon we will have

to make a choice on which type of exemption we

will want. I have looked into this matter closely,

followed the debate closely, and my advice to each

of you is to consult an expert or financial advisor to

determine what is best for you. The reason is that

there is no single answer and we need to consider

and determine what is in our own best financial