2023-24 Annual Reports
President - David Aldridge
This is my first year of a two-year term as President. Since our convention in Loveland, I have been very busy is support of the CORLCA. I attended the 2023 National Convention in Grand Rapids in August as the national delegate from Colorado. The national office assigned me as a member of the Sargeant at Arms Committee, which required me to be in Michigan a couple of days earlier than the rest of the delegation. Prior to that convention, I assigned positions as listed in the CORLCA Constitution (e.g., State Editor, State Historian).
I called five board meetings and presided over every one of them. Also, a major issue of concern is the state’s districts reorganization. The membership approved the reduction of our seven districts into six at the 2023 state convention. As we worked through the issue, we discovered that it would not meet the concerns of equal membership between the districts as well as the financial equality we were seeking. As a result, this year, the CORLCA Board is proposing the removal of all districts.
Colorado hosted this year’s Western States Conference in Cripple Creek in April. While there, I was the Credentials Chairman, welcoming representatives from the ten western states. I want to specifically thank and congratulate Tammy Smith for the fine work she’s done in preparing and running the Conference. Tammy was elected to be the Western States Conference President and will preside over next year’s conference in Montana.
One of my duties as President is to hold district officers training for presidents and vice-presidents. Due to other circumstances, few officers attended the training. Because it’s an annual requirement to train district officers, I hosted l couple of Zoom meetings to host the training of our district presidents and vice-presidents.
The NRLCA holds a Presidential Seminar every September. Due to COVID, there wasn’t one until 2022. However, I was overlooked by the national office to attend that one. So in 2023, I went to Washington D.C. to participate in the seminar. It was very informative and gave me a renewed purpose in being your President.
Most recently, I flew to Washington, D.C. to meet with the Colorado Senators and Congressmen as part of the Legislative Seminar. My Vice-President, Candie Dyer, and I were able to visit 9 of the 10 of Colorado delegation’s staff. There is no representative in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional district, so there was no one to meet.
I mentioned last year that we met with two of Colorado’s Congresswomen, Ms. Caraveo and Ms. Pettersen. As expected, we met with staff members from each of our congressmen and senators. But this year, we were again blessed to have Rep. Pettersen sit with us during that meeting.
Finally, I look forward to presiding over this year’s state convention in Parker and the continuation of my two-year term as your President.
Vice President - Candie Dyer
So, looking back at the things that I have done last year as Vice President of the CORLCA. First, was attending the National convention that was held in Michigan. I was helping David, the President of the CORLCA, out with some of his duties when needed. One of them was carrying the state flag. I also assisted him with gathering the ballots when needed. Lastly, I am always ready to step in when David needs me to, for example taking over meeting and so forth. These are some of the duties that I have to uphold as the Vice President. Durning Nationals I made sure that we all got a spot in the banquet, and everyone was nice enough to pay me back for their spot. After the National convention I attended two District Five meetings to updated and talk about the upcoming Western State conference and other details that we talked about as a board. We got ahold of the Chamber of Commerce of Colorado Springs, to see if they could donate to the upcoming Western State convention and they did. Some of the things that they were able to donate were begs, chap sticks, flyers for things to do when you are in Colorado Springs. Thankfully David was nice to head down there and pick up these items from them.
Secondly, even though I'm the Vice President i also am a Academy trainer and the Pac Chair for our state. Knowing the sacrifice the trainers give by not being on their route, making sure all the scans are correct and working longer hours than what they would if they were on their route. For the ones who do it all the time, I'm sure their route is probably not correct. When you see one give them a big thank you for trying to get people hired in their office. Thus, I have been printing out Certificates for them for the last two years to be presented at the state convention for them. They also give out stuff in ditty bags for the new employs advertising APCU and National General and the state board gets part of that money if people join. National General can save you a lot of money. They send us calendars, band ads, pens and sometimes other things to help promote their business. I raised over $5,000 for PAC in gifts and money. I've made many of baskets with donations and things I have bought for the silent auction and for the live actions at district meetings, western states, and national convention. Then I send everything to Mrs. Nichole Dunn certified to make sure that she gets it.
Lastly, I write at least two articles for the newspaper five times a year and sometimes more. I sent off my share of Christmas cards this year with the calendars in them to the member. Went to Legislative conference with David. We went up to the Capital Hill to talk to Congressmen/Congresswoman and Senators about the Buyback bill, Protect Our Letter Carriers, Social Security Act, and for us to be able to deliver alcohol like our competitors.
Secretary-Treasurer - Dawn Nix
2023 was a very bad year for me personally. Calendar January through June of 2023 held the death of my Mother as well as struggles with severe back and leg pain, on-going chiropractic and doctor appointments, X-rays, finally culminating in MRIs, which revealed scoliosis, severely pinched sciatic nerve, nerve damage resulting in Drop Foot (tripping and falling down). End result was the 2023-2024 CORLCA fiscal year began with back fusion surgery on July 9 to try to alleviate my back issues.
Having just been reelected in June 2023 to a 2-year term as S-T for the CORLCA and as a CORLCA delegate to the 2023 NRLCA convention, I felt obligated to do my best to perform my duties but did so with some restrictions. While recovering, I did what I could to keep up with the duties of S-T. The CORLCA had at that time a newly created and elected Assistant S-T position, which Les Hawkins and I had been working together to define and transition into but were only in the beginning stages. In May, when I knew that I was not able to continue as I had been, I planned to enlist as much help as possible for the upcoming convention duties from Les. However, Les’ family had already scheduled a vacation for him and his wife, which coincided with our CORLCA convention, so he was unable to attend. He helped as much as he could in the time that he had with convention preparations. I worked as my pain tolerance allowed, in small time segments, but was unable to commit to attendance at the convention. With the on-going help of my husband, I did everything I could to complete preparations for it. The entire episode strongly reinforced my belief that the Assistant S-T position is essential, that we needed to push more aggressively to develop the transition, and build the position, to provide back-up and decrease the dependency of the CORLCA on this one board position.
In the next few weeks, my to-do list grew longer as I pushed some things down on the list due to my physical limitations. It became apparent to me that I should not plan to attend the 2023 NRLCA convention, so I began notifications and actions to provide for an alternate delegate to take my place.
As I improved, I worked on not only catching up with my overdue responsibilities on the to-do list, but also to formally delegate portions of my duties to Les. We had been possibly over-cautious, trying to be very financially responsible by not scheduling work meetings which would cost the membership too many hours paid, as well as additional travel and overnight expenses. We continue to strive for fiscal responsibility and limit our in-person training to coincide with already scheduled board meetings whenever possible (without hindering our progress in the training and transition process) and have made excellent progress in that direction.
In 2023, Les handled a large part of the Cash Pay billing process, in addition to providing assistance with processing membership applications, and preparing and presenting Membership Reports for board meetings and the CORLCA paper. I asked Les to volunteer to be the board representative to District 6 so that he could be their contact to assist with their possible late filing of 990n in 2022, and he has done all of the communication involved with that process. He also handled the annual holiday calendar mailing process and assisted with account reconciliations and quarterly employer reports.
He was amazed at the number of COAs (and time required to process them) which resulted from the holiday mailing. Unfortunately, most members do not notify us of their changes of address, so we (and Editor Todd Hohn) learn about them whenever we do a full membership mailing, which then results in extra time spent updating addresses.
So far this calendar year, we have transitioned most of the membership processing and reporting to Les, and he is handling the Cash Pay billing process in its entirety. He will be recording and reporting the CORLCA convention minutes and assisting with convention preparation. With the additional time I am gaining from his assistance, I am working on catching up with the always present/always growing to-do list, as well as the Secretary-Treasurer job manual.
One mishap of my limitations and delegating things to the to-do list was the CORLCA credit card reconciliations. I make our credit card payments online, and had been using the APCU “bill-pay” service upon advice from APCU customer service after APCU changed their credit card service in 2022. Prior to that change I had made the payments directly to APCU through our online account.
In March of 2023 we received a check in the mail for the exact amount of our Nov/Dec 2022 credit card payment ($963.41) with a notation that it was unknown what to do with the money. The face of the APCU check indicated the correct (administrator account) credit card account I had attempted to pay. I contacted APCU as I had no idea why we were receiving the check or what to do next, without duplication of payment, etc.
APCU began looking into it, and eventually told me to ignore the check and they would internally make the credit to our account. With that issue resolved, I was relieved, but it was short-lived.
Over the next few months, even though I scheduled credit card payments online through APCU bill-pay, we received several past-due notices. I added the issue to the to-do list. The first of the year is always a BUSY time, so I let the issue go for a while as I dealt with election and district meeting and convention tasks (I was able to spend less time than usual on union duties because of my physical issues).
Eventually I worked my way down the list to the credit card issue, and as I tried to work through the details of our credit card reconciliations, I found discrepancies regarding our credit card payments ($902.10, $775.21, $135.71, $465.44/$465.34-see attached addendum for detailed communication). I contacted APCU again and asked for assistance and explanation.
Our NRLCA credit card contact at APCU immediately started working on it and responded back to me that the payments in question had been erroneously credited to my personal APCU credit card account. She made all of the corrections internally (charges back to my account and credits to the CORLCA account) and offered sincere apologies for APCU. She also advised that I discontinue use of bill pay for the credit cards and we established payment through SpendTrack, which was handling the APCU credit cards for APCU.
I do not understand how the errors were made, as I am very careful with and do not mix my personal accounts with APCU accounts. Possibly the fact that my SS# and phone number are associated with both APCU and my personal accounts is at the root of the issue, I still do not know, but the corrections were made by APCU and I verified them all. Since we began using SpendTrack for the payments, we have had no further issues.
In order to finish reconciliations of the CORLCA credit cards, I had to go back through APCU account statements, make the corrections to the account and redo the account reconciliations. Because of the fact that it was a complicated process and involved undoing previous reconciliations which had been done monthly as received, I contacted our QuickBooks Consultant for assistance with the process. I also wanted someone else to be aware of and overseeing the issue, since it involved my personal account as well as the CORLCA accounts. She made the proper corrections to our reconciliations, and I verified.
When the CPA conducted our annual “agreed-upon services” scrutiny of our books, he noticed that our bank reconciliations were dated in latter months, indicating to him that reconciliations had not been done in a timely manner (upon receipt). I explained to him what had happened. While he understood the issue, he told me that he would still make a note of the untimely reconciliations in his report of his findings, in order to be ethical and accurate. I agreed, and you can read his notation in his report. (I discontinued use of my personal APCU credit card when I became aware of the incorrect payments, probably not a necessary action, but it made me feel better.)
I have been working on updating our CORLCA procedures regarding association credit cards, as I have always been concerned that if there was to be an issue, it would be with the credit cards, and now this incident, while not exactly the kind of thing I anticipated, offers a good example.
Our CORLCA credit card policy is a good one, but unfortunately cumbersome, and rests entirely with the President, VP, and S-T, and so we (me, most of all) have not always gone through the processes we should. Since the credit cards are part of the monthly reconciliation process in QB, it was easy to postpone the CORLCA credit card reconciliation, which is actually a duplication, but involves more detail.
I recently rewrote the policy to allow for full board review of the credit card accounts at each board meeting, and presented the policy, along with my updated credit card CORLCA reconciliations to the CORLCA board. The board accepted and passed the revised policy at our May 2024 meeting. CORLCA credit cards are reconciled both in QB as a part of our account reconciliation, and again with a separate CORLCA credit card reconciliation process, where the detailed charges can be viewed, and now this detailed review will be a part of each CORLCA board meeting, allowing for oversight from the entire board.
This 2023 credit card issue is detailed in our CORLCA credit card reconciliation records, along with copies of the emails from APCU documenting the errors and corrections to the payments made so that there will be a permanent record of the incident (also available in my addendum to this report).
ATTENDANCE: I have already stated that I was unable to attend either our CORLCA or the NRLCA annual conventions. I did attend all board meetings except the June pre-convention meeting (due to physical pain issues) and the second day of the January 2024 meeting due to illness.
I attended the District 1 spring meeting in March 2024 as the board representative. The meeting was fairly well attended, and as is currently the issue with all rural carrier meetings, the meeting was dominated by concerns with RRECS.
I did not attend 2024 WSC in Cripple Creek due to conflicting doctor and dentist appointments. I did attend the online NRLCA training for state S-T, one session in January and one in March.
I authored articles for each CORLCA paper, and also prepared the additional reports required, such as financials, welcome to new members, election, outstanding member, and convention notices, etc. Assistant S-T Les Hawkins has handled all membership reports.
ADOP USAGE: Our constitution limits the CORLCA S-T to 60 ADOP days annually for S-T duties with additional time available upon board approval. For the record, I utilized only 50 of the days available to me in the 2022-23 fiscal year, due to my physical limitations, and some assistance from Les. The assistant S-T position is limited to 20 days annually, and so far this fiscal year through February he has used 3. For the 2023-24 fiscal year, through April, I have used 51. I anticipate using more days than usual this year, due to the catching-up I have had to do for things I was unable to complete last year. If necessary, I will request additional time from the CORLCA board.
As I have been able, I have increased my S-T time and worked on catching up. Again, I emphasize the importance of the Assistant S-T, both to provide assistance and to be knowledgeable enough about our systems to make the CORLCA less dependent on one officer.
FINANCES: Upon the decision of the CORLCA board, I cashed in 2 CDs and reinvested those funds in 2 more at a higher interest rate. In addition, we purchased 1 additional $25,000 CD from the excess COVID funds we had budgeted but not used from all the cancelled union events. We did not purchase holiday gift cards for members in 2023.
I also paid out the WSC CD balance CORLCA S-T James Partin had purchased in 2010 when CORLCA last hosted WSC. It was paid as a check to Tammy Smith as WSC Chair. All CORLCA CDs at this time belong to the CORLCA. WSC Chair Tammy Smith has surplus funds from the 2024 WSC, which I hope will be placed into another CD and saved specifically for CORLCA to use the next time we host WSC as was done in 2010.
ASSISTANCE: As I did not attend 2024 CORLCA convention, I did not conduct District S-T training, and had hoped to host a ZOOM training later in the year. Again, I overestimated my stamina, and that training did not take place. I plan to conduct a training at the 2024 convention for all District S-T in attendance.
I am retired and I am old, and do not feel that it is appropriate for our union to be run by retirees, who do not deliver mail and do not therefore have a hands-on working knowledge of the rural carrier job as it exists today. I do not plan to run for office again and am moving aggressively toward helping Les Hawkins familiarize with our methods and records. I will continue working on the CORLCA S-T job manual as suggested by our CPA. While the new S-T and Assistant S-T will both have to be elected in 2025, I am hopeful that Les (whether he chooses to run for and be elected to either position or not) will be more comfortable with our methods and procedures, and with the help of the job manual be able to assist newly elected officers without as much confusion and frustration as I experienced when first elected.
This is my first year of a two-year term as President. Since our convention in Loveland, I have been very busy is support of the CORLCA. I attended the 2023 National Convention in Grand Rapids in August as the national delegate from Colorado. The national office assigned me as a member of the Sargeant at Arms Committee, which required me to be in Michigan a couple of days earlier than the rest of the delegation. Prior to that convention, I assigned positions as listed in the CORLCA Constitution (e.g., State Editor, State Historian).
I called five board meetings and presided over every one of them. Also, a major issue of concern is the state’s districts reorganization. The membership approved the reduction of our seven districts into six at the 2023 state convention. As we worked through the issue, we discovered that it would not meet the concerns of equal membership between the districts as well as the financial equality we were seeking. As a result, this year, the CORLCA Board is proposing the removal of all districts.
Colorado hosted this year’s Western States Conference in Cripple Creek in April. While there, I was the Credentials Chairman, welcoming representatives from the ten western states. I want to specifically thank and congratulate Tammy Smith for the fine work she’s done in preparing and running the Conference. Tammy was elected to be the Western States Conference President and will preside over next year’s conference in Montana.
One of my duties as President is to hold district officers training for presidents and vice-presidents. Due to other circumstances, few officers attended the training. Because it’s an annual requirement to train district officers, I hosted l couple of Zoom meetings to host the training of our district presidents and vice-presidents.
The NRLCA holds a Presidential Seminar every September. Due to COVID, there wasn’t one until 2022. However, I was overlooked by the national office to attend that one. So in 2023, I went to Washington D.C. to participate in the seminar. It was very informative and gave me a renewed purpose in being your President.
Most recently, I flew to Washington, D.C. to meet with the Colorado Senators and Congressmen as part of the Legislative Seminar. My Vice-President, Candie Dyer, and I were able to visit 9 of the 10 of Colorado delegation’s staff. There is no representative in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional district, so there was no one to meet.
I mentioned last year that we met with two of Colorado’s Congresswomen, Ms. Caraveo and Ms. Pettersen. As expected, we met with staff members from each of our congressmen and senators. But this year, we were again blessed to have Rep. Pettersen sit with us during that meeting.
Finally, I look forward to presiding over this year’s state convention in Parker and the continuation of my two-year term as your President.
Vice President - Candie Dyer
So, looking back at the things that I have done last year as Vice President of the CORLCA. First, was attending the National convention that was held in Michigan. I was helping David, the President of the CORLCA, out with some of his duties when needed. One of them was carrying the state flag. I also assisted him with gathering the ballots when needed. Lastly, I am always ready to step in when David needs me to, for example taking over meeting and so forth. These are some of the duties that I have to uphold as the Vice President. Durning Nationals I made sure that we all got a spot in the banquet, and everyone was nice enough to pay me back for their spot. After the National convention I attended two District Five meetings to updated and talk about the upcoming Western State conference and other details that we talked about as a board. We got ahold of the Chamber of Commerce of Colorado Springs, to see if they could donate to the upcoming Western State convention and they did. Some of the things that they were able to donate were begs, chap sticks, flyers for things to do when you are in Colorado Springs. Thankfully David was nice to head down there and pick up these items from them.
Secondly, even though I'm the Vice President i also am a Academy trainer and the Pac Chair for our state. Knowing the sacrifice the trainers give by not being on their route, making sure all the scans are correct and working longer hours than what they would if they were on their route. For the ones who do it all the time, I'm sure their route is probably not correct. When you see one give them a big thank you for trying to get people hired in their office. Thus, I have been printing out Certificates for them for the last two years to be presented at the state convention for them. They also give out stuff in ditty bags for the new employs advertising APCU and National General and the state board gets part of that money if people join. National General can save you a lot of money. They send us calendars, band ads, pens and sometimes other things to help promote their business. I raised over $5,000 for PAC in gifts and money. I've made many of baskets with donations and things I have bought for the silent auction and for the live actions at district meetings, western states, and national convention. Then I send everything to Mrs. Nichole Dunn certified to make sure that she gets it.
Lastly, I write at least two articles for the newspaper five times a year and sometimes more. I sent off my share of Christmas cards this year with the calendars in them to the member. Went to Legislative conference with David. We went up to the Capital Hill to talk to Congressmen/Congresswoman and Senators about the Buyback bill, Protect Our Letter Carriers, Social Security Act, and for us to be able to deliver alcohol like our competitors.
Secretary-Treasurer - Dawn Nix
2023 was a very bad year for me personally. Calendar January through June of 2023 held the death of my Mother as well as struggles with severe back and leg pain, on-going chiropractic and doctor appointments, X-rays, finally culminating in MRIs, which revealed scoliosis, severely pinched sciatic nerve, nerve damage resulting in Drop Foot (tripping and falling down). End result was the 2023-2024 CORLCA fiscal year began with back fusion surgery on July 9 to try to alleviate my back issues.
Having just been reelected in June 2023 to a 2-year term as S-T for the CORLCA and as a CORLCA delegate to the 2023 NRLCA convention, I felt obligated to do my best to perform my duties but did so with some restrictions. While recovering, I did what I could to keep up with the duties of S-T. The CORLCA had at that time a newly created and elected Assistant S-T position, which Les Hawkins and I had been working together to define and transition into but were only in the beginning stages. In May, when I knew that I was not able to continue as I had been, I planned to enlist as much help as possible for the upcoming convention duties from Les. However, Les’ family had already scheduled a vacation for him and his wife, which coincided with our CORLCA convention, so he was unable to attend. He helped as much as he could in the time that he had with convention preparations. I worked as my pain tolerance allowed, in small time segments, but was unable to commit to attendance at the convention. With the on-going help of my husband, I did everything I could to complete preparations for it. The entire episode strongly reinforced my belief that the Assistant S-T position is essential, that we needed to push more aggressively to develop the transition, and build the position, to provide back-up and decrease the dependency of the CORLCA on this one board position.
In the next few weeks, my to-do list grew longer as I pushed some things down on the list due to my physical limitations. It became apparent to me that I should not plan to attend the 2023 NRLCA convention, so I began notifications and actions to provide for an alternate delegate to take my place.
As I improved, I worked on not only catching up with my overdue responsibilities on the to-do list, but also to formally delegate portions of my duties to Les. We had been possibly over-cautious, trying to be very financially responsible by not scheduling work meetings which would cost the membership too many hours paid, as well as additional travel and overnight expenses. We continue to strive for fiscal responsibility and limit our in-person training to coincide with already scheduled board meetings whenever possible (without hindering our progress in the training and transition process) and have made excellent progress in that direction.
In 2023, Les handled a large part of the Cash Pay billing process, in addition to providing assistance with processing membership applications, and preparing and presenting Membership Reports for board meetings and the CORLCA paper. I asked Les to volunteer to be the board representative to District 6 so that he could be their contact to assist with their possible late filing of 990n in 2022, and he has done all of the communication involved with that process. He also handled the annual holiday calendar mailing process and assisted with account reconciliations and quarterly employer reports.
He was amazed at the number of COAs (and time required to process them) which resulted from the holiday mailing. Unfortunately, most members do not notify us of their changes of address, so we (and Editor Todd Hohn) learn about them whenever we do a full membership mailing, which then results in extra time spent updating addresses.
So far this calendar year, we have transitioned most of the membership processing and reporting to Les, and he is handling the Cash Pay billing process in its entirety. He will be recording and reporting the CORLCA convention minutes and assisting with convention preparation. With the additional time I am gaining from his assistance, I am working on catching up with the always present/always growing to-do list, as well as the Secretary-Treasurer job manual.
One mishap of my limitations and delegating things to the to-do list was the CORLCA credit card reconciliations. I make our credit card payments online, and had been using the APCU “bill-pay” service upon advice from APCU customer service after APCU changed their credit card service in 2022. Prior to that change I had made the payments directly to APCU through our online account.
In March of 2023 we received a check in the mail for the exact amount of our Nov/Dec 2022 credit card payment ($963.41) with a notation that it was unknown what to do with the money. The face of the APCU check indicated the correct (administrator account) credit card account I had attempted to pay. I contacted APCU as I had no idea why we were receiving the check or what to do next, without duplication of payment, etc.
APCU began looking into it, and eventually told me to ignore the check and they would internally make the credit to our account. With that issue resolved, I was relieved, but it was short-lived.
Over the next few months, even though I scheduled credit card payments online through APCU bill-pay, we received several past-due notices. I added the issue to the to-do list. The first of the year is always a BUSY time, so I let the issue go for a while as I dealt with election and district meeting and convention tasks (I was able to spend less time than usual on union duties because of my physical issues).
Eventually I worked my way down the list to the credit card issue, and as I tried to work through the details of our credit card reconciliations, I found discrepancies regarding our credit card payments ($902.10, $775.21, $135.71, $465.44/$465.34-see attached addendum for detailed communication). I contacted APCU again and asked for assistance and explanation.
Our NRLCA credit card contact at APCU immediately started working on it and responded back to me that the payments in question had been erroneously credited to my personal APCU credit card account. She made all of the corrections internally (charges back to my account and credits to the CORLCA account) and offered sincere apologies for APCU. She also advised that I discontinue use of bill pay for the credit cards and we established payment through SpendTrack, which was handling the APCU credit cards for APCU.
I do not understand how the errors were made, as I am very careful with and do not mix my personal accounts with APCU accounts. Possibly the fact that my SS# and phone number are associated with both APCU and my personal accounts is at the root of the issue, I still do not know, but the corrections were made by APCU and I verified them all. Since we began using SpendTrack for the payments, we have had no further issues.
In order to finish reconciliations of the CORLCA credit cards, I had to go back through APCU account statements, make the corrections to the account and redo the account reconciliations. Because of the fact that it was a complicated process and involved undoing previous reconciliations which had been done monthly as received, I contacted our QuickBooks Consultant for assistance with the process. I also wanted someone else to be aware of and overseeing the issue, since it involved my personal account as well as the CORLCA accounts. She made the proper corrections to our reconciliations, and I verified.
When the CPA conducted our annual “agreed-upon services” scrutiny of our books, he noticed that our bank reconciliations were dated in latter months, indicating to him that reconciliations had not been done in a timely manner (upon receipt). I explained to him what had happened. While he understood the issue, he told me that he would still make a note of the untimely reconciliations in his report of his findings, in order to be ethical and accurate. I agreed, and you can read his notation in his report. (I discontinued use of my personal APCU credit card when I became aware of the incorrect payments, probably not a necessary action, but it made me feel better.)
I have been working on updating our CORLCA procedures regarding association credit cards, as I have always been concerned that if there was to be an issue, it would be with the credit cards, and now this incident, while not exactly the kind of thing I anticipated, offers a good example.
Our CORLCA credit card policy is a good one, but unfortunately cumbersome, and rests entirely with the President, VP, and S-T, and so we (me, most of all) have not always gone through the processes we should. Since the credit cards are part of the monthly reconciliation process in QB, it was easy to postpone the CORLCA credit card reconciliation, which is actually a duplication, but involves more detail.
I recently rewrote the policy to allow for full board review of the credit card accounts at each board meeting, and presented the policy, along with my updated credit card CORLCA reconciliations to the CORLCA board. The board accepted and passed the revised policy at our May 2024 meeting. CORLCA credit cards are reconciled both in QB as a part of our account reconciliation, and again with a separate CORLCA credit card reconciliation process, where the detailed charges can be viewed, and now this detailed review will be a part of each CORLCA board meeting, allowing for oversight from the entire board.
This 2023 credit card issue is detailed in our CORLCA credit card reconciliation records, along with copies of the emails from APCU documenting the errors and corrections to the payments made so that there will be a permanent record of the incident (also available in my addendum to this report).
ATTENDANCE: I have already stated that I was unable to attend either our CORLCA or the NRLCA annual conventions. I did attend all board meetings except the June pre-convention meeting (due to physical pain issues) and the second day of the January 2024 meeting due to illness.
I attended the District 1 spring meeting in March 2024 as the board representative. The meeting was fairly well attended, and as is currently the issue with all rural carrier meetings, the meeting was dominated by concerns with RRECS.
I did not attend 2024 WSC in Cripple Creek due to conflicting doctor and dentist appointments. I did attend the online NRLCA training for state S-T, one session in January and one in March.
I authored articles for each CORLCA paper, and also prepared the additional reports required, such as financials, welcome to new members, election, outstanding member, and convention notices, etc. Assistant S-T Les Hawkins has handled all membership reports.
ADOP USAGE: Our constitution limits the CORLCA S-T to 60 ADOP days annually for S-T duties with additional time available upon board approval. For the record, I utilized only 50 of the days available to me in the 2022-23 fiscal year, due to my physical limitations, and some assistance from Les. The assistant S-T position is limited to 20 days annually, and so far this fiscal year through February he has used 3. For the 2023-24 fiscal year, through April, I have used 51. I anticipate using more days than usual this year, due to the catching-up I have had to do for things I was unable to complete last year. If necessary, I will request additional time from the CORLCA board.
As I have been able, I have increased my S-T time and worked on catching up. Again, I emphasize the importance of the Assistant S-T, both to provide assistance and to be knowledgeable enough about our systems to make the CORLCA less dependent on one officer.
FINANCES: Upon the decision of the CORLCA board, I cashed in 2 CDs and reinvested those funds in 2 more at a higher interest rate. In addition, we purchased 1 additional $25,000 CD from the excess COVID funds we had budgeted but not used from all the cancelled union events. We did not purchase holiday gift cards for members in 2023.
I also paid out the WSC CD balance CORLCA S-T James Partin had purchased in 2010 when CORLCA last hosted WSC. It was paid as a check to Tammy Smith as WSC Chair. All CORLCA CDs at this time belong to the CORLCA. WSC Chair Tammy Smith has surplus funds from the 2024 WSC, which I hope will be placed into another CD and saved specifically for CORLCA to use the next time we host WSC as was done in 2010.
ASSISTANCE: As I did not attend 2024 CORLCA convention, I did not conduct District S-T training, and had hoped to host a ZOOM training later in the year. Again, I overestimated my stamina, and that training did not take place. I plan to conduct a training at the 2024 convention for all District S-T in attendance.
I am retired and I am old, and do not feel that it is appropriate for our union to be run by retirees, who do not deliver mail and do not therefore have a hands-on working knowledge of the rural carrier job as it exists today. I do not plan to run for office again and am moving aggressively toward helping Les Hawkins familiarize with our methods and records. I will continue working on the CORLCA S-T job manual as suggested by our CPA. While the new S-T and Assistant S-T will both have to be elected in 2025, I am hopeful that Les (whether he chooses to run for and be elected to either position or not) will be more comfortable with our methods and procedures, and with the help of the job manual be able to assist newly elected officers without as much confusion and frustration as I experienced when first elected.
Assistant Secretary-Treasurer - Les Hawkins
- Met with Dawn Nix on numerous occasions to complete necessary tasks associated with secretary treasurer responsibilities.
- Prepared and presented membership reports at all CORLCA board meetings.
- Prepared financial and other reports as assigned and presented reports at CORLCA board meetings.
- Attended national convention held in Grand Rapids Michigan as an elected delegate.
- Assisted in numerous responsibilities associated with the Secretary Treasurer.
- Processed 1187 forms in the national database for new members.
- Attended assigned district meetings along with booster and information meetings.
- Prepared reports and drafted articles for publication in the CORLCA paper.
Executive Committee - Natalie Gardner
As your Executive Board member, all my duties have been fulfilled. I have attended most of all scheduled meetings, only missing a day here and there due to being scheduled at work. Missing a couple of Saturdays but attending the Sunday meetings. Also attended any called meetings and scheduled zoom meetings.
Brought up concerns to the board that carriers have mentioned to me while I'm at work or speaking with carriers from other offices. Responded to phone calls, and if I didn't have the information needed, I have directed the carrier to the proper union representative for help. Providing phone numbers, and/or email addresses.
I have written all articles required of me for our CORLCA state paper. Participated in discussions at all meetings and voted with my fellow carriers in mind.
I attended the National Convention, Western States Convention, State Convention, and District Meetings. Being the Board Representative for District 4. Completed required report from that meeting. In all, I have done everything that is required of me for the position that I hold.
Executive Committee - Cortney Clark
This last year was my 3rd year of being an executive committeeman for the Colorado Rural Letter Carriers Association and the beginning of my 2nd term serving in this roll. The implementation of the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System (RRECS) marked a pivotal period for rural carriers, state and nationwide. Notable events included our second and third mini mail surveys and subsequent evaluations under the new system this last year.
I presented at the 2023 State Convention an in-depth RRECS presentation going over the PS 4241a and M after the outcry from the 1st evaluations in April 2023. In January and February 2024 an informational meeting via ZOOM/ virtually and at South Metro Fire Station in Englewood about the 3rd upcoming Mini Mail Survey was conducted by myself. Encouragement to all members to read the RRECS information on the national website/ app as well as on our CORLCA website is still pivotal and should not be forgotten. The information is there we all just have to seek it out.
I attended all state board meetings, in person and both days for every meeting. At each meeting I tried to bring the perspective of an active rural carrier in the time of RRECS to help bring more information to rural carriers and make positive changes to our craft. We collectively as a board try to do new things to bring more people to meetings since attendance is low and we need more participation. We also reviewed in depth the financial reports, membership reports that are presented to us at the meetings. We also reviewed financial receipts and spending of our association. We as a board also assisted with the mailing for the holiday cards for members.
Attending my 2nd National Convention as an elected delegate in August 2023 was a big highlight. I attended multiple seminars, Caucus Night and all of the business sessions fully. The National convention continues to be a highlight for me as a member with this Association. You can really get the perspective of all Rural carriers here and information overload.
I was the board representative to go to District 2’s Meeting in February 2024. I had never been to district 2’s meeting before this and enjoyed that people there bring multiple people from their offices with them (carpooling) At the meeting I oversaw their financial audit. Better late than never we completed the board officer training in May 2024. I also attended a mini committee on Colorado possibly not having any districts in our state.
This year was Colorado’s year to host the Western States Conference. We as a board tested a location out in my prior term. I attended the Western States Conference in Cripple Creek and helped encourage others in my district to attend since it was on our turf. I made the 2nd flyer we had for it and I made the program layout to be printed.
In closing it is an honor to serve on this board. I hope to continue to serve our members to the best of my abilities for the next year of my term and hopefully in future terms. I try to lead by example in showing that even though we are all busy with everything going on with our families and lives, this Association and the betterment of the rural craft is still important.
Executive Committee - Tammy Smith
I attended scheduled board meetings, missing 2 Saturday sessions. Took note for the minutes when Todd was gone on Saturday. At the meetings I have participated and voted on motions made. Attended District 5 meeting in Pueblo as the board rep. Attended State convention, WSC, and National Convention. Wrote articles after each meeting and conference as required. Worked on WSC in Cripple Creek, CO and finally it really happened.
Executive Committee - Pam Smith
I attended every board meeting and wrote reports for the paper, (actually) 2 reports, one for the state board and one on National general ins.
I got the mugs and the pennies from Cripple Creek co for the guest speakers. I attended western states conferences and helped when needed or where needed. Helped send out Christmas cards with calendars to members. I went to the district 7 meeting April 21,2004 in Grand Junction.
I was the Liaison for our state conference In June, but I was also the chair, visited the hotel in Parker, met with the manager about the contract, sent the signed contract back to him. Looked into catteries and found an Olive Garden to be the best for the money.
Received the extra gifts and things from western states to use, also purchased some more prizes and called speakers.
DR - Greggie Byrd
Hello everyone. Given the fact that this may be my last end of the year report as the District Representative for Colorado/Wyoming, I would like to say this definitely has been the second most challenging year that I have had as your DR. The reason for this is because last year at this time the first implementation of the RRECS was in place and it was emotionally excruciatingly painful for our carriers and most managers. What some, if not most of you will never forget is that the lack of information and preparation from the Postal Service in rolling out this New Evaluation Compensation System. I believe this really puts people in an overall position to fail. It created an environment of mistrust, hostility, and anger toward the Postal Service from its rural craft employees than any other issue in recent years.
This is some of what I stated last year about the newly implemented RRECS system: As I have said to rural carriers across the country, while I believe the RRECS system is a better way of evaluating rural routes, I also know it was poorly implemented. And while it looked like we were finally going to have a system in place so that routes could be better evaluated with information captured all year long, I didn’t expect there to be a complicated dispute process that in some cases would not bring satisfaction to our carriers and even representatives of whom had to meet with a counterpart from the Postal Service in order to determine if the dispute resolution process would solve the carriers concerns about the new evaluation of their routes.
Here are some of the things we must keep in mind. Rural delivery has evolved over the past 125 years, and so to has the method for calculating and adjusting the evaluated compensation applied to rural routes. Throughout the history of rural delivery, rural carriers have cherished and sought to protect the benefits of the evaluated method of compensation. The final product described in Dr. MartinVegas’ report is the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System (RRECS). It represents the culmination of five and one-half years of joint efforts by the NRLCA and USPS, with oversight provided by Chairperson Martin-Vega and a panel of industrial engineering experts, to develop a new system for evaluating rural routes. The goal of these efforts was to create a system that was fair to both USPS and rural carriers. For USPS, this meant a system that resulted in efficient delivery on rural routes and was capable of responding flexibly to changing business conditions. For rural carriers, it meant a system that covered all work activities, set realistic standard times for completing each activity, resulted in time off incentives when carriers worked at an incentive pace, and provided equal incentive opportunity across rural routes, irrespective of specific route characteristics.
The inception of RRECS was codified in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) appended to the interest arbitration award issue by Jack Clarke on July 3, 2012. What was needed for our evaluation was a system of Time Standards that both parties could live with. What were those standards supposed to be? A standard is defined as the amount of time used by an experienced and motivated worker of normal skill and ability, working at a normal pace, to perform a specific task under specific conditions. It’s also understood to be the amount of time allotted to a single occurrence of a standardized work activity. The fifth area of carrier responsibilities under RRECS is to learn and follow changed work rules required by RRECS. For the most part, RRECS has no direct impact on how work activities are performed. RRECS is primarily designed to measure and fairly compensate carriers for work performed under current standard operating procedures (SOP). In a few instances, minor changes in SOPs were necessary to ensure that all carrier work activities are properly compensated, and that none are double counted. In the case of changed operating procedures, it is the USPS’s responsibility to issue new SOPs and train carriers as necessary.
I couldn’t help but put this in my report for one last time because to many carriers around the country and in our district did not understand why and how we find ourselves in the situation we as a craft are in. To further complicate matters, at the beginning of this process there had to be a way to resolve disagreements within the implementation of this new system. This became known as: The RREDP - The U.S. Postal Service and the NRLCA have agreed to an alternate dispute resolution process in an effort to resolve disputes outside the grievance process. Attached you will find a memorandum of understanding that outlines the process to be used to resolve disputes along with the dispute forms and a power point outlining the process.
The MOU contains the following:
1. A list of items that may be disputed by the carrier. (Be specific on the issue that is being disputed and include a copy of your 4241A. Use the latest 4241A dated May 6, 2023)
2. All grievances will be held in abeyance, pending the outcome of the Dispute process.
3. Attached you will find sample copies of the Rural Route Evaluation Dispute Review form(s).
4. To initiate a dispute the assigned carrier and local management will discuss the issue in dispute and the local management will complete Evaluation Dispute Form-1 and should they agree that the appropriate credit has not been provided, they will annotate the form accordingly.
Upon completion, the form and all relevant documentation will be forwarded to the Manager, Labor Relations at the district, and the NRLCA District Representative. If the entire office has the same issue, only one form should be completed for the entire office.
5. The form must be submitted no later than May 31, 2023.
At the district level, the NRLCA District Representative (or designee) will meet with the USPS representative and review the disputed issues along with the documentation to discuss a resolution. If unresolved the dispute and all relevant documentation will be moved to the next level as provided in the MOU. All decisions by the dispute teams will be in writing.
It is the intent of the parties to resolve disputes at the district level if possible. Obviously, these dates would change with the implementation of each new evaluation.
While I am sure I handled more than 500 disputes in the first go round of the dispute resolution process, and I believe there were an additional 300 disputes in the second go around of the dispute resolution process (which was done by Theresa), this would mean your DR and ADR did somewhere around 800 disputes last year between the May and October RRECDP.
Things that haven’t changed
One of the things I told you all last year was that, even though we have a negotiated contract with what seems to be clear and very explicit language, we are still dealing with the postal services management team violating any of the new negotiated contractual language, and the old contractual language as if it didn’t exist. It seems that whatever is within the pages of the collective bargaining agreement it's just words on a page. As of May 20th, our contract will have expired, and we will see what the future contract will bring.
Labor Relations
Even though RRECS issues can sometimes move to the forefront of all other labor relation issues most of our grievances continue to revolve around what you all have been hearing about for some time. They include but are not limited to, Carriers not being paid, not being able to get time off, and being harassed for the sake of getting numbers in places they don't belong. As stated, before all of our stewards have been continuing to try and provide assistance to carriers by giving guidance on contractual verbiage as well as assisting them through the grievance / arbitration process. NONE OF THIS HAS CHANGED VERY MUCH! It just seems to move from office to office.
We as a NSS team were all involved in attending Conferences (WSC), Trainings, and National Convention last year. We even included an optional enhancement training for our local stewards for the first time in four plus years. When all of the NSS employees get to work, travel, and attend conferences, conventions and trainings, it provides and avenue that allows my Assistant, Area and Local stewards to network with other stewards and state officers to gauge the pulse of our craft nationwide.
I have traveled about 35,000 miles to provide DFR (Duty of Fair Representation), I have been involved in handling 40 plus grievance, About 15 PDI’s and to many phone calls to keep track of.
I did a total of 5 enhancement training last year either required or optional
And while I only trained 3 New stewards this past fiscal year, I’m happy to report we are seeing a few more carriers stepping up to become local stewards. I am praying this trend continues to grow because We Need A Lot More!
ADR - Theresa Mecom
My second year as Full Time ADR found myself conducting more training, handling two rounds of the dispute processes, processing grievances, and being present for investigative interviews and Labor Management Meetings.
From July 1, 2023 to present, I have handled 96 grievances and 70 PDIs; 16 were class actions, 33 discipline, and 47 were contractual. To date, I was able to get $50,624.94 in grievance payouts for carriers.
I attended my second National Convention in August, as a delegate, and was once again able to use my membership to its full extent. I hope to attend the upcoming National Convention this year.
I was part of two MOU 25s for the Golden and Broomfield Stations. I also attended two Labor Management Meetings with the District Manager, myself, and DR, Greggie Byrd.
I have certified three new Local Stewards and conducted four Local Steward Enhancement Trainings this year.
I also met with Labor for two rounds of the dispute process. We had 299 disputes from the second MMS and 63 disputes from the last Survey. I was very excited to be able to get these disputes resolved all within a month of their submissions.
I have attended multiple District/State Booster and Board Meetings to get as much information to the membership as possible. I will also be attending the State Convention in June.
Moving into the rest of 2024 and 2025, my focus is still getting carriers as much information with regards to RRECS as I can. Mapping has proven to be the most efficient way to ensure the carriers are getting the most out of their evaluations. Sadly, we still have offices that are not mapping regularly.
Union membership is still at the forefront of my agenda. I am always recruiting membership into the NRLCA so the carriers can get information related to contract negotiations, RRECS, Step Fours, and arbitrations and updates from the National Office.
I want to thank the Board for allowing me the opportunity to serve the membership. I look forward to serving the carriers come June and into 2025.
Area Steward - Amy Stauffer
Area Steward - Theresa Smythe
September 10, 2023, I was Certified and appointed Area Steward to the following offices. Basalt, Carbondale, New Castle, Glenwood Springs, Rifle, Parachute, Palisade, Grand Junction Main, Grand Junction Carrier Annex and Craig. During that time, I had two contractual grievances and several correspondences with Basalt and Craig. I was able to stop, visit and review rural carrier boards in Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs.
I was able to attend both the fall and spring District 7 meetings. The district meetings helped fill a few gaps concerning information from fellow carriers, State and District personnel. There were several Resolutions that passed at the fall District 7 meeting.
I was disappointed that I was not able to attend the Western States Convention. I did attend the State Convention last year prior to being Certified as an Area Steward. It was the first one I had ever attended. I did not realize how beneficial the Conventions are. The training courses I was able to attend were for Local Stewards. I look forward to those trainings because I always get information out of them and get to converse with fellow stewards, as well as hear what is going on in other offices.
We also had an informative zoom meeting with a Q&A concerning the mini mail survey that was conducted by CORLCA. The monthly steward Zoom meetings that are available to attend with our DR and National are both highly informative and helpful. In my opinion, Promoting the Q&A sessions is the most important. Until getting involved, I had no idea what the union did and what the conferences/meetings were all about. I have discovered how united and important the union is to all of us.
Area Steward - Tim Huskey
I became an Area Steward in November of 2023 representing various rural offices throughout the southern area of Colorado. Since then, I have successfully grieved in person a pay issue in the Sedalia, CO office. Which resulted in a carrier being compensated for previously unpaid hours. I have also provided guidance and explanation over the phone to carriers from Sedalia, Peyton, Parker, and Fountain Office’s specifically throughout my territory. Addressing various concerns ranging from the National Agreement Q&A to Investigative Interviews. I’ve also attended Booster meetings with the CORLCA. I’ve also attended all required enhancement training sessions.
National General Insurance Rep - Pam Smith
Thank all of you who called and got a quote. As national general is the only company backed with the rural routes, they know the job and what we do, they also will cover your motorcycle, R.V., boat, and anything with wheels.
The great thing is they can also do your home or renters insurance. The National General sends the states a percentage of the funds every year.
As of this article, I'm not sure of this year's amount, I will have it at the state conference.
Chaplain - Anne Harrington
This has been a far easier year for the duties of the State Chaplain – as we have had fewer tragedies and losses. I have sent cards and texts to several carriers. I have attended two District meetings. I was unable to attend Western States and would like to thank Bob Brandt for filling in for me. Keeping all of you and your families in my thoughts and prayers. May you all stay safe and well in the coming year.
Editor - Todd Hohn
The past year I have attended all the board meetings; however, due to a lack of hiring at my office, I often missed the Saturday portion of the board meeting.
I edited, designed, created the layout, and mailed five issues of the Colorado Rural Letter Carrier paper to all CORLCA members in the past year—July, September/October, December, February, and May. I continuously worked with the state secretary-treasurer to keep up on changing addresses with our membership.
For the July 2023 issue of the paper, I mailed 1078 copies (+3 from 2022) to CORLCA membership (postage $587.17 – $56.04 more than 2022); September/October issue 2023, I mailed 1078 copies (+28 from 2022 – postage $587.14 – $67.78 more than 2022); December 2023, I mailed 1069 copies (+7 from 2022 – postage $582.45 – $77 more than 2022), February 2024 (There was a postal increase in January), I mailed 1048 copies (-29 from 2023 – postage $592.74 – $38.49 more than 2023); and for the May 2024 issue I mailed 1052, (-29 from May 2023 – postage $595.32 – $39.02 more than 2023).
Our Membership is dwindling. The numbers from May 2024 are down 29 from last year, 57 from 2022 and, sadly, 185 from 2021. I am sure there are many theories for the huge loss of members over the past couple of years, but hopefully, with potential changes coming in 2024, and focusing on moving forward, our membership can be reinvigorated.
The CORLCA continues to maintain a very happy and successful relationship with Sunset Printing.
Historian - George Halcomb
No matter how much we want to stop it, history just keeps on going. Regardless of what has happened in the world and postal system what has happened to the historian post in CORLCA this year?
Not a lot, I have worked on organizing our history stuff. A lot of what we have is repeated so I will be bringing some old national and state papers for you to look at at if you so wish to take home from state convention this year. A lot of the stuff I am storing is stuff that there are more than one copy and that is not useful for anyone. If anyone is interested in that stuff and is not going to state, please let me know and I will help you get your own copies.
After the Colorado convention I had the pleasure of visiting with the historians from Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, West Virginia, North Carolina, and finally Georgia on their home turf to see what they are doing. It ranges all the way from very little to trying to build a museum. So they are all over the place. What happens next year? I am still working out what is going on right now. As always feel free to reach out to me if you have any wants or questions.
September 10, 2023, I was Certified and appointed Area Steward to the following offices. Basalt, Carbondale, New Castle, Glenwood Springs, Rifle, Parachute, Palisade, Grand Junction Main, Grand Junction Carrier Annex and Craig. During that time, I had two contractual grievances and several correspondences with Basalt and Craig. I was able to stop, visit and review rural carrier boards in Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs.
I was able to attend both the fall and spring District 7 meetings. The district meetings helped fill a few gaps concerning information from fellow carriers, State and District personnel. There were several Resolutions that passed at the fall District 7 meeting.
I was disappointed that I was not able to attend the Western States Convention. I did attend the State Convention last year prior to being Certified as an Area Steward. It was the first one I had ever attended. I did not realize how beneficial the Conventions are. The training courses I was able to attend were for Local Stewards. I look forward to those trainings because I always get information out of them and get to converse with fellow stewards, as well as hear what is going on in other offices.
We also had an informative zoom meeting with a Q&A concerning the mini mail survey that was conducted by CORLCA. The monthly steward Zoom meetings that are available to attend with our DR and National are both highly informative and helpful. In my opinion, Promoting the Q&A sessions is the most important. Until getting involved, I had no idea what the union did and what the conferences/meetings were all about. I have discovered how united and important the union is to all of us.
Area Steward - Tim Huskey
I became an Area Steward in November of 2023 representing various rural offices throughout the southern area of Colorado. Since then, I have successfully grieved in person a pay issue in the Sedalia, CO office. Which resulted in a carrier being compensated for previously unpaid hours. I have also provided guidance and explanation over the phone to carriers from Sedalia, Peyton, Parker, and Fountain Office’s specifically throughout my territory. Addressing various concerns ranging from the National Agreement Q&A to Investigative Interviews. I’ve also attended Booster meetings with the CORLCA. I’ve also attended all required enhancement training sessions.
National General Insurance Rep - Pam Smith
Thank all of you who called and got a quote. As national general is the only company backed with the rural routes, they know the job and what we do, they also will cover your motorcycle, R.V., boat, and anything with wheels.
The great thing is they can also do your home or renters insurance. The National General sends the states a percentage of the funds every year.
As of this article, I'm not sure of this year's amount, I will have it at the state conference.
Chaplain - Anne Harrington
This has been a far easier year for the duties of the State Chaplain – as we have had fewer tragedies and losses. I have sent cards and texts to several carriers. I have attended two District meetings. I was unable to attend Western States and would like to thank Bob Brandt for filling in for me. Keeping all of you and your families in my thoughts and prayers. May you all stay safe and well in the coming year.
Editor - Todd Hohn
The past year I have attended all the board meetings; however, due to a lack of hiring at my office, I often missed the Saturday portion of the board meeting.
I edited, designed, created the layout, and mailed five issues of the Colorado Rural Letter Carrier paper to all CORLCA members in the past year—July, September/October, December, February, and May. I continuously worked with the state secretary-treasurer to keep up on changing addresses with our membership.
For the July 2023 issue of the paper, I mailed 1078 copies (+3 from 2022) to CORLCA membership (postage $587.17 – $56.04 more than 2022); September/October issue 2023, I mailed 1078 copies (+28 from 2022 – postage $587.14 – $67.78 more than 2022); December 2023, I mailed 1069 copies (+7 from 2022 – postage $582.45 – $77 more than 2022), February 2024 (There was a postal increase in January), I mailed 1048 copies (-29 from 2023 – postage $592.74 – $38.49 more than 2023); and for the May 2024 issue I mailed 1052, (-29 from May 2023 – postage $595.32 – $39.02 more than 2023).
Our Membership is dwindling. The numbers from May 2024 are down 29 from last year, 57 from 2022 and, sadly, 185 from 2021. I am sure there are many theories for the huge loss of members over the past couple of years, but hopefully, with potential changes coming in 2024, and focusing on moving forward, our membership can be reinvigorated.
The CORLCA continues to maintain a very happy and successful relationship with Sunset Printing.
Historian - George Halcomb
No matter how much we want to stop it, history just keeps on going. Regardless of what has happened in the world and postal system what has happened to the historian post in CORLCA this year?
Not a lot, I have worked on organizing our history stuff. A lot of what we have is repeated so I will be bringing some old national and state papers for you to look at at if you so wish to take home from state convention this year. A lot of the stuff I am storing is stuff that there are more than one copy and that is not useful for anyone. If anyone is interested in that stuff and is not going to state, please let me know and I will help you get your own copies.
After the Colorado convention I had the pleasure of visiting with the historians from Kansas, Missouri, Mississippi, West Virginia, North Carolina, and finally Georgia on their home turf to see what they are doing. It ranges all the way from very little to trying to build a museum. So they are all over the place. What happens next year? I am still working out what is going on right now. As always feel free to reach out to me if you have any wants or questions.