The Red Pencil 
Newsletter of Watauga County Retired School Personnel
Vol.XV, No.2 October 2014____________________________________ntn1066@hotmail.com
October Meeting
When: Thursday, October 16, NOON, $10, check made payable to Watauga County NCRSP
Where: Deerfield Methodist Church
Why: To share time with each other AND to hear from local businessman, philanthropist, and all-around good guy John Cooper about the restoration of the Appalachian Theatre
With: non-perishable food for the Hunger Coalition. This month, let’s load down that long table in the Fellowship Hall with INDIVIDUAL SIZES of fruit, heatable meals, cereal, and everything else for the more than 400 backpacks our schoolkids take home every weekend. We’ll also be happy to take plastic bags, medicine bottles (again!), and old phones to recycle - and don’t forget all the lovely, noisy,loose change you’ve been collecting for the Scholarship Fund. Read on in this newsletter for information about a very special raffle we’ll be conducting at our meeting.
If your caller has not reached you by October 11, phone Margaret Sigmon, 264-2036, to make your reservation. Remember that we’ll be selling take-home meals for $5.
People Pieces
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Margaret Sigmon would like to send a special thank-you to the callers who gather us for our meetings. They do an incredibly important job and they do it VERY well!
As your new president, I want to thank everyone for attending our August breakfast meeting. The meeting was well-attended and we were all were captivated by our program speaker, Dr. Joseph Bathanti. Our thanks go to Mary Dooley for selecting him as our speaker.
John Cooper will be our guest speaker at our October luncheon. He has been a driving force in the restoration of the downtown Appalachian Theater and he will give us a first-hand report on the progress.
October is also the month when early voting begins and mid-term election campaigning is in its final weeks. When you go to the polls and look over your election ballots, don’t forget that NCAE has endorsed two statewide candidates, Sue Counts and Jim Sponenberg. Sue is running for the NC House District 93 seat and Jim is seeking the NC Senate district 45 seat. We cannot continue to lose ground in education as we have in the last two years and our state representatives have done little to make public education a priority. The budget does not respect educators and we need to reverse this course at the polls.
In one final note, North Carolina NCAE members can celebrate two recent victories. The first victory refers to a court ruling in favor of NC public school teachers and the NCAE, deciding that it was unconstitutional to eliminate teachers’ career status. The second victory was a lawsuit challenging private school vouchers. The courts ruled in favor of the 1.5 million public school children, deciding that school vouchers are unconstitutional. Hooray for our organization. Let us be informed and find candidates who support NC public education.
Lee Stroupe
If you did not join or renew your membership in NCRSP in August, October is the next best time. If you are a renewing member and a cash-paying member and have not yet paid your dues, you will find the amount of your dues in the upper right corner of the mailing label on this newsletter. Your 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 are a new retiree, your dues are $111 and can be paid by check or you can join by bank draft or credit card. If you plan to join by bank draft, bring a voided check with you. Both forms will be available at the meeting. If you have questions, please call Dot at 264-3621 or Barbara or Roland Moy at 264-8811.
IMPORTANT! Remember that checks written for dues payment must be written to NCAE. All other checks, such as scholarship or attendance at association meetings/conferences, are still written to Watauga Unit of NCRSP.
New members: Larry Ball, Marilyn Welch, Patty Blanton, Cheri Harmon, Linda Seamster, Judy Brown
Watauga Unit of NCRSP Proposed Budget for 2014-2015
Income
Local dues based on 50 members @ $8.00 400.00
Local dues based on 60 members @ $10.00 600.00
Other estimated income 200.00
1200.00
Expenses
Newsletter printing (5 @ $60.00) 300.00
Other printing
Postage for newsletter (5 @ $50.00) 225.00
Other postage and supplies 25.00
Total printing, postage & supplies 550.00
Officers' Expenses
State Convention 300.00
Workshops, etc. 200.00
Total Officers' Expenses 500.00
Miscellaneous (Memorials, gifts, TLC) 150.00
Committee Expenses 100.00
Total Miscellaneous 250.00
Total Expenses 1300.00
Quick reminder about the budget: You will notice that Scholarship Fund is never in our budget, because dues cannot be used for scholarships and our scholarship is funded entirely by donations. Please be generous with your donations for scholarship, with your major donations, and with your change in the little watering cans on the tables at our lunches. Remember that a donation to the Scholarship Fund is a great way to remember a colleague and to honor one.
Retiring but always here! Roger and Linda Harwood are retiring as our much-loved and much-appreciated “decorators” after many years of making our meeting places attractive. We thank them over and over and over for their generosity and hard work. Thanks, Roger and Linda!
In Memoriam
The Watauga Unit of NC Retired School Personnel extends its sympathy to the family of long-time member Herbert Hampton.
NC Foundation for Public School Children – a BIG raffle coming in October
2014 Holiday Giveaway – Purchase a Ticket for a Chance to Win $5,000 Cash!
The NCFPSC 2014 Holiday Giveaway will benefit the Foundation and specifically the Children’s Fund. Please help by selling and purchasingtickets for the chance to win some exciting prizes:
Giveaway Prizes: Grand – $5,000 Cash; 2nd – $2,500 Cash; 3rd – $1,000 Cash; 10 at $100 Cash
Any Person, Group, or Organization who sells 100 tickets will be entered in a separate drawing for $1,000 cash!
Ticket Prices: 1 ticket = $5 4 tickets = $10 10 tickets = $20
Drawing takes place December 5, 2014. Winners will be notified by phone and/or email. Winners will be posted on the website December 8, 2014.
NOW, we’ll be selling raffle tickets for this worthy enterprise at our meeting in October: 1 for $5, 4 for $10, and 10 for $20, and if we sell 100 tickets, our unit will be entered in a drawing for $1000 – all while doing truly good things for the children in our schools. To learn more about the work of this organization, go towww.ncfpsc.org.
- Remember to check our local blogspot, http://wcrsp.blogspot.com/, for the latest issue of The Red Pencil, photos of the most recent meeting, news of the members, and links to important information.
- Go to www.ncrsp.org for legislative updates, information about NC retirement, supplemental insurance, and lots of retirement links.
- Send a quick note to your humble editor, Nanci Tolbert Nance, at ntn@skybest.com to insure that you receive The Red Pencil by email and save our unit more than $5 per year for your subscription.
She finally overtook him in the checkout line and said, "I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease; it's just that you look so much like my late son. I know it's silly, but if you'd call out 'Good bye, Mom' as I leave the store, you would make me feel so happy."
After she went through the checkout and was on her way out of the store, she turned back for a moment and the young man called out, "Goodbye, Mom."
The little old lady waved and smiled back at him.
Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone's day, he went to pay for his groceries.
"That comes to $121.85," said the clerk.
"WHAT? I only bought 5 items!"
The clerk replied, "Yeah, but your mother said you'd be paying for her things, too."
Candace Hall would like us all to remember that we’re completing and submitting our volunteer hours forms BY THE MEETING this year. Bring this form for just September and October to our meeting on the 16th.
NCRSP Community Participation - Volunteer Hours 2014
Name __________________________
Category
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Jan
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Feb
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Mar
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Apr
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May
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Jun
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Jul
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Aug
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Sep
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Oct
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Nov
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Dec
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Total
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Education
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x
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x
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x
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x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
| ||
Other
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x
|
x
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x
|
x
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x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
x
|
Total Hours in All Categories for September and October only ________
