Report

Daniel Mulloy

“ Life is like riding a bicycle . To keep your balance you must keep moving .” — Albert Einstein

Keeping our balance and moving forward has been a direction of the Alberta Retired Teachers ’ Association ( ARTA ) since its inception in November 1963 . As the association enters into its 50 th year of operation , it keeps moving forward . Through this movement , we are forever striving to ensure perfect balance . The last six months have been an intricate act of moving and balancing to ensure the long-term sustainability of our association and the overall wellness of our more than 12,000 members . Over the last six months , ARTA has kept moving by developing new relationships and partnerships that ensure proper balance will be in place for all of its members for the next fifteen to twenty years .

ARTA has entered into a partnership with Aon Hewitt to provide consultation and marketing support to our association to help ARTA to protect and grow our brand , to ensure the long-term integrity of our benefit plan and to provide guidance when entering preferred strategic partnerships that give the best value to all of our members . Through this relationship , ARTA has gone to the market to find partners that would provide the

best value to help us move forward , to ensure the proper balance that Einstein alludes to .

The key relationships that have come out of our market search have been a move from Johnson Inc . as our benefit plan administrator to the Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan ( ASEBP ). Another key move is the change in the travel insurance provider from Desjardin Financial ( Sigma Assistel ) to SSQ Financial Group ( and their partner — AXA Assistance ). A new relationship that has been established is in home and auto insurance products , a move from our sole endorsement of Johnson Inc . to TW Insurance Brokers .

These new relationships and partnerships fit together to give our members access to the best value , and they also help to ensure and preserve the balance and long-term sustainability of our association . Keeping balance while managing competing priorities , industry and economic changes , and other emerging factors , is hard to do ; but the new relationships and partnerships truly allow ARTA to be balanced as we move forward .

To some , these changes may seem to be somewhat overwhelming . I , for one , feel overwhelmed some days ; but when I reflect on the potential and the long-term effects of securing these new strategic partnerships , I know we are serving our present and future members in the best way possible . ARTA is building a strategy to reach out to all retired teachers and affiliate partners , creating a plan to support the health and welfare of our members , and bringing an added level of financial stability that will serve us best , well into the future .

These changes have also been challenging in that , as we have fostered new relationships , old relationships were impacted . The long-term relationship we have had with Johnson Inc . is one of those relationships that will change as a result of our change in business philosophy .

The Retired Teachers ’ Association is especially grateful to Johnson Inc . for their dedication and service throughout the past seventeen years , and to that I would like to add my personal thanks . They have enabled the association to expand between 1995 and 2012 , helped us maintain balance in our initial phase , and were behind us when we needed them .

Our organizational changes are no reflection on their service or dedication . Rather , it was a result of ARTA ’ s growth as an organization

ALBERTA RETIRED TEACHERS ’ ASSOCIATION News & Views Volume 19 21 , No . 32