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.
Branch President's Reports
Update July 2024
The Association held its 2024 Annual Meeting of Members (AMM) on the week of June 17 at the Hilton Lac Leamy in Gatineau. Branch President Fred Conway was the delegate for York Branch; Keith Chang, our new member of the York board, attended as an election candidate. The actual annual meeting covered just two days – some were there longer for national board and various committee meetings, but not your York people! The AMM received financial reports, held elections discussed the draft strategic plan and heard a Q&A session with the labour minister and Minister for Seniors (Seamus O’Regan, who was happy to escape the last parliament question period before the summer break). Mr O’Regan has since resigned from cabinet – nothing we said, I hope! The AMM ended on Wednesday night with an award ceremony recognizing member accomplishments, and a sponsored banquet (picture) – the food was delicious and the music great!
Meeting organizers had worked hard to ensure a smooth meeting with creative features. The picture shows an old dial phone as the table centrepiece: all tables had similar museum pieces to accent the AMM theme. The Association hired a professional and full-bilingual facilitator to help run the meeting which helped with the language issue. Sadly, language matters were accented by problems with simultaneous translation on the first day of the meeting. Elections were smooth: Keith Chang was unsuccessful in upsetting the incumbent Ontario Director, Carol Grieco, but continuing involvement of this hard-working director is still a plus for us.
There were two key outcomes apart from the completion of necessary business. A potentially divisive language issue was dodged, and the Association’s strategic plan was not approved, but left as a draft or work in progress.
Roy Goodall was elected national president in 2022 for a three-year term. He is very able and hard-working, but has no French. In 2023 there was a proposal before the AMM (but referred to committee), which would have made bilingualism a requirement, not just highly desirable competency, of all candidates for president or vice-president. This proposal was finally dropped at this AMM – withdrawn in return for extra efforts on the language issue.
The draft strategic plan appeared to extend Federal Retirees’ core mission to working for the retirement benefits of all in Canada. There was resistance at the AMM to moving beyond the mission stated in the Association’s article of incorporation, which focuses on the benefits of Federal Retirees members. There is a will to expand Association advocacy beyond the federal level, to deal with provincial and even municipal issues and other senior issue, but the way this expressed in Association plans requires work. As a related issue, a committee is engaged in a review of much of the Association’s organization structure, including the size and area of branches. There may be some interesting business at our meeting on Oct. 22, the York Branch Fall Meeting of Members, as well as the traditional entertainment! Potential members welcome too!
May 24, 2024 Update
The Branch 2024 AGM was held on April 16 at the Aurora Legion, where we conducted our necessary business of the year – financial reports and elections, followed by a presentation on Wealth Investment and Wealth Transfer by Jason Green, a CIM Investment Advisor with RBC Dominion Securities.
In person attendance was down a bit, but with those who came in by Zoom the crowd was close to average overall. The Aurora Legion Hall was comfortable with fewer sound problems than In the past. The Branch is doing fine financially, though we suffered fraudulent attacks on our bank account in the fall, from which we are just recovering. Customer vigilance seems to be the only defense: the banks don’t verify withdrawals as well as we’d like. We welcomed Keith Chang to the Branch Board – very welcome new blood as succession is a real problem facing all Branches.
Our VERY long-time secretary is stepping down in that role, while remaining on the Board for the present. Ed received a NAFR award – a President’s Commendation for Exceptional Service for all this work for York Board over these many years – presented by Tom Nichols
Fred Conway, York Branch
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