PRESIDENT'S CORNER - June 10, 2016

We are only 12 days from our Annual Meeting on June 22 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Star City. So, it seems appropriate to ponder a few things and let you know of some progress and futures issues, as we used to call them in accreditation circles.

Board: The Board will not be meeting again until July 11.  On that day, following the membership vote for new Board members, we’ll elect the officers and get down to the business facing us for 2016-17. A few items:

• Fee structure: we’ll be looking at whether our current membership dues of $100 per year or $25 per term is still workable, or if we should consider a change. This will be a year-long study, in consultation with Osher, and will be thoroughly vetted before any vote brought before the 2017 Annual Meeting.
• Facilities: Our lease at the Mountaineer Mall ends in June, 2017. That does not mean we’ll be evicted, but it may mean higher rent or other changes.  We’ll be meeting, discussing and negotiating with the Mall owners in good time. This is a high priority and every effort will be made to maintain a facility with ample parking and accessibility for our members.
• Osher Re-Entry Scholarship: Jae and I will be meeting with Rhonda Black and the Foundation rep to make the transition to our management. I’ll report at the Annual Meeting.
• Jae and Ed Johnson are going to Charleston next week to meet with OLLI folks there and to review possible facilities. They take my mandate to recruit a small committee in Charleston to manage their branch course offerings and faculty.
• Fund-raising: Osher has suggested that our OLLI needs to do more fund-raising among our membership. Now that the 100K Club is closed, other options need to be considered. We know that not all of our members can write thousand dollar checks [me neither], so we’ll be looking at a variety of ways to create a new revenue stream that all of us could buy into, so to speak. Have you considered leaving OLLI legacy in your will? I have. The WVU Foundation can help with that.

I want to thank the Events Committee led by Judy Minor for their great work preparing our Annual Meeting.  They have done a terrific job this year! Let them know!

I also want to thank Jae Haislet for surpassing all of our expectations as a new Director that has truly hit the ground running. It proves that stealing a serving OLLI Director away from Montana was a wise choice. She has acclimated very quickly, has the sent the summer catalog to the printer and has about finished the program for the Annual Meeting for the printer, has held productive staff meetings, etc.  I have to thank our search committee for this successful outcome to a task none of us was eager to undertake: Jane Martin, Tom Rogers, Bob Craig, Ann Davidson, Linda Rudy and yours truly. Needless to say, when I agreed to become President, I had no idea that this transition would be in the cards, but we are all grateful for the outomce. If you haven’t met Jae yet, she’ll be our keynote speaker at Annual Meeting, so get your reservations in NOW!

And now, this…

Age only matters when one is aging. Now that I have arrived at a great age, I might just as well be twenty. [Artist Pablo Picasso]

The ordinary objects of human endeavor—property, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me contemptible.  I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves. Such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. [Physicist Albert Einstein]

Jim Held, President