Right off the bat I made a mistake and arrived a day early. However, it is one of those mistakes that turned out to be very good. On Monday July 23^rd I attended the National Executive Board (NEB) Meeting of NARFE. I was invited to attend by President Margaret Baptiste. She said that anyone was welcome to set in but could not say anything. Not saying anything is never easy for me. The Florida Federation president and I attended the whole day meeting. It is my understanding that there has been much dissention in the past among the Vice Presidents who make up the board, but that was not the case this time. I cannot begin to discuss what all was talked about in this report but one of the outstanding things for me was that a virtual chapter exists in the Washington, DC area for members who cannot or do not want to attend meetings. This seems to be the wave of the future. President Baptiste was surprised that the Florida President and I stayed for the entire meeting.

On Tuesday July 24^th all federation presidents, one from each state plus Puerto Rico, Washington DC and the Philippines assembled for our initial meeting. Dr. Paul Carew, President of the North Carolina Federation made a presentation about Leadership and membership which he said were so intertwined. He said new members are not moving into leadership roles as they adopt the attitude "why should I want to do it?" He said that members present and future are divided into generations and each has a name and their own agendas. The Silent or Hero Generation is those born between 1925 and 1945. The Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. They are followed by Generation X who was born between 1965 and 1984. We are now in the Millennial or Generation Y who were born beginning in 1985. The majority of future members are complacent about the future of their retirements and complacency is the "Dry Rot" of an organization.

We elected Marlene Bunten, President of the Kentucky Federation, as the overall moderator. We were then broken up into 3 groups and went to different areas to discuss our proposals which would be presented to the NEB. After Tuesday and Wednesday sessions we again assembled to summarize our proposals. Four areas that were presented to the NEB were of primary concern: Communications, Membership and Restructure NARFE for the 21^st Century and Legislation.

Under communications:

        A. Web Log or Blog to foster better communication between National, Federations and Chapter members. Virtual chapters are on the way and one already exists in the                Washington DC area.

        B. Advertising Budget, the presidents would like to see this budget expanded to allow for more campaigns.

        C. NARFE Website, should be more friendly. The board stated that changes are in the works to improve website.

        D. GEM Access for Federation Presidents and the board stated this is in the works once Gems is moved completely in-house.

        E. Federation Presidents would like to be invited to attend Board Meeting and President Baptiste issued a standing invitation to any member to attend a board meeting at any     time.

        F. NARFE Magazine would like to expand the letters to the editors and broaden the author base.

        G. Website, would like to have a search area in the Q & A section.

        H. Teleconferences, would like to have more available.

Under Membership:

        A. NARFE dues, the presidents voted overwhelmingly to move toward single dues.

        B. M112 would like to have copies go to the Chapter President and the Membership chair, Presidents would like to archive 3 months of the M112 on line and the M114 will also   be available online only each quarter.

        C. Presidents would like Dr. Carew’s presentation on disk.

        D. Would like an updated letter book and E. Honorary Membership, presidents are split on this issue of eliminating it and would like candidates for honorary membership to be limited to those actively involve in the chapters.

Under Restructure NARFE for the 21^st Century,

        A. This should be a joint effort for the Board and Federation Presidents to achieve together.

        B. It would consist of a task force to examine and make recommendations from the top down or bottom up as we see it.

Legislation:

        A. Presidents would like to go on record to say that Judy Park and her staff do an amazing job.

        B. Presidents would like to see more communications from that department in the form of articles, etc in the magazine.

        C. Legislative Training, Presidents would like to have a training program in place and would like a clearing house section on the website for this purpose and a filter-down program from the Regions as it pertains to legislative training and mentoring.

My overall observations are: Most of these points were totally new to me but made sense. They were accepted by the NEB with no dissention. Because I had attended the NEB meeting on Monday, I knew that some of these suggestions were already in the works. I think the Federation President and Vice-Presidents should attend these meetings so that someone coming on board as new as I am would feel more comfortable with the goals and desires of NARFE and its members.