The Red PenciL
Newsletter of Watauga County Retired School
Personnel Vol.IX, No.3
December 2011_ntn1066@hotmail.com
December Meeting: Noon, Thursday, December 15,
Where: 2011 Deerfield Methodist Church
Cost per meal is $10, payable to Watauga Unit, NCRSP
Program: Music – lovely, seasonal music
To make your reservation: Just let your caller know that you will attend. IF YOUR CALLER HASN’T CALLED BY SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, PLEASE PHONE MARGARET AT 264-2036.” SHE MUST REPORT BY THE 12TH SO THAT GEORGE CAN ORDER THE FOOD FOR US.
To bring: as much non-perishable food as you can for the Hunger Coalition. Powdered milk, soup, oatmeal, pasta products, canned fruit and vegetables, ANYthing non-perishable will be acceptable. Did you know that more than 300 children receive food on Fridays to feed themselves during the weekend? PLEASE help. If you have SMALL medicine bottles, bring them, too. The Department of Social Services must stuff the larger containers with cotton after filling a prescription and the cost of the cotton stuffing offsets any saving from large donated bottles.
Bring small bottles ONLY, please.
Also to bring:
a new or gently read children’s book for distribution to the children in this county through the Santa’s Toy Box Program. DO NOT bring books that have been marked in. We’re honoring the legacy of Dr. Seuss and the Read Across America program he loved. On that subject, if you would like to volunteer to read to kids, select an appropriate volume, put the first week of March on your calendar, and call your favorite elementary school –
AND, AND, AND – all your loose change. We haven’t been making that lovely jingling noise quite so loudly at our recent meetings, and the Scholarship Fund is showing the effects. Sue Aldridge will be leading us in a group CLANK and you’ll want to participate. By the way, Sue is a dedicated change-contributor with a unique method of collecting her spare nickels and dimes for our scholarship. She keeps an old sock in the console of her car, and when she receives change from any purchase, she keeps the quarters for herself and drops everything else into the sock. Over an unbelievably brief time, she has a healthy contribution to the Scholarship Fund. Whatever method you use, please bring your collection to the meeting in December.
DON’T FORGET:
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!
President's Message
I am hoping for a mild winter and good health for each of you. For you snowbirds who travel south for the winter, I hope you have an easy journey and come back to us safely. This year, let’s all agree to pretend that steps aren’t getting steeper and sounds aren’t becoming just a little less distinguishable from noise and we aren’t just a little more tired at the end of each day. Instead, let us approach the Christmas season with a child’s heart and all the youthful enthusiasm it contains. I am grateful to each of you for being part of my life. Be blessed, loved, and protected, La Verne Franklin, President
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Health Matters:Carolyn Moore, with whom many of us taught at Watauga High School and Hardin Park Elementary School, is recovering from very serious surgery. Her current address is Brian Center, Room 310, 220 13th Ave. PL NW, Hickory NC 28601. If you know of others in our professional community who are in need of a little cheer, please send a note to Nanci, ntn@skybest.com.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Step in our Anti-Bullying Campaign
At the request of a counselor, our unit has purchased a video for use with middle school students on handling cyberbullies. It will be used first at Hardin Park and then will be available to all counselors in all our county schools. This step is our first one in our campaign to help the Watauga County Schools combat bullying.
A Christmas or Anytime Treat:
Chocolate Chess Pie
by Lera Randall
1 unbaked deep dish pie shell
1 stick margarine or butter
¼ cp cocoa
¼ cp milk
1 ½ cps sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch salt
Melt butter on low heat and stir in cocoa and milk. Mix sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt until well blended and add to cocoa mixture. Pour into unbaked deep dish pie shell and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until the middle doesn’t shake.
Computer Talk
ü Our fabulous and informative Watauga County NCRSP blogspot is http://wataugacountyretiredpersonnel.blogspot.com/. Lee Stroupe updates this site often with new photographs and copies of The Red Pencil and other goodies you’ll want to read.
ü For NCRSP, the website address is www.ncrsp.org. If you are trying to reach Pam or Dave Deardorff, their numbers in Raleigh are 800-662-7924, extension 244 for Pam and 242 for Dave.
ü NCAE now has its own, updatable app for all the information you need about our organization. Downloading it is easy. If you own an Android phone, go to the Android Market and search for NCAE. If you have an iPhone, check out the App Store; however, if you use a Blackberry, you will need to use the following links to download the app to your phone. Currently the app contains information only about NCAE, but we’re hoping that NCRSP will have its own link soon.
BlackBerry: http://www.buildanapp.com/dld/queHs1B3NSw/NCAE.jad
BlackBerry 4.5: http://www.buildanapp.com/dld/BCRjJSBNBVQ/NCAE45.jad
BlackBerry 4.7 (Storm or later models): http://www.buildanapp.com/dld/T3szcQooi8c/NCAE47.jad
Membership Matters!
Membership is a topic that just won’t go away, and it shouldn’t. We need every single member we can attract and we need new and present members to be aware of the benefits of their membership and participation. At present, we have 132 members in our unit, 85 of whom are on payroll deduction. Please remember that NEW members only, not present or past members, may join NCRSP on a pro-rated basis if they are on payroll deduction. If you have colleagues who have been thinking of joining us but did not come to the August or October meetings, please let them know that they can join now or at any time during our year by paying the pro-rated sum. Call Dot Barker, 254-3621, for specific details.
Business:
At our December meeting we will have our really good pens for sale for $2 each and our cell phone trappers for $10. Think stocking stuffers for all the folks on your list!
Community Participation
Eula Mae FoxLast year our state officers set three goals for our local units to achieve in community participation. They called their project "Gold Star Locals Program." We may be close to achieving two of the goals. A year ago, when I was tallying our volunteer hours for 2010, I was impressed by the increased number of hours done in educational activities compared to previous years. I saw that we were close to reaching the goal of 25% of our hours being in educational efforts. Bravos and Huzzas to you for these numbers!
A second goal was for each unit to have a group project in a school or community endeavor. Our officers chose to focus on the bullying in Watauga schools and on seeing what we can do to help eradicate that problem. Since our October program by Clarissa Schmal on bullying in Watauga, we have purchased a video which will be used throughout the county as needed. We will continue to focus on this problem through 2012.
A third goal is for at least 50% of our members to report their volunteer hours. Last year only about 30% of us turned in a record of our volunteer hours. I want to encourage ALL of you who did good deeds (for others, not your own family) to spend a few minutes and get that report to me by early January. I really believe our unit deserves a Gold Star! Bring your completed form to the December meeting or mail it to Eula Mae Fox, 199 Watauga Dr., Boone NC 28607, by December 31.
Book Nook:
I recently read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and then I got her Committed, which picks up where Eat, Pray ,Love ends. Now I find out that Gilbert is the same person who wrote The Last American Man , about our own Watauga citizen, Eustace Conway of Turtle Island. Now I plan to reread Last American Man so I can connect that young Elizabeth with the one in Committed. Mary Hazel Mast
Important Scheduling Notice
If our December meeting is snowed out, as it was last year, we will meet on the third Thursday in February. That’s the 16th of February. YOU WILL RECEIVE LOTS OF REMINDERS.
The Watauga County Schools are looking for After-School Group Leaders (starting at $7.50 an hour) and an After-School Site Director(beginning salary: $10.65 per hour), beginning in January 2012. If either of these positions interests you or someone you know, you can find the full advertisements on our blogspot, http://wcrsp.blogspot.com, or you can call Marshall Gasperson at the Watauga County Schools office, 828.264-7190.
CARDS, CARDS, CARDSØ Our NCAE discount cards are here and will be distributed at the December meeting. If you are interested in working with a small group to get more local businesses to participate in offering discounts to retired school personnel, please notify LaVerne Franklin.Ø Our NCRSP membership cards are being mailed to each of us by Pam Deardorff in Raleigh. Yours should arrive soon.
Looking for a unique and simple way to make a difference to education? Go to www.donorschoose.org (that’s org, not com), a site where teachers across the nation can post the needs they have in their own classroom. Donate a little or a lot. Donate in honor or in memory of a colleague, your kids’ teachers, or even one of your own mentors in education. Click through your choices, select one close to your heart, and remember how you felt when you provided your own books, pencils, bulletin board materials, videos, recordings, and on and on and on.
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Nanci Tolbert Nance
ntn@skybest.com
