Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News www.bctf.ca/VRTA/ Page One

Newsletter of The Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association

June 2011

Malcolm Alan (Al) Paterson was conferred with Honorary Life Membership in VESTA this year at its May 17th AGM. Al's efforts on behalf of teachers and students include dis-cussing Working and Learning Conditions in the bargaining process (at that time limited to salaries and bonuses), advocating in-creased staffing for demonstrated need (as in the North East Sector Project), and sup-porting the Status of Women committee in its goal towards removing barriers and unac-ceptable attitudes facing women. A former VESTA president described him accurately when he said, "During negotiations, Al skillfully combined strong advocacy and soft diplomacy." Al began teaching in 1962 and taught in four elementary schools until 1980. He was an intermediate consultant from 1980 to 1981 at which time he became a vice princi-pal in five schools until 1993. Al re-tired as Personnel Manager at the VSB in 1997.

Al served as VESTA President from 1974 to 1976. He was also President of the VSB Elementary Administrators' Association. He recently served as President of the Vancou-ver Branch of the Retired Teachers' Asso-ciation. As well as his continuing work on many committees, Al has chaired both the BCTF Representative Assembly and the Annual General Meetings.

Inside this issue of the Tabloid: Voting on the HST referendum—Page 3 President’s Message—Page 4 The financial planning seminar—Page 4 Technology and computers—Page 5

Theater news and events—Page 6 Interest groups and activities—Page 7 Year-end luncheon news—Page 8 General Gordon 100th year!—Page 8

New Honorary Life Members Alan Paterson and Patricia Gudlaugson at the VESTA Annual General Meeting

Alan Paterson Receives VESTA Honourary Life Membership

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Two

VRTA Executive Members

Past Pres. Patricia Wright 604-876-7939 patricia_wright@shaw.ca

AGM/COSCO

President Merle Bennett 604-433-4738 merleben@telus.net

AGM/COSCO

First VP Carol Perdue 604-732-9893 caroljqp@shaw.ca

AGM/Fall Seminar/Phoning/Tabloid Proof-Reader

Second VP Barb Mikulec 604-261-6887 mikulec@telus.net

AGM/Secretary

Treasurer Tom Brunker 604-739-7410 ctbjumppoint@yahoo.com

Heritage

Members at Large

Elaine Anderson, Asst. Treasurer 604-929-3306 ebanderson@shaw.ca

Terry Ballentine, Greeter 604-568-8238 tballent@shaw.ca

Winola Chu, Program 604-872-1859 wderechu@hotmail.com

Lil Cumberbirch, Phoning 604-464-4729 liljohn@telus.net

Ruth Deshaies, Phoning 604-421-5396 rdeshaies@shaw.ca

Anastasia Mirras, COSCO/Membership/Tabloid 604-736-4670 avmirras@gmail.com

Janet Morningstar, Program 604-925-2638 morningstar123@gmail.com

MaryAnn Nelson, Greeter/Sunshine 604-738-7274 maryannandcats@yahoo.ca

Denis Ottewell, Fall Seminar 604-526-7561 dottewell@shaw.ca

Al Paterson, Heritage/AGM 604-421-5039 alpaterson@shaw.ca

Sheila Pither, Heritage/COSCO 604-684-9720 pither470@shaw.ca

Bea Raymond 778-329-5047 stanraymond@shaw.ca

Art Rempel, Sunshine/Labels 604-261-6149

Les Rowe, AGM/COSCO 604-228-8691 lesrowe@hotmail.com

Diane Smith, Program/AGM & COSCO Alternate

604-224-6107 frandia@shaw.ca

Alan Sunquist 604-731-6648

David Anderson, Website/Tabloid 604-733-8733 danderson5@shaw.ca

Colleen Bowen-Beaddie & & Debbie Austin Poinsettias

Important Dates

June 14, 2011

RTA Vancouver Branch Luncheon & AGM

At The Royal Vancouver Yacht Club at 11:00 am Lunch served at 12 noon

September 6, 2011

TGIF Brunch Location to be announced

October 18, 2011

Fall Seminar At The Hellenic Community Centre 4500 Arbutus Street (near 30th and Arbutus)

Executive Calendar of Events for 2011

Please Feel Free to Join Us!

July 20, 2011 Executive Meeting August 3, 2011 Deadline for articles for Tabloid August 17, 2011 Tabloid Stuffing Executive Meetings start at 10:00 AM Tabloid Stuffing starts at 9:30 AM For Information regarding the Vancouver RTA Branch please call Merle Bennett @ 604-433-4738

BCRTA Office #100, 550 West 6 Avenue

Vancouver, BC, V5Z 4P2 Office Administrator: Patricia Laursen pat@bcrta.com Admin Assistant: Kristi Josephson kristi@bctra.com

Website: www.bcrta.ca

For those of you who would prefer to

receive the TABLOID by email please send your

email address and legal name

to patricia_wright@shaw.ca with Tabloid in the

subject line

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Three

The Referendum on the HST When you receive your ballot to vote on the HST be aware of the following: The question is worded in such a way that YES means NO! The question is worded as follows: Are you in favour of extinguishing the HST and reinstating the PST in con-junction with the GST? If you are in favour of extinguishing the HST, you would vote YES. If you are in favour of retaining the HST, you would vote NO. The choice is yours; however, for your decision making information a few facts that have been made available to us by the Council of Senior Citizens’ Organi-zations of BC:

1. The Provincial Government promised in writing that they wouldn’t impose

this tax.

2. The Provincial Government’s tax shift is costing our families hundreds of

dollars a year. Many things that were previously exempt from provincial

sales taxes – household repairs, some medical services, real estate fees,

travel, school supplies for our children and grandchildren, and much

more – are now taxed at 12%.

3. Collectively, people in BC are paying $1.9 billion a year more.

4. The HST is bad for our economy. It hurts small business. It hurts fami-

lies by taking money out of our purses and wallets. It hurts seniors on

pensions who can least afford it.

The choice is yours. If you are against the HST, you would vote YES.

President’s Message

This will be my last message to you as Presi-dent. I have enjoyed my year representing you and will be around for at least one more year as Past President. We have a good slate of officers to serve you next year that will be voted on at our AGM on June 14. Hopefully we will see you at the luncheon to be held at the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club. Anastasia Mirras and David Anderson will be co-editing the VRTA Tabloid. He will be doing a Tabloid column on computers and hopes to offer workshops for our members during the year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the executive for their help and support dur-ing this past year. Cheers, Merle

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Four

MAY 16th ESTATE PLANNING SEMINAR

Report by Sharen Fuchs This seminar held at the BCTF building was presented by Nick Kilpatrick of Mackenzie George and Associates, Certified General Accountants. Nick addressed the following issues of interest: A. Why Plan your Estate? B. Components of an Estate Plan C. Your Estate Plan Partners D. Taxation Issues E. Summary - Estate Planning Tips F. Primary Estate Planning Goals G. Corporate Tax Planning Tools The overall goals of estate planning are to decrease your taxes on death, to pass your estate on to your children or spouse, and to protect your assets from creditors. The Seminar was very well attended. Those present had the opportunity to ask questions throughout and at the end of the presenta-tion. Many of the questions and discussion

dealt with the importance of an up-to-date will, and the need to have a record of important personal in-formation readily at hand for family members. It was pointed out that at critical times of stress in dealing with the loss of a family member, it is not easy to locate various documents such as insur-ance and other personal

information. It turns out that the BCRTA has a very concise pamphlet for everyone to fill out that will help surviving relatives in deal-ing with the many issues that arise. Additional seminars in the future were re-quested, especially seminars on trusts.

Important facts about MSP premiums

Please look at Page 10 in the Spring 2011 issue of the BCRTA PostScript magazine. Find out about the situation facing BC retired people and the financial implications for pay-ing our own MSP premiums. Most provinces pay MSP premiums through general tax revenue. In our province, however, the gov-ernment imposes this cost directly on us. The BCRTA seeks the elimination of MSP premi-ums for seniors in British Columbia. Contact your government representatives and ask when BC will get in line with the other provinces in the fair treatment for retir-ees and their mandatory fees for MSP cover-age. Let’s do our own documentation of MSP coverage for seniors across Canada. Con-tact friends in other provinces and tell us what they say. We’ll put the results in a fu-ture issue of the Tabloid.

Everyday we see and hear about the Inter-net. More and more businesses and gov-ernment agencies assume that we are all using the Internet and our computers are all working perfectly. This is not always the case for retired people. Since the gradual movement of information from print-based sources to the Internet is not going to slow down, what is the best way to feel comfort-able in this changing world of ours? Senior citizens can use the Internet quite effectively with a bit of coaching and sup-port. The first step is to have a reliable computer that is sufficiently up to date to handle the information that now resides “online.” Many older computers work well, but seem to cough and choke when dealing with web-based information. This is be-cause the nature of the Internet is con-stantly changing, and the assumption is that our computers are fully updated and powerful enough to “read” the latest web-site information. If you have an older computer, chances are that it needs to be upgraded in order to run the latest versions of Windows or Macin-tosh operating systems. How do you know if this is the case? The best way is to have a friend or relative who is knowledgeable to look at your computer and check to see how much memory it has, and whether or

not it is running the latest upgrades. If you do not have technical support available, you can have a mobile computer tech-nician visit your home who will charge an hourly rate to evaluate your computer. The other op-

tion is to take your computer to a local ser-vice centre and ask to have it evaluated.

A trained technician will look to see how much memory you have installed, and will look at the amount of information stored on the hard drive. He or she will also tell you if you need to upgrade your version of Win-dows to be able to visit current websites. It may be the case that your computer is simply too old to be effectively upgraded, in which case you get to treat yourself to a new computer. The good news is that the prices are quite reasonable for a very fast and up-to-date computer, any-where from $300 to $500. This is the same for desktop or laptop computers. Prices are so low that extensive upgrading of older com-puters is often more expensive than ac-quiring a new one. In some cases, an older computer can be cleaned out and upgraded enough to last several more years. But nothing beats a new machine that comes loaded with tons of memory and a huge hard drive, and the

latest operating software. The new machines easily cruise the Internet and handle email and digital photographs. In the next issues of the Tabloid Newsletter, we can look at the training

you might need to make use of the valu-able information that now resides on the Internet. For seniors, there are many help-ful websites dealing with health, nutrition, medical issues, and financial information. As well, there are many sources of news and current events to keep us up to date. Stay tuned for more ideas on how to use the Internet to improve our lives and to keep in touch with friends and family. David Anderson

Technology and computers for seniors

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Five

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Six

Theatre-Going By John F. Parker

I hope that you’ve already booked two or three tickets for Vancouver’s summer theat-rical productions. And, of course, I hope you’ve already booked your four tickets to the Shakespeare productions at Bard on the Beach. Enjoy them all.

You might like to file the following in-formation from the Arts Club Artistic Direc-tor, Bill Millerd so that you can build your expectations for the following autumn and winter productions: There is so much in next season’s line up that will grab you: seven Canadian works, including three pre-mieres and recent plays by Margaret At-wood and Morris Panych, the "feel-everything" musical Next to Normal, the international com-edy sensation Calendar Girls, and the award-winning musical epic Blood Brothers. The Arts Club is building its exciting pro-ductions not only on its three Vancouver stages at the Stanley Theatre and two smaller thea-tres on Granville Island, but also on various Lower Mainland theatres with exciting touring productions.

Revue Stages CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION September 22–October 22, 2011; BLOOD BROTHERS November 17–December 31, 2011; INTIMATE APPAREL February 9–March 10, 2012; HENRY AND ALICE: INTO THE WILD April 19–May 26, 2012; XANADU June 21–August 4, 2012; THE PATRON SAINT OF STANLEY PARK December 1–December 24, 2011; DO YOU WANT WHAT I HAVE GOT? A CRAIGSLIST CANTATA January 19–

GORDON March 1–March 24, 2012; SCAR TISSUE April 5–April 28, 2012 On Tour Metro Vancouver and throughout the province. Check newspapers for which theatre is producing the following: BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY October/November, 2011; DON QUIXOTE January/February, 2012; CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION February/March, 2012

You must be thinking, enough

already, so I’ll leave you with this tidbit: The Vancou-ver Playhouse Theatre

Company will be getting a little help from the world of ballet for its 2011/2012 main stage season

opener The Tosca Café, a co-production with Theatre Calgary and American Conservatory Theatre (October 8 to 29). The fusion of movement and theatre will feature artists from the San Francisco Ballet including prima ballerina Sabina Allemann and a cast of actors that includes Peter Anderson of The Over-coat. This is one production that you should book NOW.

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Seven

Report of the Mayne Island Day Trip By Diane Smith Our Mayne Island Trip was everything promised and then some – a truly enjoy-able day. The right balance between be-ing guided and having time to explore on our own. Troy, our driver and very knowledgeable guide, was consider-ate, caring, person-able and very ac-commodating. He had arranged to have Spring Water Lodge open especially to serve us a lovely lunch, and later we enjoyed a lus-cious apple crisp pie dessert at the unique Sunny Mayne Bakery Café. We had time to stroll the beach and enjoy the magnificent views. As we drove along we spotted a young deer beside the forested road. A walk through the Arbutus tree forest and taking in the beauties of BC was fantastic. The highlight of the trip was the peaceful tran-quility of exploring the Japanese Memo-rial Gardens, beautifully built and main-tained by locals, to honour early resi-dents. The consensus was good company, good food, and good direction. A wonderful time was had by all.

Special Interest Groups And

Vancouver Branch Activities

THE STROLLERS: We began on May 25th at Deer Lake and plan to continue to enjoy strolling while we visit. If you would like to join us, please phone Merle Bennett at 604-433-4738 or Diane Smith at 604-224-6107. The next STROLL is planned for Friday, June 3rd.

THE WALKING GROUP: Each Wednesday morning we meet at 10:15 and walk for about one to two hours. Then we have lunch to-gether. Since the group has been walking together regularly, we are generally in pretty good shape and are now able to walk quite quickly. It's a fun way to maintain fitness, socialize, and explore different areas around the lower mainland. If you would like to join us, please email mayoshida@shaw.ca

CARDS or GAMES: Terry Ballentine would like to play SCRABBLE. Please phone her at 604-568-8238 THEATRE GOING: Live thea-

tre or movies. Janet Morningstar says if this is your passion be sure to call her at 604-925-2638. WOULD YOU LIKE TO START AN-OTHER SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP? Bowling, (Lawn) Bowling, (Line) Dancing, Pitch & Putt, Book Club,

Singing (Choir), Arts & Crafts, Pot-luck or Eating Out, etc., etc. Suggest your favourite!Please call an executive mem-ber with your ideas and we'll work together to help you get started.

Our Year-End RTA Luncheon Tuesday, June 14th 2011 Royal Vancouver Yacht Club 3811 Point Grey Road

Registration: 11:00 am. Buffet luncheon: 12:00 noon

We have planned a delicious brunch-style buffet. Come and enjoy the beautiful view overlooking Burrard Inlet. $28 includes 12% HST and 16% gratuity

Please make out your cheque to BCRTA Vancouver Branch and mail to Tom Brunker

#602 – 1235 West Broadway Vancouver, BC

V6H 1G7 (Mail no later than June 9th)

Enclose following information with your cheque: • Your Name • Guest’s Name • Number Attending • Your Telephone # • Your Email

Vancouver Retired Teachers’ Association Tabloid News Page Eight

VRTA Annual General Meeting June 14, 2011

(following the luncheon) Get involved in this important process and help establish directions for the year ahead. • Election of executive positions • Setting of the annual budget • Setting of the membership fees • New directions for the Tabloid and

the VRTA website. Your input will help guide the VRTA in its efforts to represent retired teachers.

Special Events of Interest

General Gordon Elementary School 100th Anniversary

Please join us to celebrate General Gordon’s 100th anniversary on Friday, June 17th from 6:00-9:00 PM. There will be decade rooms, food and drink, enter-

tainment (the Kitsilano Boys Band) and of course a celebratory cake. You can register at the school or go online to http://generalgordon.wordpress.com. The cost is $20.00. Phone 604-713-5403.

There is still room on the cruise from Dubai to Cape Town. The price has dropped $2000. The remaining cabins are on a first come first served basis. The price now starts at $5699. Call Merle if you want more information. 604-433-4738