Sept. 2002 This Active Life -- A Message from the President

It's Time for Action

Educators have always looked at Fall as a new beginning. For teachers and ESP, Fall traditionally brings with it new groups of students and parents, new colleagues--and new opportunities to make a fresh start. I bet that most of you, who are so active in tutoring, mentoring, or otherwise participating in supporting your local schools, have never lost touch with the seasonal magic that comes with the beginning of a new school year.

Put another way, Fall is the time for taking all the great ideas and plans we committed to in the past and vowing to take action. In our hearts, we know it's never enough to brainstorm new ideas or propose new solutions--we need to dig deeper and make the commitment to take action.

The Association is well-poised to do so. This summer, NEA members from across the nation came together in Dallas, Texas to learn, to debate, and, ultimately, to map out a path for NEA's continued success. At the NEA Representative Assembly and the NEA-Retired Annual Meeting (which preceded the RA), members worked together to propose new strategies for improving conditions for public education and for our members. As you'll learn elsewhere in this issue of This Active Life, active and retired members proposed new business items to address inequities in Social Security, address the growing crisis in health insurance, and protect our hard-won pension benefits.

In addition, NEA-Retired is an organization on the move. This spring, we kicked off an aggressive campaign to encourage active NEA members to join NEA-Retired as pre-retired subscribers. We have a new logo, a new slogan ("Now more than ever the commitment continues"), and, beginning with this issue, a new look for This Active Life magazine. Our redesigned magazine allows us to go into more depth on the topics you tell us are critical to your well-being and success.

If you haven't done so recently, please take the time to contact your local and state active and retired leaders to see how you can help address the critical issues facing public education and our members. Learn more about the issues we need to fight on--such as Social Security and fair pensions--and contact the key communicators and politicians who shape public opinion and make the laws. Your action can make the difference between just having good intentions or good ideas and making our country better for children, public education, and our members.

--NEA-Retired President, Jim Sproul