Welcome to the website of York Branch
The York Branch website aims to keep members informed on branch activities; provide information on meeting schedules, branch advocacy and other areas of interest. Be sure to check back periodically for updates.
We have two membership meetings each year. Our annual general meeting (AGM) is held in the spring, usually in April. The second is the fall membership meeting (FMM), usually held in October. This is more of a social event. Traditionally our general membership meetings are held in the morning at the Richvale Community Centre, Richmond Hill, with a guest speaker. All members are encouraged to come out and meet and socialize with old friends from work and other retirees.
Branch Reports
February 2023 Update
York Branch is starting on another year – and we are hoping for a “normal year”. This is the 60th anniversary of the association. The Annual Meeting of NAFR in June (in Gatineau) will probably be a special event. We may be able to do something in York Branch, though NAFR spending restrictions on Branches will limit what is possible.
York Branch will be back with two in-person general meetings. Our Fall Members’ Meeting last year was a hybrid meeting (in person and on Zoom) but attendance was a bit low with continuing COVID concerns. We hope for a bigger crowd for our Spring AGM on April 18 – planning underway. We are also getting more experience (and buying more equipment) to run a hybrid meeting, so that members who cannot come for a host of possible reasons can still drop in and take part.
The upcoming AGM will deal with all the necessary work – financial reviews (budget, reserves) and approvals, “elections” for the Branch Board, possibly bylaw reviews …. and a guest speaker or speakers which should be more interesting. The new NAFR president, Roy Goodall, is to put in an appearance by Zoom, while travelling to Atlantic Canada for a NAFR meeting. We are considering an additional speaker – perhaps on measures for dealing with the increasing fraud attacks we are all seeing. Other suggestions would be welcome – to the Branch e-mail.
We do have things to think about as an Association – concerns about our health systems and the potential for an increase in attacks on our pensions.
Arrangements for the Public Service Health Care Plan have been renewed, and not all changes have been for the better. A basic constraint in the changes was the cost – some members would not have been able to continue in the Plan if costs increased, even for better overall coverage. The changes in physiotherapy coverage have been particularly difficult for some, which our Nation Board is hoping to address. The change in Plan administration (from SunLife to Canada Life, which was formerly Great West) will occur on July 1 – hopefully a smooth one.
We’re also concerned about our public health system, which many have deemed broken. We see many calls for a reform, but not a lot of details as to what these reforms should be and how they would help. We remember the hospital closures of past years, and constraints on graduating new health providers, which now sees us with exhausted nurses and general staff shortages.
A closing note: the ongoing search for unmarked graves at former residential schools calls to mind a similar case. Parklawn Cemetery in Toronto has two mass graves – until recently completely unmarked - for 75 children and young adults from the program to resettle British children in care in Canada, in the late 19th and early 20th century. Some had good lives here, many in these graves suffered abuse and neglect, and lie in anonymous graves. Those were hard times.
Web Content
We are constantly reviewing and updating our webpage hoping to make it friendlier and allow our readers to quickly search for information about the branch: its activities and the newest published items. Please check out the Latest Updates section to find the most current submission.
Frank Froude
Web Content Editor
March 2022