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Present: Mike Bradshaw, Ken Cowser, Sandy Dean, Joe Dykstra, Ben Gaylor, John Gray, Ben Johnson, Bob Keil, Charlie Kuykendall, Marigrace Kirstowsky, Tom Lemons, Pete Lotts, Dave Reichle, Mary Helen Rose, Joe Setaro, Troy Trotter, Don Wood, Bob Worrell

Joe Setaro introduced Mike Bradshaw, recent retiree from Wackenhut, who has been invited to advise the CORRE board on Wackenhut pension issues.

Opening Remarks. President Dave Reichle stated that the CORRE Executive Committee met the next week after the Annual Meeting to review where we stand. He noted that we have met with legislative office staffs, contractor heads, DOE-ORO, and have had our rally. We haven’t heard from anyone as yet. How do we keep the "ball in the air"?

Reichle stated that he stopped by Rep. Wamp’s office on the way to this meeting and was told that Linda Ponce has heard nothing back on information requested from DOE. (What we want is a history of post-retirement increases under defined benefit plans of other DOE contractors.) Ponce stated that retirees are getting responses to the letters they have been sending to Rep. Wamp. Reichle had a copy of a letter from Rep. Wamp’s Washington office to a retiree. He advised Ponce that a statement in the letter to the effect that pension benefits have recently been improved for retirees was incorrect. No changes have been made in three years, except the minimum pensions, which went to only about 10 percent of retirees. Ponce said she would talk to the Washington office about the letter.

Reichle and Worrell will meet tomorrow with Jim Martin, chief financial person for NNSA at Y-12. Reichle and Kuykendall recently went to ORNL and briefed Jim Roberto on pension issues, and gave him a lot of information. Setaro stated that we have had a number of resolutions from government bodies, and he thinks we need to wind up on that and not try to get more.

Annual Meeting/Rally Wrapup. Several board members expressed the feeling that this was our best meeting to date (we are learning all the time), due to the fact that it was carefully planned and rehearsed. Attendance was estimated at more than 1,000 persons. The consensus was that we should use ORHS again, since it is the largest place in Oak Ridge and has the most parking places, though not enough. The sound system was good, and the high school representative (Mr. Sells) was very cooperative and helpful. It would be good if we could meet next year on the Friday late in October when the school is closed for the state teachers’ meeting. If we do meet on Wednesday again, we should probably meet later (3:00) in order to give more time for the students to leave after being dismissed at 1:30. There was no cost for using the high school, other than the $333.13 to provide $1 million in liability insurance as required by the school. Sandy Dean managed to get very good press coverage for the meeting/rally.

Secretary & Treasurer’s Report. Mary Helen Rose highlighted her Treasurer’s report for September and October, copies of which had been distributed to board members. Balance on hand October 31, 2004, was $47,859.30, with a total of about 2,314 Active Members. Total cost of the Newsletter was almost $2,000. Clark’s Copy Service printed 3,500 copies for $935.75. We paid Emory Valley Center $897.82 to assemble and fold all copies and to label and mail about 2,300. Mailing labels were prepared at Kinko’s with the data base provided by Tom

Lemons. The bill for ads in The Oak Ridger was $505.00. Cost of the ;iability insurance required by ORHS for the annual meeting was $333.13. We had 85 new members in October who either signed up at the meeting or afterward.

Communications. Sandy Dean reported that she has sent personal notes and made calls expressing appreciation to people who helped with the Annual Meeting/Rally. She has sent an item, mostly about CORRE membership, for the BWXT Y-12 Newsletter, which will probably be issued again in December. She expressed that she felt that the large attendance at the rally was largely due to our sending the CORRE Newsletter to Active Members.

Legislative Committee. Pete Lotts stated that it is difficult to figure out what more to do. The Committee agreed that: