Suffolk
Chair : Ralph Murray, 64 Derby Road,
Vice-Chair and Joint Secretary – Social : Hilary Girling, 85 Dobbs Lane, Kesgrave,
Joint Secretary – Admin : Netta Murray, 64 Derby Road,
LIFE AFTER WORK – UNISON RETIRED MEMBERSHIP
Not everything has to grind to a halt when you retire from work. If you’ve been a UNISON member for at least two years immediately prior to your retirement, are receiving a pension and are not in other paid employment, you are eligible to become a retired member.
The only cost is a single payment of £15.00, which gives you retired membership for life. All you need to do is send a cheque for £15.00, together with your name, address and membership number, to the Branch Office. There’s no particular time limit after your retirement.
Retired membership gives you access to help from the Welfare Fund should you need it, keeps you in for the good deals from our affiliates like UIA insurance and Frizzells, and also there is a programme of monthly meetings, with interesting speakers, and trips and outings to all sorts of places, at moderate cost.
REPORT ON RETIRED MEMBERS’ ACTIVITIES 2011
This report was written by Netta only as Hilary has some family problems needing urgent attention. This does however give me the opportunity to say [which she never would!] what a marvellous job she is doing on the social front, with really interesting trips and speakers. And 2012 promises to be even better, if that’s possible: from the Houses of Parliament to Kings Lynn Gaol [no it’s not an MP’s biography!] and all manner of other delights. And, conscious that times are hard especially for many pensioners, she is doing very well in keeping the prices down.
2011 saw us taking to the wicket at Lords [and if like me you’ve ever wondered what that strange flat oval building was, we now know it’s the Press building – and the Nursery End is nothing to do with babies, but is so-called because there used to be a market garden there!] Never say you don’t learn anything with the Retired Members!
We went on to enjoy the delights of the only English Whisky Distillery, Chatham’s Historic Dockyard, the wonders of the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, Camden Lock, the Bank of England [an outing I was really sorry to miss, doing so only because our next-door-neighbour attempted to set the house on fire the night before!] and finishing up with a visit to the wonderful Chocolate Lady of Steeple Bumpstead: how does she find them? And if you’ve been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of any friends’ experiments with boxes of home-made chocolates, you now know where the inspiration came from!
Financially too the year was successful – although one or two of the trips were not so popular, overall the costs were more than covered and a healthy “profit” was made. In addition, our monthly meetings were very well attended with a good variety of speakers offering many very interesting topics. On several occasions too we had fundraising activities – Hilary organising raffles for bottles of wine at most of our meetings, and several bring-and-buy sales of various things from plants to books to cakes to the proverbial white elephants. Thanks are due to all who helped with these [especially Terry, Sheila, Carl and Hazel for their help with the raffles] and to everyone who brought and bought. A barbecue held by me and Ralph also raised £50. These fundraising activities really kept us afloat, and I am recommending that our Committee meets shortly to discuss more fundraising ideas for 2012.
A thread throughout the year was of course the cuts imposed by the Government and the threats to services and the jobs of our working colleagues in local government. Also of course the continuing threats to pensions: even as LG pension recipients we have already been adversely affected by the change in indexing from RPI to the lower CPI. Members signed lots of petitions, attended demonstrations and were represented on the 30th November Pensions march and rally in Ipswich. Some photos of that occasion were available to view at the Retired Members’ AGM. Still the struggles continue.
Three members from our Joint RM Section attended the Regional Retired Members’ Seminar in Ely [Roy and Margaret Goulding and Ferdi Vincent]: I helped to organise the Seminar on behalf of the Regional RM Committee and Ralph also attended from the Regional Committee.
Barbara Mortimer and Heather Salmon attended the Retired Members’ National Conference held in Chester in October [Barbara representing SCC members and Heather IBC]. Both were hardworking and diligent delegates, producing their reports within a few days of getting home. I think they enjoyed the Conference and found it useful and interesting. I attended the Conference as Regional Delegate and Ralph attended as the Region’s representative on the National Retired Members’ Standing Orders Committee, of which he is now the Chair. Sadly we were not this year joined by Sarah Bradfield of the SCC Branch, as she lost her place on the National Executive Council earlier in the year. She had been on the NEC for several years, giving a great deal of valuable service to the Union, and in particular to Retired Members – she represented the NEC on the National Retired Members’ Committee of which she was Vice-Chair.
The year’s activities concluded with a well-attended and very enjoyable Christmas Social: many thanks to all those who contributed food for the huge and delicious buffet! And of course to all those who helped, including the grand raffle, Hilary’s challenging quiz and Mike Hurrell’s splendid piano playing [Mike kindly donated his services free of charge – he has himself become a Retired Member now].
We look forward to an interesting and enjoyable 2012: many thanks for the work of our Committee members Diana, Colin and Barbara, and of course to my fellow officers Hilary and Ralph.
Netta Murray
Joint Secretary [Admin]