by Barbara Kaufman

I’ll bet that if you think back to when you first joined the Senior Federation, you’ll easily remember what it was that drew you to the organization. Perhaps it was dedication to a special issue like fairness and justice for the Medicare program. Or maybe it was a need for a service offered by the Federation such as affordable prescription drugs. Was it an interest in a Federation benefit like discounts on travel? It could have been a desire to travel with others like yourself.

People join the organization for many different reasons. They often have more than one reason for belonging. And that’s good. The Federation needs to keep in mind that our members have a wide variety of interests and purposes.

For far too long, our membership committee has been inactive. But at long last, we’re going to put it back on track and start rolling along again.

Gretchen Messenger is the new chair of the Federation’s membership committee. Gretchen has been an active member and volunteer since 2000. She comes to us with a long-standing interest in senior issues, including long-term care, housing, caregiving and transportation.

Gretchen and I both believe that recruiting and retaining membership is critical to the continued life and health of the Federation. We particularly need to:

• get more folks in their 50s and 60s to be involved with the organization;
• work with Minnesota’s communities of color around senior issues; and especially
• have people in every single region of the Federation actively working to recruit new members and retain our current membership.

The first meeting of our membership committee will be Wednesday, March 11, beginning at 3:30 p.m.  To join, call Gretchen at 651-783-5070 or 877-645-0261 ext. 5070.  Absolutely anyone interested in working on membership issues and plans is welcome. And, of course, you can participate by phone. So there’s no need to travel to St. Paul.

This is something we can do! It’s something we must do.

We already have some benefits that make sense to people beginning to think about retirement: our Pension Rights Project, retirement planning seminars, a dental plan, the publication Caregiving Choices, and AAA discounts, to name a few. Now we need to think about how to talk about membership to younger seniors.

Our track record with communities of color is dreadful. With Minnesota’s growing minority populations, this is an absolute MUST.

Some projects at the Minnesota Senior Federation are fun and easy and optional. Growing our membership will not be easy nor optional. Let’s try to make it be fun!