UMRA November audience laughed as Steve Sack, award-winning cartoonist with the Star Tribune, talked about his 36-year career in visual commentary on politics, society, and the world.
At the October workshop Melinda Soderberg from the U’s Office of Human Resources provided an overview of the health plan options available for retirees in 2018.
Membership in UMRA is growing, a reality that prompted the UMRA Board to convene a Town Meeting-style discussion at the October luncheon to identify future activities and governance issues of importance to our members. Demonstrating the depth of University retirees’ wisdom, creativity, and enthusiasm, individual table discussions yielded myriad wide-ranging ideas that will surely stimulate action.
Presenter was Jay Haapala, an AARP expert who has done over 500 workshops on the topic. He stressed the importance of becoming educated so that we do not become the next victim. He said not just older people are victimized...it happens to us all. Older people are targeted more because they have the money.
The most attempted crimes are financial scams including Prize Winning Scams and Student Loan Scams.
Minnesota Commission of Health Ed Ehlinger challenged us, as individuals, and UMRA as an organization, to help change today’s narrative around health care. We need to strengthen the capacity of communities so that healthy choices are possible and health policies are designed to increase equity, he said.
Dr. Laura Kalambokidis, Professor of Applied Economics and our Minnesota State Economist spoke at the March 28th UMRA Luncheon. She enlightened us about the strength and resiliency of the MN economy mainly due to the diversity of our industries and the strength of our well-educated labor pool. But, with the aging population we need to invest in education and jobs for our diverse ethnic population and encourage immigration to enrich our future labor market. The process of creating the State’s revenue forecast was most informative and helped us understand the headlines announcing that the state will have $1.65 billion budget surpus in the 2018-19 biennium.
Susan Flannigan (CNP, MPH) from the University’s Center for Spirituality and Healing (CSH) discussed non-pharmaceutical methods of dealing with chronic pain. In addition to exercise and “waiting it out,” she described another method, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).
Dick Kain continued his demonstrations on using Lightroom. If you were not able to make this meeting, good books and web-based videos talk about how to use Lightroom.
Dr. Charles Reznikoff, assistant professor at the University and a physician at the Hennepin County Medical Center said "Treating pain in elderly patients requires doctors to consider many factors."
The October program was a delightful sample of what can be done with an UMRA Professional Development Grant for Retirees. Kathleen O’Brien and Kathryn Fennelly talked about their projects, read more.
The October program was a delightful sample of what can be done with an UMRA Professional Development Grant for Retirees. Kathleen O’Brien and Kathryn Fennelly talked about their projects, read more.
After UMRA’s luncheon meeting, UMRA members were treated to a unique tour of some special archival collections as well as the storage caverns at the Andersen Library.
Peter Moe, the interim director of the University’s Landscape Arboretum spoke at the May, 2016 luncheon and annual meeting. The links to his beautiful slides about Minnesota apples and grapes can be found by clicking the article title.