2025-02 From the President: Looking for something to do? UMRA offers great options!

From the President

FROM THE PRESIDENT

2025-02: Looking for something to do? UMRA offers great options!

January and February tend to be quieter months for many of us. While writing this just after New Year’s Day, I was decompressing from the holiday bustle of traveling out of town to visit relatives, and hosting my four adult children (including sons-in-law), three grandchildren, and two dogs. But after only a couple of days I started looking for something to do, so I checked the UMRA website.

Great options were found! UMRA members attended a Gopher women’s hockey game in January and will be at the men’s hockey game on February 25. Most of our Special interest Groups—including the UMRA Book Club and Fourth Friday Book Club—continue meeting each month, and the Cabinets of Curiosity is still accepting reservations for its February 5 tour of the U of M Herbarium Collection on the Twin Cities campus in St. Paul.

Zoom helps us to continue our activities in winter without worrying about ice and snow. On February 18, UMRA’s Living Well Zoom Workshop will address aging in place—and on many winter days that’s exactly what I do! Our February 25 Forum is titled “What pets can teach our families about end of life.” That’s an experience many of us have had, and I’m curious about what more can be learned. 

While I find myself reading in my cozy chair many winter afternoons, I love snow and winter and am an active member of the UMRA Hiking Club. We have hikes scheduled for February 3 and March 3. Bundle up and join us! 

If you’d like to help select or plan UMRA activities, we are always looking for volunteers. The time commitments are very reasonable and flexible, meetings are usually held by Zoom, and communications are by email. Check UMRA’s website for specific ways to help make UMRA run. As an all-volunteer organization, if someone doesn’t volunteer, it doesn’t happen. Thanks to everyone who has volunteered throughout UMRA’s history!

Make one more New Year’s resolution and find one more way to learn, serve, and connect through UMRA. Whether it is watching an Armchair Traveler or Family History Interest Group presentation in the privacy of your home, volunteering with the University Retirees Volunteer Center, or attending UMRA’s monthly luncheon forums, which resume in-person in March (maybe even helping with name tags), it will add to your engagement in life.     

Julie Sweitzer, UMRA president 2024–25