The Red Pencil The Newsletter of Watauga County Retired School Personnel
Vol.XIII, No.4, March 2011
Nanci Tolbert Nance, editor
ntn1066@hotmail.com
963-8892
March Meeting
Noon, Thursday, March 17, 2011
Deerfield Methodist Church
Cost per meal is $10, check payable to
Watauga Unit, NCRSP
Program: Christmas in March. Since we missed our annual Christmas entertainment, we’ll be celebrating the holiday twice as much when we add a little St. Patrick to St. Nick. Wear something green AND your NCRSP apple and come prepared to tap your toes!
Also, we will be voting for NEA-R/NEA delegates to the NEA National Convention at the March meeting.
Janice Burns is donating one of her fabulous coconut pound cakes to a raffle to benefit the Scholarship Fund. Tickets are $1 apiece or $5 for six.
Please bring as much non-perishable food as you can manage for the Hunger Coalition. Powdered milk, cans of soup, oatmeal and pasta products, canned fruit and vegetables, ANYTHING non-perishable, will be acceptable. Remember those empty medicine bottles, too; each one of them saves the Hunger Coalition at least a nickel. And plastic bags. And Box Tops for Education. And yourself, of course.
Important note: Those books you bought to bring to the December meeting for Santa’s Toybox? Bring them in March! We’ll get them to Gene Swift and be one step ahead for the coming season!
Very important note: If your caller has not phoned you by the 12st of March, call your caller if you plan to attend. If you change your mind at the last minute about attending, call Margaret Sigmon at 264-2036 immediately and come ahead! As usual, Margaret thanks her team of callers who generously volunteer their time doing important work for our organization.
AND remember: After our lunch, you will be able to purchase a second meal to take home for $5. As good as George’s food is, imagine how much you’ll enjoy sharing with a friend or spouse or having your own dinner already prepared! Let one of your officers know as quickly as you can at the meeting so that your meal will be ready for you to take home.
President’s Message Blame it on la nina, el nino, global warming, Mother Nature or Old Man Winter, but this winter has really been something, hasn’t it? Soon we’ll come to the end of it and I know we’ll all be grateful.
Our March meeting will be our first time together since fall and we will have to try to get our scholarship funded for our recipient in May.
I am receiving mail from Raleigh each day with updates on what our legislators are doing or thinking of doing. I will try to pass on any information of which you need to be aware. We can expect many changes in the near future on the state and national level and we can't afford to be complacent. Your officers will try to stay abreast of developments and we may sometimes ask you to send your input to the state or national politicians. Remember that together, we can make our voices heard.
Look for the snow crocuses and daffodils soon.
Your President,
La Verne Franklin
In Memoriam
The Watauga Unit of NCRSP extends its sympathy to the families and friends of these members whom we have lost, Lovely Danner, Miriam Darnell, Kate Peterson, Jane Robinson, Betty Martha Triplett, and Dot Tugman.
NCRSP Scholarship Fund in Need
Each May, our chapter of NCRSP awards a $1,000 scholarship to a graduating high school senior who plans to become a teacher. Our generosity to the scholarship winner depends entirely on each NCRSP’s generosity to the Scholarship Fund. Because we missed getting together in December, we are behind in collecting loose change and the other donations that come in at that meeting.
First, PLEASE bring all your spare change for the little watering cans on your table and plan to make an enormous noise when you pour those nickels and dimes and quarters into the pots.
Second, if you haven’t made your annual gift to the Scholarship Fund, please do so at the March meeting or mail a check to Watauga County NCRSP Scholarship Fund to Dot Barker, 451 Poplar Hill Dr., Boone NC 28607.
Third, if you have already contributed to the fund, please consider doing it again, this time in memory or in honor of a deceased member of our chapter, a colleague, or a favorite teacher. Write the name of the honoree on your check and we’ll make a point of including it in the next Red Pencil.
And don’t forget the cake raffle!
BRAIN WORKS; DOING SOMETHING WONDERFUL FOR YOURSELF EVERY DAY
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html is the address for a most challenging game of identifying the countries in the politically volatile Middle East and North Africa. Try it yourself before passing it along to your children and grandchildren.
http://bremco.maps.sienatech.com. Purely as a matter of interest, when power goes out in Watauga County – and yours is still on – you can log onto this site to see where the problems are. Little power trucks will show you precisely where your BREMCO folks are at work!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The ways by which we communicate are changing. Don’t be left behind!
We hope you aren’t tiring of hearing this message, because we can’t tire of saying it: every member of our unit who receives The Red Pencil by email saves the unit nearly $1 per issue. If you do not currently receive the newsletter by email and would like to do so, please send an email to Nanci at ntn@skybest.com with your name and email address in the body of your message. Use the same address if you would like to contribute to The Red Pencil.
AND, AND, AND, here’s a reminder that the web address for our Watauga County NCRSP blog is http://wcrsp.blogspot.com. Put that address in your Favorites column and keep up with the activities of our unit, including a copy of The Red Pencil and photos from meetings, courtesy of our webmaster, Lee Stroupe.
Volunteer Hours Fall Short of Goal
Last year, in an effort to entice more of us to do more of our volunteer hours in educational activities, our state officers set their goals for us. We’re asked to have at least 50% of our members to report their volunteer hours, with at least 25% of those hours in educational activities and we’re asked to create a group project in a school or in our community.
In 2010, we were far short of achieving the goal of 50% reporting. Only 42 people turned in a report, and we would have needed at least 60 to meet that goal. We came VERY CLOSE to achieving our aim of putting at least 25% of our hours into education, the one goal I thought would be hardest for us to meet. We had 1874 hours of school-related activity out of a total of 8197 hours! Way to go!
We did not attempt to meet that third goal, creating a unit project in a school or the community, but your Executive Board is at work on that one right now and may have exciting news soon.
At the risk of sounding like the proverbial broken record, PLEASE let me encourage you to keep an accounting of the time you spend volunteering in a school or in a community. We are a very active group; we just need to keep records to show it!
Eula Mae Fox, chr., Community Service Comm.
“What I Love” is our continuing series of personal essays. This contribution is anonymous – but it’s wonderful.
The History of 'APRONS'
I don't think our kids know what an apron is.
The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.
It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, shy kids could hide behind it.
And when the weather was cold Grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables.
After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.
Young wives and mothers today would probably go crazy trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love...
What’s New that You Need to Know:
v The State NCRSP Convention is happening in Durham March 15-16. Representing our unit will be Beth Carrin, Eula Mae Fox, and Bill Winkler.
v Our unit currently has 121 members. Every single member is important, yet we obviously need to grow. If you are aware of current members of the education community who are nearing retirement, please begin now to explain the value of their membership in NC Retired School Personnel.
v If you are newly retired, this is the first Red Pencil you have received because we have just learned of your retirement and we welcome you. We hope that you will come to our luncheon meeting on March 17 at 12:00 at Deerfield Methodist Church. If you can attend, please call Margaret Sigmon at 264-2036 by Saturday, March 12.
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