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UPDATE ON MEETING SCHEDULE AND LOCATIONS
There has been a slight change in the meeting locations
that were printed in the December newsletter. The location
of the JANUARY meetings are as follows:
Report from the MEETING LOCATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS - Art Goldberg,
John Nicely, Lew Brown-Coon, Pat Morrow
The committee that is working on finding a location
for GGU meetings, after January 2000, has met once and split up the list
of possibilities between the members of the committee. The list we
are working from is one that we made during the first meeting. The
potential locations were derived from discussions during various other
ASEA meetings and discussions. We will come together again
to review the results and see if more research is needed. We hope
to have a new location in time for scheduling a meeting on the 2nd Wednesday
of February. Who did research on this recently? I can picture
your face but can't think of your name. Please call Pat Morrow at
273-3219. It would be helpful to get that research put in writing.
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BIENNIAL CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
Importance - The constitutional convention is the time for representatives of the membership to come together and look at our constitution and consider potential changes to it. This happens every other year. If you think something is not working quite the way it should, then consider the possibility that it may be due to the way our constitution is written. Do consider the opposite also, if a part of the organization is working really great, then you may want to speak to some of the delegates to be sure that does not change.
Delegates - The cut off date for nomination of delegates to the biennial ASEA Constitutional convention will be just prior to the vote for delegates that will occur during the January 12th GGU meeting. Thusfar, 45 people have expressed interest in the 32 delegate positions that are allocated to the Anchorage Chapter. During the January 12th meeting of the General Membership the list of nominees will be finalized and voted upon. Votes for each nominee will be counted and listed in descending order. The 32 individuals with highest number of votes will be the potential delegates. After 32 potential delegates have been elected a review of their current union status will be done within a few days. In the unlikely event that the review determines that a potential delegate is not a member in good standing then the individual on the list with the next highest number of votes will be made a potential delegate. This process will continue until 32 delegates are found to be in good standing.
Next - The delegates will, most likely, have a pre-convention meeting. There will be draft resolutions and amendments to consider. Prior to the convention there may be flurry of paper passed between the delegates.
Result - A goal of the convention is to improve the way
our organization works. The obvious way that improvement happens
is through improving our constitution. A way that may be less obvious
is through working together and talking about what we agree and disagree
about. Both are important.
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ANCHORAGE CHAPTER PRESIDENT’S LETTER
Hello Anchorage!
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas holiday and is looking forward to a great year 2000.
As the new President of the Anchorage Chapter I am busy trying be sure the organization keeps doing what needs to be done. Right now the priority is to be sure meetings get scheduled and that we have a place to meet.
Even though I have been a Steward for most of the 18 years that I have worked for the State and was recently the South Central Strike Authorization Coordinator, I still have a lot to learn. While I am looking at ASEA Local 52 from a different point of view, I will still have the knowledge gained over the last 18 years of State employment.
The most important issue at this time is, of course, getting a good contract. I think the next most important thing to work on is being sure that we do the basics of the organization and do them well. Exactly what that means… I've put some thought into that and have some more thinking to do. The obvious is to do the business part. Also we must remember that doing the basics well has something to do with working together for common goals. Some of the goals are good pay, good health care, and a retirement plan that we can expect to retire on.
There are a couple of potential projects that I would like the Anchorage Chapter to consider. One is reviewing what information goes to the members. Do the members get the information they need to be good members and good citizens? Is the format appropriate? Do you read it, listen, attend, etc.?
Another is making some sense of our health care program. We have a Statewide Health Care Committee that is very involved in this subject, but I'm not aware of all the work they do. The Anchorage Chapter may be able to help them in some way.
I'm hoping volunteers will be able to help if these projects get beyond being potential projects. A few creative volunteers to discuss ideas and help define these projects may be requested. If they get beyond being potential projects, I would like to sketch out the work into clearly identifiable blocks of work before they are started so volunteers will know what they a volunteering to do.
Lessons learned in life: It is always good to think what the ramifications may be when we respond to an issue that comes up? While working together let us remember to respect other people & their positions. We may disagree with what a co-worker says. If the co-worker is given the opportunity to say more we might realize that we agree. Sometimes when we quickly form opinions about what a person says, our opinion is based on less than a good understanding of what was meant. If we take the time to discuss the issue we might agree with the intent. Please remember that the things we say or do can unintentionally hurt people and crush creativity. Respect the positions people hold and the work they do. …..Patrick Morrow.
