Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The Red Pencil

Newsletter of Watauga County Retired School Personnel Vol.IX, No.1 August 2011_ntn1066@hotmail.com___

August Meeting

When: WEDNESDAY, 10 August 2011, 9AM Registration, payment of dues to begin at 8AM

Where: Deerfield Methodist Church

How much: $10, check payable to Watauga County NCRSP, for a buffet country breakfast catered by George Wellington

What: getting together on the first day of school, welcoming new retirees, and enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company, with musical entertainment If your caller does not contact you, call Margaret Sigmon at 264-2036 before 8 PM on Saturday, the 6th of August or email her at margaretsigmon@bellsouth.net.

NOTE NOTE NOTE that school begins on WEDNESDAY! Don’t forget to put your golden apple pin on your lapel, either! Every year we say the same thing about our first meeting, but it still matters and you can really help “the staff” by being ready when you arrive to:
1. pay your dues. You’ll find more about the amount later in this newsletter, but you know by now that your dues are noted on your mailing label on this issue of the RP. Bring a check in that amount made out to Watauga Unit, NCRSP. Remember to pay particular attention to the article about dues later in this newsletter;
2. contribute to the Scholarship Fund. The sum of $5 is a suggestion, but we’re happy to be the recipients of your generosity in any amount;
3. drop all the lovely, noisy, loose change you’ve been collecting into the little watering cans at your table;
4. turn in your first form for volunteer hours for Community Participation chairperson Eula Mae Fox; and
5. pile the tables just inside the door high with school supplies for distribution to the students in the Watauga County Schools. Please make a point to purchase 1 ½” - 3” three-ring binders if you can, instead of spiral notebooks. Students are also in need of backpacks of all sizes. Because the backpacks usually cost between $15 and $20, perhaps you’d like to team up with another member or two and hit Wal-mart!
Remember that school supplies are tax-free on the weekend before school begins. BIG RAFFLE COMING: At our August meeting, we will raffle one of Janice Burns’ world-famous coconut pound cakes. Tickets are $1 each or 6 for $5. As always, proceeds benefit the scholarship fund. Heads Up!!!!! At the beginning of a year, we have lots of information on lots of subjects to share. Please, please, please read this issue of The Red Pencil carefully; you never know when something extremely important might sneak up on you. Look for the walking exclamation point for facts, hints, and pointers.
A REALLY IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM MARGARET SIGMON The members of Watauga County North Carolina Retired School Personnel receive a call before each of the five annual meetings reminding them of the meetings and confirming their attendance. Our volunteers make many phone calls and leave many messages on answering machines. If you find a message on your machine, returning that call is EXTREMELY important so that the callers can get their lists to Margaret Sigmon by Sunday before the meeting day. A total number must be given to George Wellington on Monday so he can do his grocery order. If you do not receive a call about the meeting, please phone Margaret Sigmon at 264-2036. Our really important callers for the 2011-2012 year are Jackie Adams, Sue Aldridge, Wanda Bentley,Beth Carrin, Nancy Cooke, Eula Mae Fox, Mary Moretz, June Mann, Hazel Mast, Susan McKay,Ann Millsaps, Gay Murphy, Rebecca Robinson, Joyce Sherrill, and Deane Shuford. We thank them for taking their time to make sure we know about meetings and have other timely information.

Electronics = Savings Each electronic issue of The Red Pencil saves our unit roughly $5 per year per member. That’s slightly more than $500 we’re putting to use for scholarships and community projects instead of on paper, ink, postage, and printing. If you have an email address, please notify Nanci Tolbert Nance at ntn@skybest.com and begin helping our unit to help others.

President’s Message
For most of July, Mother Nature has seemed to be paying us back for all the times we said, "It's too cold" during the past winter. I don't know if our weather is getting worse or our bones don't like the weather extremes as much!
Thanks to your executive board, we are off to a good start for this year. This past year we qualified for a silver award from NCRSP and we weren't even trying. This year, let’s make an effort and bring home the gold! Much of the credit for the award is determined by our volunteering to help students in some manner. Let's set our goal to keep a record of all the volunteering we do and turning in our records.

As a BIG change this year, we’re asking you to bring your volunteer form covering your volunteer hours from January 1 through July 31, 2011 to our August meeting. Please sit down right now and complete the form you’ll find in this issue of The Red Pencil. Eula Mae will tally the hours for us, and we’ll collect another form from you in December.

We are planning to have informative and entertaining programs for you this year and those of us who pay for membership by payroll deduction need to remember to support the scholarship fund by bringing a check as soon as we are able. The first meeting is a great time to contribute.

I hope to see you on the 10th of August at Deerfield church at 9 a. m. for our first meeting and breakfast together for the year.
Blessings and regards to all of you. Have a pleasant rest of the summer.
La Verne Franklin The Book Nook

Each month, the folks at The Red Pencil are going to ask for a reading recommendation, something you think your friends in the Watauga Unit will enjoy reading. Please keep your suggestions non-religious and non-political, something we’d all like to read. To start us off, LA VERNE FRANKLIN recommends Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Seth Grahame-Smith weaves historical facts and figures into pure myth – or maybe not - in this book which will have you coming back to it time and time again. Although fiction, it has many details that are so believable that the story has a hypnotizing effect – and it will make you wonder just how much you really know about history. The book is a "must read" for the summer. MARY HAZEL MAST is happy with anything by Salisbury NC’s John Hart, who writes thrillers that are vividly beautiful and graphic. Mary Hazel says they’ll make you bleed and stay up too late reading!!! Try The Last Child, Iron House, King of Lies, and Down River.

REMEMBER THAT OUR AUGUST MEETING IS ON WEDNESDAY, NOT THURSDAY! $$$$$ $$$$$ $$$$$ $$$$$ $$$$$

MONEY MATTERS: paying dues the efficient way As always, your dues amount is printed in the upper right corner of your mailing label this month. If you receive your newsletter by email, you may check with Dot Barker, dot24@bellsouth.net on your amount. Please bring this amount to the August meeting, with your check made payable to Watauga Unit of NCRSP. If you are unable to attend the meeting, you may mail your check to Dot Barker, Treasurer, 451 Poplar Hill Dr., Boone NC 28607. If your label has PR printed on it, you have chosen to have your dues deducted from your retirement check through the Payroll Deduction Plan. DO NOT WRITE a check for your dues if you see PR on your label. You certainly will, however, want to write a check for the Scholarship Fund.
If you are a new retiree or a membership prospect, you will find no dues amount on your label.
If you retired after July 1, 1999, your annual dues are $106.
If you retired between July 1, 1985 and July 1. 1999, your annual dues are $60. Please consider paying your dues this year through the Payroll Deduction Plan, whether you are a new retiree or a current member. With this plan your dues are deducted from your retirement check each month, so they are spread over the year rather than in one check. You have no check to write at the beginning of the year. Also, even though we all hope that we won’t have to use it, the amount of the Accidental Death and Dismemberment Policy that comes with your membership is $7,500 for those members on the Payroll Deduction Plan and only $2,500 for cash-paying members. Please note that the state will drop accidental death coverage for cash-paying members who have not paid by October 15. The forms for both types of membership will be available at our August meeting. Again, PLEASE consider paying through Payroll Deduction, for your benefit and our chapter’s.

Our unit has an Associate Membership plan for noncertified personnel - assistants, secretaries, cafeteria workers, etc. The Associate Membership is $10 and is for nonvoting membership in the local unit only, which includes our newsletter, The Red Pencil. This does not include membership in the district, state, or national organization. This is available only for noncertified personnel. If you have any questions about dues, please call Dot Barker at 264-3621 or email her at dot24@bellsouth.net. Contributions/Suggestions/Email Edition of The Red Pencil, anyone? Change of email or snail mail address? ntn@skybest.com or snail mail toNanci Tolbert Nance, P.O. Box 188, Blowing Rock NC 28605

A BIG suggestion for your health: Keep a pouch of these crystals with you at all times. Put the crystals under your tongue immediately if you think you’re having a heart attack. How easy is that?
Welcome to Mariann Clawson, who assumes responsibility for our door prizes, and thank you to Barbara and Winston Kinsey, who will take care of our invocations.
We are happy to acknowledge a donation from Mary Frank Smith to the Scholarship Fund in memory of Gaynelle Wilson. Please be aware that donating to the fund is a perfect way of remembering or honoring a colleague. The family of the person for whom you are making the donation will receive a note informing them of your generosity.

Need a Lift?If you or anyone you know needs transportation to one of our meetings, please call Beth Carrin at 264-9227 and she will make arrangements.

2010-2011 Officers Watauga Unit North Carolina Retired School Personnel President La Verne Franklin 964-3337 franklin160954@bellsouth.netVice
Pres/Pres. Elect Billy Ralph Winkler 264-3330 winkler3@bellsouth.net
Sec./Treas. Dot Barker 264-3621 dot24@bellsouth.net
Parliamentarian Robert G. Shipley 297-2832
Legislative Comm. Chr. Ben Strickland 264-2320 benstrickland@bellsouth.net
Membership Comm. Chrs.Roland, Barbara Moy 264-8811 moyrf@appstate.edu
Memorials Susan McKay mckayinboone@live.com
Community Participation Eula Mae Fox 264-3066emfox@bellsouth.net
Scholarship
Decorations Linda and Roger Harwood 264-3974 rlharwood@bellsouth.net
Meeting Arrangements Margaret Sigmon 264-2036 margaretsigmon@goboone.net
Remembrance Lera Randall 264-3979 lerarandall@earthlink.net
Historian Janice Burns 295-7454 burnsjn@bellsouth.net
Red Pencil Editor Nanci Tolbert Nance 963-8892 ntn@skybest.com ntn1066@hotmail.com
Webmaster Lee Stroupe 264-1276 lstroupe@gmail.com

NCRSP – What Have You Got to Lose?
Do you know any prospective members of our unit, new retirees who would benefit from membership and who would add energy and another perspective to our group? If so, please let them know that we need them and they need us. What do they have to lose if they don’t join? Subscriptions to Panorama and NCAE News Bulletin, FREE accidental death and dismemberment insurance up to $7,500, lobbyists representing retirees’ needs, free hearing screenings, member discount cards for discounts at over 150,000 locations/businesses – and all for as little as $6.75 a month on payroll deduction, that’s what – and more.
New retirees have received a letter from our unit. At the bottom of the letter is a coupon for breakfast at our first meeting of the year. If people ask you exactly what we do, please tell them that in addition to meeting five times a year for fellowship and information, we also donate school supplies to Watauga County students; collect children’s books for Santa’s Toybox; collect food, medicine bottles and plastic bags for the Hunger Coalition; give cell phones to OASIS and to our troops overseas; and provide services to our members that include Christmas gifts for our shut-ins and transportation to meetings.
Volunteer Hours , Our Continuing Struggle and a BIG Change Beginning with this August, Eula Mae Fox, our Community Participation chair, and Gay Murphy, her cheerful assistant, are going to be asking you to turn in your volunteer form twice a year.
When you come to the meeting in August, please bring a volunteer form (an extra is included in this newsletter) which covers your activity from January 1, 2011 through July 31, 2011. PLEASE understand that this is no time for modesty. Every single day you do something for someone else. You visit friends in nursing homes, you help to write a newsletter, you work in a community garden, you sing in your church choir, you meet with like minds on a library board or an arts board or a church board, you provide flowers for meetings, you volunteer to take a friend shopping, you’re a substitute grandma in an elementary school class, and you do a hundred other things. Part of our reputation with headquarters in Raleigh and part of that award our president discussed in her message is based on our volunteer hours. Please pitch the modesty and tell us LOUD and PROUD about all the wonderful things you do. Remember that caring for a family member doesn’t count, but almost everything else does!

TECHIE ALERT:
Do you own a Kindle? Do you buy books/shoes/baby buggies/plants/movies/anything on the planet online? Do you EVER shop at Amazon.com? The next time you’re thinking of buying anything through Amazon.com, make a quick stop first at http://wcrsp.blogspot.com/, our Watauga County Unit of NC Retired School Personnel blog. Look just below the photograph of our latest scholarship recipient and you’ll see a link to Amazon. Click on it to begin shopping in the Amazon store AND you’ll be sending a few pennies back to our unit! How’s that for clever? Calling all “Computerites”: Sites You Need to KnowWatauga Unit, North Carolina Retired School Personnel: http://wcrsp.blogspot.com/
North Carolina Retired School Personnel: http://www.ncrsp.org/Index.html (home site for all information about our state organization, including how to sign up for electronic delivery of Panorama)North Carolina Association of Educators: http://www.ncae.org/ (home site for our active association/affiliate)AARP: http://www.aarp.orgNRTA: AARP's Educator Community: http://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/nrta/ Senior discounts, hundreds of discounts on everything from milkshakes to sweatershttp://goo.gl/I5v8B


My Kind of Teacher...
A new college graduate took his first job as a school teacher. Just before the school year started, he injured his back and was required to wear a plaster cast around the upper part of his body.

Fortunately, the cast fit under his shirt and wasn't noticeable.

On the first day of class, as so often happens with new teachers, he found himself assigned to the toughest students in the school. The punks were facing an unknown and decided to see how tough or easy the new guy was before trying any pranks.

Walking into the August-warm classroom, the new teacher went straight to the window, opened it wide, and sat on the corner of his desk with his roll book. A strong breeze made his tie flap and the students snickered. The second time the breeze took his tie, he reached across his desk, picked up the stapler, and promptly stapled the tie to his chest - twice.

Discipline? No problem.
The Red PencilWatauga County NCRSP
451 Poplar Hill Dr.
Boone NC 28607