Minutes of CORE Meeting, August 14th, 2008

The monthly meeting of Concerned Ohio Retired Educators (C.O.R.E.) was held on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 11:45 a.m. at the STRS Building in Columbus. Officers present were Dave Parshall, President; Mary Ellen Angeletti, Vice President and C.J. Myers, Treasurer. Trustees present were Nancy Boomhower, Betty Bell, Chuck Angeletti, and Lloyd Knudsen substituting for Chuck Chapman. Glenna Barr, Secretary, and Nancy Hamant, trustee, were absent.

At noon, John Lazares, his wife, and son walked into the small cafeteria meeting room to a cheering packed house decked out with balloons of thanks. Dave Parshall presented John with a plaque of appreciation for his 4 year term on the STRS Board and praised John for his many contributions to the reform of the Board and for his loyalty in representing the interests of active educators as well as retired educators. While John's cake was being cut and served to all in attendance, John addressed the CORE group thanking us for our support during his term on the Board and cautioning us to remain steadfast in our oversight of STRS. Dave presented John with many cards which had been sent by CORE folks who could not attend today's meeting.

Following the honoring of John, Dave Parshall called the meeting to order. He called for approval of the June CORE meeting minutes. Mary Ellen Angeletti made a motion to accept the minutes, Betty Bell seconded the motion, and the vote was unanimous.

C.J. Myers gave the Treasurer's report.

There were no Committee reports.

Under Old Business: A. Dave reminded members that we would be voting on an amended by-law of the CORE Constitution at the September meeting.

B. Dr. Asbury had promised Dave that CORE could receive a copy of newly retired Ohio teachers which our organization could then use as reference for new CORE membership. Dave was going to inquire about this list today. He will report back on this at next month's meeting.

C. Dave referred members to the handout concerning an update on the status of HB 315. The bill remains in the FIRES Committee and seems to be pretty much on hold due to the elections. There will be many changes of legislators as a result of the elections so Dave stated that there will be a need to form a CORE State Legislature Visiting Team after the election in November. Sponsor Scott Oelslager is trying to bring the bill to the table. Ann Hanning, ORTA, agreed with Dave that visits and letters to legislators would once again be needed. The handout shared at today's meeting was prepared by the Health Care Champions.

D. Member Kathie Bracy has requested that she would appreciate receiving copies of speeches given during the Public Participation of the STRS meeting. If we would make an extra copy and give it to Kathie at the noon CORE meeting, then she can post the speech on her blog that very day.

Under New Business: A. Shirlee Zerkel spoke to us concerning problems related to the new Coordination of Benefits. Everyone received a letter from Express Scripts this month explaining this new no co-pay benefit. One problem is that the letter referred to a list of affected drugs which we could call to obtain. However, when members called to obtain the list, Express Scripts said that there was an error in their letter and that there was no list to send out. Instead we were told to call with the name of the medicine to see if it was on the list. Other members volunteered similar experiences. . . some saying that Express Scripts said they had mailed the list but the list never arrived. Shirlee made a speech during Public Participation addressing this problem to which Sandra Knoesel of Member Benefits said that the list was available on the STRS website. Later in the day the list was passed out to all who wanted it. If folks want to obtain this list, go to the STRS website (www.strsoh.org) and print it or phone STRS to have it mailed.

B. Draft copies of the new CORE brochure were passed out to all in attendance in order to get suggestions, omissions, corrections, and feedback. Errors were found and improvements were suggested. Herm Fisher who will be the new Treasurer beginning next month has established a new post office box in his place of residence, Wilmington, which will appear on the new pamphlets and registration forms. Dave is hopeful that the new brochures will be ready in September at our CORE Annual Membership meeting on Thursday, the 18th.

C. New membership forms will be available for our September meeting which will be held as usual in the small room off of the cafeteria and not in the large Sublett Room as we have done in the past for this meeting. Carole DePaola and Marie Fetters volunteered to work at the registration table in order to get updates on all CORE members. We may ask for additional helpers for the table in order to expedite registration. We ran out of time for discussion and planning for our Annual Membership Meeting on Sept. 18th. We hope to have lots and lots of members attending so our database can be brought up-to-date.

The meeting was adjourned.

The next CORE meeting will be Thursday, September 18th, 2008. It will be our big ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING.

Respectfully submitted, Mary Ellen Angeletti, Substituting for Secretary Glenna Barr