The Red Pencil
Newsletter of Watauga County Retired School Personnel
Vol.XII, No.2 October 2009 ntn1066@hotmail.com___
October Meeting
When: Thursday, October 15, NOON, $10, check made payable to Watauga County NCRSP
Where: Deerfield Methodist Church
Why: To hear a report on current conditions for retired school personnel from Pam Deardorff, executive secretary of NCRSP and lobbyist, and her husband, Dave, who is a financial officer with the NCRSP office
With: staples and canned goods for the Hunger Coalition (powdered milk, peanut butter, soup), medicine bottles and plastic bags
all the lovely, noisy, loose change you’ve been collecting for the Scholarship Fund
a fistful of dollars to purchase tickets for a most special raffle [See below.]
If your caller has not reached you by October 11, phone Margaret Sigmon to make your reservation, 264-2036.
A Very Special Raffle
Once upon a time in the mountains, a young boy spent snow days with his grandmother, learning from her how to make fabulous apple pies from scratch. In fact, despite his successful career in education and his considerable skills as a husband, father, and craftsperson, among certain circles, this young boy has become known as the consummate pie maker. Fortunately for us, he has just joined the Watauga Unit of North Carolina Retired School Personnel, and in October, STEVE BREITENSTEIN is trading his football talents for his culinary talents and baking one of his famous apple pies just for us to raffle for the benefit of our Scholarship Fund. Tickets will be $1 each or six for $5. Be clever and save your dollars now for a chance on this rare treat.
Contributions/Suggestions/Email Edition of The Red Pencil, anyone? Change of email or snail mail address?
ntn1066@hotmail.com or snail mail to
Nanci Tolbert Nance, P.O. Box 188, Blowing Rock NC 28605
The Importance of Membership
If you have not renewed your membership in the Watauga Unit of NCRSP for this year, you will find the amount of your dues in the upper right corner of the mailing label on this newsletter. Your Horace Mann Accidental Death Insurance policy will end on October 31 if you do not renew your membership by that time.
If you are newly retired and have not joined yet, please make your decision now to join this vital organization. You need us, and we need you, too! In fact, we need every retired educator to be on our membership roster in order to strengthen our position as advocates for retaining and improving benefits for all retired school personnel in this state. Together, we have strength.
You can pay your dues at our October meeting or mail them to Dot Barker, 451 Poplar Hill Dr., Boone NC 28607. If you have questions, please call Dot at 264-3621 or Barbara and Roland Moy, 264-8811.
On the Subject of Membership: HELP!
Do you know any retired teachers in Avery County? Because their NCRSP unit has not been active for several years, we have received permission from District III to invite them to attend one of our meetings and even to join us. In this cause, your personal touch could be extremely effective. Through Phi Delta Kappa or Delta Kappa Gamma or another organization, you may know several retired educators in Avery County, and if you do, please give them a call and invite them to our October meeting to hear Pam Deardorff speak and to enjoy the fellowship of fellow educators.
Read any good labels lately?
General Mills is putting Box Top$ for Education labels (pictured above) on the bottoms of Kleenex, cereals, and all their other products and donating cash for each one you cut out to the school of your choice. So far, General Mills has donated more than $300 million dollars to classrooms across the country. At our meeting in October, La Verne will have a small plastic bag each of us for our collection and she will deliver the bags to schools. Check those General Mills products, folks!
District III Fall Convention
The District III Convention of NCRSP is in Morganton this year, at the First Baptist Church on October 16. This meeting is always interesting and informative, and the drive to Morganton on a beautiful autumn Friday should be a real treat. Cost of attending is $15. If you’re interested in being a part of this gathering, call Beth at 264-9227 after the 23rd of September but before the 26th and leave a message on her answering machine.
Our Scholarship Recipient Sends Her Thanks
It is with sincere gratitude that I thank you for your generous contribution to my continuing education at North Carolina State University. With your financial assistance I will be able to purchase my textbooks for both the fall and spring semesters. Your generosity is greatly appreciated. Thanks again.
Kathryn London
The ABC’s of the F L U
The regular flu and the H1N1, or Swine, Flu are NOT the same thing. All of us need to take the regular flu shot as soon as possible, but we retirees are not in the population most susceptible to the H1N1 flu. In fact, doctors believe that we may actually carry a kind of immunity to H1N1. At any rate, get your regular flu shot as you normally do and wait for further developments on the second shot. Experts now say that the supply of the H1N1 shots will be sufficient for our entire population.
ALSO, statistics say that 50% of people over 50 will have shingles, and we all know that’s not a happy thought. If you have not had the shingles shot, order it at Boone Drug at Deerfield, make an appointment to go the pharmacy, and BCBS should cover everything but $30. If you have any questions, check with the nurse downstairs at Deerfield.
Recording Those Volunteer Hours!
We all sound like broken records when we talk about recording our volunteer hours, but the subject is important and the process is really so simple that we must say it again. We are NOT tooting our own horns or showing off or bragging when we report the amount of time we spend in service to others. Instead, we are giving support to the assertion of the NCRSP that we continue to be a valuable resource to the quality of life in our state. Each of our volunteer hours is valued at more than $22, and the accumulated value of our service to the state is a matter for considerable personal and professional pride. Please, please, PLEASE keep up with your volunteer hours for this year.
Volunteer Hours 2009
A little email courtesy, please.
Do you love forwarding jokes and pictures of children and animals and warnings about viruses to your friends? If you do, stop it – UNLESS you remember one simple fact: every time you send an email message with all your friends’ addresses in the TO box, you’re exposing each one of them to a possible attack by computer hackers. You’ve given one person’s address to five or ten or fifty other people who may be total strangers, and that’s more than rude; it’s dangerous.
Sharing, however, is fun, and if you’re going to forward ANYTHING to a group, follow this simple procedure. Do it EVERY SINGLE TIME.
1. Create an entry in your address book for Unidentified Recipient and give it your own email address.
2. Locate the BCC box just below the TO and CC boxes at the top of a new email. If you can’t find it, ask someone to show you where it is, but do not send mass emails until you locate it.
3. Click Forward on the email you wish to share.
4. Type Unidentified Recipient in the TO box.
5. Type all your friends’ names in the BCC box. [BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copies.]
6. In the body of the message, highlight any personal information and the addresses of all previous recipients (Not everyone is as polite as you are.) and hit Delete. Now you have a clean message that contains only the material you wish to share.
7. Review quickly to see that Unidentified Recipient is in the TO box and your friends’ names/addresses are in the BCC box.
8. Hit Send.
9. Wait for your friends to thank you and to be impressed by your conscientiousness and kindness. You’re saving everyone a lot of trouble!
Green hints from SECU website:
Instead of sending old rugs, towels and blankets to the landfill, donate them to your local animal shelters.
As part of your pre-winter cleaning routine, make sure your refrigerator's condenser coils are cleaned so air can circulate freely. When dust and pet hair build up on the coils, the motor works harder and uses more electricity.
When the time comes to replace appliances and electronics, buy products that have earned the ENERGY STAR® rating. These products provide the features and performance you want while saving energy and reducing greenhouse emissions.
Ceiling fans can help keep you comfortable even in winter. Reversing the direction of the blades pushes warm air down into the room. Fans should turn counter-clockwise in the summer and clockwise in the winter.
The best way to warm up a vehicle is to drive it. No more than 30 seconds of idling on winter days is needed – anything more wastes fuel and increases emissions.
Clean warm-air registers, baseboard heaters and radiators as needed; make sure they're not blocked by furniture, carpeting or curtains.
One compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb is four times more efficient than a regular bulb, while giving off the same amount of light.
During the winter months, set your thermostat at 68 to 70°F during the day and 60 to 65°F at night.
Keep shades up in the winter and remove any obstructions to sun-facing windows to allow the heat of the sun to warm your home.
IN MEMORIAM
The members of the Watauga Unit of NCRSP sends our deepest sympathies to the family of Gaynelle Wilson, in whose memory we have added $25 to our scholarship fund.
At our August meeting:
Ben Strickland, chair of our Legislative Committee, gave us the latest information about our retirement and insurance. We are grateful for his careful attention to the details that matter so much to us!
La Verne Franklin, vice president of Watauga NCRSP, presents a handmade card to Sue Aldridge in appreciation of her years of service to this unit as our historian. Thanks to Sue, we have beautiful, organized scrapbooks filled with photographs, articles, and other memorabilia.
Please note that we will also vote to approve our operating budget at our October meeting.
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