GREA Areas V and VI Meeting

 

 

August 10, 2011
In Statesboro, GA

BEREA Home Page                                                                                                                                    Mrs. Miller's Class Page 

    Kate Finch:
GREA President
 

President:  KateFinch
P.O. Box 515

Lexington,GA 30648
Home: 706-743-3586

Cell:    706-540-1760
E-mail: kacefin@windstream.net

Jim Hite organized and conducted the Summer Meeting at R.J.'s Restaurant in Statesboro, Wednesday, August 10, 2011.

The meeting started at 9:30 with a welcome from Barry Turner of the Statesboro Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Kate Finch, the new president of GREA, informed the group that the GREA Convention for May 1-3, 2012 will be held in Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga. She was very excited to report that many of the  outdoor activities will be included as part of the package with the room accommodations and the price will be $119.00 per night. She also explained why she chose the slogan "A Growing Force."  She has agreed to be our guest speaker for our November meeting.

Jack Hill was a guest speaker. 

Doug Holt, a spokesperson for AMBA, briefly explained the service benefits of AMBA.

Mike Zarem (TRS of GA) said that in 2012 retirees will not have to paid 65% of their GA taxes and by 2016, all retirees will be exempt from paying any GA state taxes.  ( I hope I understood this bit of information correctly.)

A spokesperson from GA Cares explained why and how badly they need volunteers to help assist seniors with their Medicare benefits. She said that just four hours a month per person would be a great help.  From what I understand, it is to help the elderly from being swindled or taken advantage of by giving them useful and needed information.

James Twiggs (Membership Director of GREA) emphasis the importance of encouraging retired educators to join GREA. At the present we have 22,000 GREA members, but their are thousands that have not joined.  He welcomed two unit members to tell some of the ways their unit recruit member for GREA.  David Greene, our president, was asked to tell what we do.  We heard some good suggestions and will probably discuss these in the future. 

Bill Sloan, (Executive Director of GREA), is very involved with the GA Education Museum.  The museum committee is encouraging each unit to buy a brick for $100 dollars to help purchase the land for the museum, and he gave several suggestions on various ways in which groups of people could buy a brick.  (They need $35,000 to finish buying the land.)  He also said that folks need to start thinking of someone that GREA can present the Education Award to in May.  So far GREA has presented it to Truett Cathy and Zell Miller. 

Note: Dateline on NBC will have a program about Millen, GA (Jenkins County) called "The Town that Jobs Forgot."  It will be at 7 PM, Sunday, August 14, 2011.

November 6th is Retired Educators Day in GA.

(Please let me know if some of this information is wrong or the punctuation, capitalization, and spelling needs correcting.)  Thanks, Anne

email:  lamiller_2@msn.com

 

Jack Hill and Jim Hite

Anne Miller, Nancy Page, David Greene, Nell Purcell, Diane Drew-Gotheer, Janet Strickland, Mary Smith

Spokesperson for Georgia Cares

James Twiggs, Membership Director, GREA Bill Sloan, Executive Director, GREA Mike Zarem, TRS of GA
 

 

 

Janet Strickland, Mary Smith, and David Greene  

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