Options Newsletter, Summer 2005

We have a Winner!

It has taken a while, but ACER-CART now has a new logo! The winning entry of a contest that began more than a year ago was submitted by a retired high school mathematics teacher, Tom Murray of Dorval, near Montreal. Tom taught in Quebec for 35 years (Montreal West High School, which later became Royal West Academy), retiring in 2001. He continued to take computer courses after retirement, the most recent being in “Design”. Check out his website at www.sprucelog.com. Congratulations, Tom!

The Owl represents a teacher and its color is the golden age of retirement. The Owl is alert and listening. The red maple leaf indicates the national scope of ACER-CART, connecting the associations across the country.

The writing is dark blue which is a regal colour, suggesting a serious, stable organization.

Name for Newsletter Selected

Also selected in a companion contest was the name for this newsletter – OPTIONS. This bilingual name was submitted by Pat Steele of QPARSE.

AGM 2005

The June, 2005 Annual General Meeting has come and gone all to quickly. Always a great opportunity to renew acquaintances with retired teacher organization people from every province, and to make new friends, this year’s event was planned to allow extra time for each Director to give more detailed information on issues of particular importance to their organization. Comparing and contrasting these issues is a great learning experience, and allows the wisdom of the larger group to be tapped. A full AGM report will be posted on the website when the official minutes become available.

Elections

Some leadership changes resulted at the 2005 AGM elections. The president for 2005-06 is Pat Brady (BCRTA). Three new Regional Directors were also elected: Fred Ripley (PEIRTA), Helen Biales (RTO/ERO), and Vaughn Wadelius (RTAM). As well, ACER-CART was fortunate to continue to retain the services of Pierre Drouin as Executive Director of the national organization. Retiring from the Executive were President Val Alcock (RTO/ERO), and Regional Directors George Little (NBSRT) and Pat Steele (QPARSE). They are thanked for their years of service on the Executive.

The new Executive members have all had interesting careers prior to retirement, and as one might expect, they have continued to be busy working for retired teachers in their own provinces. Let us introduce them to you:

Pat Brady – President 2005-06

Pat Brady, a B. Ed. graduate of the University of BC, taught for 33 years at most levels of the public school system of BC (in Chilliwack, Prince George, Mission) ending his career at the secondary level, instructing several social studies and business education courses.

He was active in his local teachers association, serving many years on the local executive including the office of President. He also is a Past President of the BC Teachers’ Federation (1977, 1978), the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (1981-82), and the BC Retired Teachers’ Association (2001-03). Pat has been a Director of ACER-CART since 2003 , and was the Vice-President and Regional Director (West) in 2004-05 at which time he chaired the Pension and Retirement Income Committee. He has been regularly called upon to act as an independent chair at the annual general meetings of the BCTF for the past 20 years, and in 2005, at the CTF annual meeting in Saskatoon, SK.

Pat continues to be involved on the Executive of his local branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, is completing his 12th year as a member of the Senate of the University of BC (recently re-elected for another 3 year term), and is a Vice President of the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organizations of BC. He enjoys vegetable gardening, reading, visits to casinos, and fishing.

Fred Ripley – Regional Director (Atlantic)

Fred Ripley received a B.A. from St Dunstan’s, B.P.E. and B. Ed. degrees from the University of Calgary, and a Masters in Educational Administration from Dalhousie University. He retired in 1999 after a teaching career of 35 years. Fred had taught in Calgary, Alberta, and in Charlottetown and Summerside, Prince Edward Island. His teaching was at all levels of the school system: 6 years in elementary, four at junior high, and 25 years at senior high. He has taught physical education, mathematics, English and special education. During this time Fred has served as a high school department head, and was an area coordinator for the Western School Board for seven years.

Fred was a board member of the P.E.I Teachers’ Federation for 20 years, holding various positions with the active teachers organization. He was a member of the executive, serving his last two years as Vice-President. He has been president of the P.E.I. Retired Teachers’ Association for the last two years. At present Fred is on the board of directors for the 55-Plus Society for P.E.I. and is also a member of the board of directors of the P.E.I. Real Estate Association. He chairs the Health Services and Insurance Committee of ACER-CART.

Helen Biales – Regional Director (Centre)

Helen received her teaching certificate from the London Teachers College before attending the University of Windsor (B.A.) and Wayne State University (M. Ed.). She taught for 35 years, 4 in the London Separate Schools and 31 in Windsor Separate Schools, and received her supervisory officer’s papers. At the time of her retirement she was principal of an elementary school. During her teaching career, she was always active in the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. She served as its president from 1992-93. Other federation activities included being a governor for the Ontario Teachers Federation and a director of the Canadian Teachers Federation. She worked on many committees at all three organizations.

Helen’s first overseas experience was Project Overseas in Botswana in 1983. As a member of the CTF Trust Fund, she went to Mozambique, Malawi and Sierra Leone to work with teacher federations. She is the president of the Retired Teachers of Ontario.

Locally, she has served on the hospital board and a hospital insurance board, chairing several committees. She has been active in her church as a lector, finance committee member, and on the Pastoral Council as Chair and member. A very active member of Sigma Phi Gamma International Sorority for 34 years, she served as International President in 2000 – the first Canadian President – and last year co-chaired the International Convention in Toronto. Helen chairs the Pension and Retirement Committee. Her hobbies include traveling, bridge, golf and reading.

Vaughn Wadelius – Regional Director (West)

Vaughn retired in 1999 after 37 years in the teaching profession, two in Manitoba Catholic schools and 35 in the public school system. A 1962 graduate of the Manitoba Teachers’ College, he later completed his B.A., B.Ed., M.Ed. and P.B.Cert.Ed. at the University of Manitoba. During his career he taught in six schools (four as principal) at all levels, his last (1986-1999) as principal of The Pas’s Margaret Barbour Collegiate which also included an Adult Education Centre and post-secondary distance education components.

His teacher organization service included the provincial executive of the Manitoba Teachers Society (1977-87), serving as MTS Treasurer (1981-83), Vice-President (1983-85), President (1985-86), and Director of the Canadian Teachers Federation (1984-87). He served on international teacher training projects in St. Vincent & the Grenadines (1981-83), India (1982), Thailand (1991, 1993) and Malawi (1999). A member of the RTAM Board since 2000, Vaughn chaired the Group Benefits committee (2003-05), is the RTAM webmaster (2002-06) and was Vice-President (2003-05). In May, 2005 he was elected RTAM President for 2005-06.

Vaughn was an RTAM Alternate Director at ACER-CART (2003, 2004, 2005) and a member of the ACER-CART Communications Committee (2003-05), which he now chairs, working on the development of the web page. He continues to play a leadership role in local community organizations, and assists in training aspiring principals in Manitoba. His favourite hobby is walking his granddaughter to school.

CTF Assistance

We are fortunate to have the support of the Canadian Teachers Federation. CTF provides a meeting space for our annual meeting, and the use of a dedicated staff secretarial person, Lynne Richard. ACER-CART is also allowed to use the CTF address to receive our mail.

International Assistance – Book Development Project

RTAM proposed at the AGM that ACER-CART follow its lead in devoting 1% of its budget to educational assistance in developing countries, and highlighted a project RTAM supports – the CTF International Fund’s collaboration with the Pan African Teacher Centre’s Book Development Project. While the AGM delegates felt that the current budget of ACER -CART was just too small to allow for this presently, it was suggested that member organizations might consider the example of RTAM in joining financial forces with CTF (and CIDA) to support this very worthwhile endeavor.

The Project, begun in 1996, responds to the almost complete lack of reading materials for African children by developing appealing, authentic and affordable storybooks. It has two basic parts – the creation of locally relevant stories, then the publication and the distribution of the resulting storybooks. Writers’ workshops for selected teachers from a number of countries give them training in a variety of writing techniques. The results of their creative efforts are uniquely African stories that tell about people, places and events that make sense to African kids. Then these teachers return to their respective countries as resources persons to other teachers, and their stories are illustrated and published. To date 128 teachers have been trained and more than 16,500 book copies published, but more needs to be done as funds are always in short supply. More information can be obtained by contacting CTF or checking out the information on their web page (www.ctf-fce.ca). Donations can be sent to:

CTF Trust Fund (BDP), 2490 Don Reid Drive, Ottawa, ON K1H 1E1

For contributions of $10 or more, the CTF Trust Fund, as a registered Canadian charity, will provide an official receipt for income tax purposes.

The President Comments

The vast majority of the readers of these comments realize that ACER-CART has five major objectives — liaison and mutual assistance amongst our member organizations; the responsibility to promote and support the interests of retired teachers; the taking of joint action on matters of mutual concern; cooperation with like-minded organizations; and to continue to support and promote public education. Within the context of our objectives, the 2005 Annual General Meeting afforded us an opportunity to share experiences/information and adopt policies which we will promote in an effort to improve our “retirement years”.

The Delegates to the AGM directed our Executive Committee to pursue particular issues with the federal government and all of the federal opposition parties. Those issues will be found in the report of the 2005 AGM and I’ll not repeat them here. Suffice it to say, that we will be contacting all federal political leaders and all federal parties to ask for support and, in turn, the enactment of legislation which will bring to fruition the policies we believe to be of primary and immediate importance to all of us. When we have received and collated the responses, it is our intention to advise Member organizations which will, in turn, pass that information on to their individual members.

The real strength of an organization is the commitment of individuals to support actions taken locally, provincially or nationally. While “the leadership” can set the stage, the actors (individual members) have the most potent influence on individual legislators. Phone calls, emails, letters, and so on, to support the leadership are very effective. Lobbying is a joint effort by the organization and the individual members. The impact on a Member of Parliament is certainly enhanced when the “grass roots” voter lets the MP know that his/her vote may be determined on the stance taken on specific issues.

Recently, Val Alcock (Past President of ACER-CART) was part of a delegation of representatives from a congress of national seniors groups which met with Mr. Ken Dryden, federal Minister of Social Development. The major focus of that meeting was to see the creation of a Seniors’ Secretariat at the federal level. While the details in respect to the composition and operation of such a Secretariat is still in the developmental/discussion stage, we believe that the creation of such a body will afford seniors more direct opportunities to influence governments and legislation which particularly affects those of us who are retired. We will be keeping ACER-CART member organizations advised as developments occur.

Please feel free to contact your Regional Director (listed elsewhere on this site) from time to time during the next few months.