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Volume 2, Issue 5 June 2006
THE 1818 SOCIETY
BULLETIN
Volume 2, Issue 5 JUNE 2006
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Volume 2, Issue 5 June 2006
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Volume 2, Issue 5 June 2006
Dear Members,
Our 1818 Society webpage has many new features, and more are in development. The address is easy to remember, www.worldbank.org/1818. I encourage all of you to use it.
You may use our webpage to:
· Read the latest news about the Society, the Bank, and your World Bank benefits;
· Find out about Society events, as well as Bank events and activities of other organizations;
· Learn what is happening in our Society chapters (press “1818 Society Chapters” on the left hand navigation bar);
· Insert advertisements in the Bank bulletin board or read the advertisements of others (press “Bulletin Board” on the navigation bar and register a username and password. Instructions are provided);
· Obtain information on Bank benefits, including downloading health insurance forms (press “World Bank Benefits” and drill down);
· Find out who has passed away (press “in Memorium”);
· Post your personal home page for others to read (press “Members Area”, then “Members Home Pages”);
· Write comments that will be read by other retirees (press “Members Area, then “Members Discussion Area”);
· Discover what discounts and special services are available to Bank retirees (press “Member Services and Discounts” and then the specific service or discount sought);
· Register for the Retiree and Spouse Employment Program (RSEP) (press “Members Area then “Employment of Retirees);
· Read about sector retiree groups in various sectors (press “Sectors”);
· Access Society publications (press “Publications”);
· Learn about volunteer opportunities (press “Members Area” and “Volunteer Corner) and aging resources in the Washington area community (press “About 1818 Society”, then “Friends in Need”, and then drill down through the references given on the page);
· Download Society forms (press “About 1818 Society and then (1818 Forms).
As always, we would love to hear from you, the members, on ways to improve the content and functioning of our webpage.
I hope that you have a healthy and happy summer.
Adrienne Nassau, President.
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
CHILEAN CHAPTER.
For information, please contact Miguel Schloss (), or Silvia Lay de Schloss () tel. 56-2-459-6050. Upon the return of Miguel and Silvia to Chile in mid-June, he will contact members to plan the next event.
DUTCH CHAPTER.
Seventh Dutch Reunion:
Dates: September 8-9, 2006.
Place: Rotterdam.
Those interested in participating should now register with Jan ter Vrugt and make reservations directly with the Bilderberg Park Hotel in Rotterdam. For further information about this reunion please see the Dutch chapter website (www.1818dutch.org). Registration: Jan ter Vrugt: tel. +31-485-385718; . Hotel booking: Park Hotel tel. +31-10-4363611;
Eighth Dutch Reunion:
Dates: September 14-15, 2007.
Place: Zutphen.
For further information about this reunion please contact Cees de Haan ().
FRENCH CHAPTER
Fall Meeting:
Date: September or October 2006
Place: Belgium.
For further information, please contact Olivier Lafourcade (e-mail: ).
GERMAN CHAPTER
Fall Meeting:
Dates: September 8-11, 2006. Place: Meiningen.
Meiningen is in the State of Thuringia (ex GDR), a Theater and Banking city since long. It is located not too far from Schweinfurt.
UK CHAPTER
2006 Winter Reunion and Luncheon
Date: November 25, 2006
Place: Army and Navy Club
Pall Mall, London
All 1818 Society members are welcome. For further information, please contact Andrew Spurling (Tel. 0118-942-7310; e-mail: DMSpurling @aol.com).
FLORIDA CIRCLE
2007 Reunion
Date: February or April 2007
Place: Miami, Florida
Having heard from some of the Florida retirees, Karin Nordlander will make Miami the destination for the 2007 Florida Circle get-together. A decision needs to be made whether February or April is best for the majority. She welcomes e-mails () or a phone call (561-447-9499) to let her know your preference. Note also the website for the Florida Circle which you can access through the 1818 Society website (www.worldbank.org/1818), or directly at http://www.1818florida.00freehost.com.
WATER SECTOR CHAPTER
June Luncheon Meeting:
Date: June 9, 2006
Time: 11:45 am
Place: MC Dining Rooms D & E, The World Bank, Washington DC.
Speaker and Topic: Phillip Kirpich, "Rural Water and Poverty Elimination"
For further information or to be put on the mailing/e-mail list of the Water Sector Chapter, please contact Dick MacEwen (tel.: 1-703-734-0367; e-mail: ).
Member Services and Discounts
InfoShop, the World Bank bookstore, located on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 18th Street, offers the same discount to retirees that it provides to staff. This discount is presently set at 30% for World Bank publications, 20% for merchandise, and 10% for external publications. You will need to show your Bank ID.
And while you are in town, why not visit the latest shop in the Bank-Group Buildings?
The IFC Artisan Store opened mid-May in IFC HQS Building. In May 2004, the IFC established the Grassroots Business Initiative (GBI). The Initiative focuses on creating more efficient and scaleable businesses out of organizations that bring economic empowerment to the poor and the disadvantaged in developing countries. GBI accomplishes this through providing capacity building and financing to small-scale social enterprises and the intermediaries that support them.
GBI is implementing a new retail, educational and outreach facility called Pangea Artisan Market and Cafe in the IFC Headquarters building at the corner of 21st and Pennsylvania. Pangea offers visitors the opportunity to purchase high quality handcrafted products made by artisans from developing countries. In addition to the merchandise, Pangea will engage visitors in interactive multimedia exhibits, explaining how IFC and its partners work together.
New Members
We extend a warm welcome to the following retirees who became members of the Society since the last Bulletin:
Saadalla M. Aly
Yahya A. Alyahya
Mirtha Araujo
Susan D. Bingham
Gianni Brizzi
Tim Campbell
Rosario Cardenas
Pamela Chakra
Luis O. Coirolo
Eric Cruikshank
Dennis de Tray
Hugo Diaz-Etchevehere
Edward Dotson
Osvaldo Feinstein
L. Rosamund Garner
Deborah Horrell
Luz R. Hovsepian
Vladimir Jadrijevic
Brenda Juntunen
Lucy Keough
Goretti Lau
Douglas William Lister
Gerald Meyerman
Laura A. Mitchel
Augusta Molnar
Samuel Ofori Onwona
Jane D. Pellegrini
Jayme Porto-Carreiro
John Poulsen
Eugenia Sander
Alicia Saona
T. W. Schillhorn-Van-Veen
Carmen Scoseria
William J. Smith
Kathy Strauss
Thomas E. Walton
News and Notices
From the Editor.
For those of you, who wish to publish notices in the next Bulletin, please note that I plan to send the proofread copy of the next issue to the print shop on Tuesday, July 11, 2006. This two-day advance from my normal schedule is caused by my July travel plans.
Have you ever had problems with cleaning unwanted formatting from electronic text? I have. Much of the material that goes into the Bulletin arrives at my computer station, heavily formatted. Some formatting was difficult to change or remove, such as the underlining of e-mail addresses. Fortunately, a friend of mine knew the solution. NOTEPAD, the lowly text editor that comes standard with all Windows operating systems, is not much of a word-processor, but it is a great washing machine for unwanted text code. When you want to copy text from external documents, copy it first into NOTEPAD. The text that you later copy from NOTEPAD into your word processor is as clean from unwanted code as the text that you manually type into a document.
To start NOTEPAD, go to the Start button, click on RUN and type “notepad” (without the quotes). Any text that you copy into NOTEPAD will become squeaky clean. A long paragraph will look odd in NOTEPAD because it does not have a code for soft carriage returns. Everything is on one long line until NOTEPAD finds a hard return at the end of a paragraph. When copied into a word processor, the text will return to normal.
Have a nice summer!
World Bank Group Retirees Association
The 1818 Society
Postal Address: P.O. Box 27388
Washington DC 20038-7388
Telephone: (202) 458-1956
Fax: (202) 522-2417
E-mail:
Website: www.worldbank.org/1818
Board members - 2006
Ram K. Chopra, Frona Hall, Ricardo Halperin, Alexander Keyserlingk , Hernan Levy, Adrienne Nassau (Chairman), Charles Ziegler, John Blaxall (Honorary Member).
Officers - 2006
Adrienne Nassau - President
Vice President – Catherine Fogle
Xavier Simon - Treasurer
Tauheed Ahmed - Assistant Treasurer
John Kendall - Secretary
Office Manager: - Annabel Bracher
Retiree Representatives on Bank
Group Committees: -
Stephen Eccles - Pension Finance
Ricardo Halperin - Alternate, Pension Finance
Eva Meigher - Pension Benefits
A. Keyserlingk, Alternate - Pension Benefits
Bulletin: -
Sverrir Sigurdsson - Editor
(e-mail: ),
Newsletter: -
Jim Casey – Editor
(e-mail: )
Chapter Contacts: -
Chile - Miguel or Silvia Schloss ()
France - Olivier Lafourcade; e-mail:
Germany - Dieter von Samson ; e-mail: ;
(tel. 49-2241-396766)
The Netherlands - Robert Jan van der Lugt (e-mail: ;
tel. 31-71-3613860.fax: 31-71-3612345).
United Kingdom - Roger Slade ()
Florida – Karin Nordlander ().
Annual Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) in Pension.
The Gross Pension Plan applies to participants who joined the Staff Retirement Plan on or before April 14, 1998. The annual cost-of-living adjustment in pension is granted on May 1. All retirees/beneficiaries will receive the notification of the cost-of-living adjustment during the first two weeks of June.
The cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in pension granted on May 1, 2006 for US dollars is 3.36265%. Please refer to the Pension Administration webpage for adjustments in other currencies. You may reach this webpage through the 1818 Society website by clicking on "World Bank Benefits" on the left-hand side of the webpage.
Board of Directors for the 1818 Society.
The Society's Nominating Committee is interested in identifying candidates for the Board of Directors, to be elected in the October annual meeting. If you are interested in serving, or know a good and willing potential candidate, please let the Society know, by emailing , by end of June.
Towards a Northwest Chapter of the 1818 Society.
The limited response from retirees in the Northwest for a get-together in May 2006 indicates that there is not a consensus about what retirees in the Northwest want and expect from a NW Chapter of the 1818 Society. The meeting has therefore been postponed until the fall of this year. The organizers will use the time to explore the preferences of the participants.
Noting that different Chapters of the 1818 Society have different formats, separate preparatory gatherings are now being planned in British Columbia, Oregon and Washington – or any combination thereof at convenient locations. Residents of Idaho and Northern California will be informed of, and invited to, such meetings at locations most convenient for them. At these gatherings, alternative models of meetings will be discussed, as will substantive issues such as themes to be covered, timing, length of meetings, location, and cost implications. Coordinators will call these gatherings after consultation with retirees in their areas. Once the outcomes of the gatherings have been established – preferably before the summer of 2007 – the organizers hope to establish a more satisfactory meeting format.
For further information, contact: Jean-Pierre Jacqmotte, 7707 SE 18th Avenue, Portland, OR 97202; phone: (1-503) 232-0629, email: .
Establishment of the World Bank Group and IMF Sail Club (BFSC).
The aim of the recently established BFSC is to help its members discover the opportunities offered by the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries for all kind of boating activities. The club plans to offer its members discount rates in sailing clubs in the area. Membership in the BFSC (US$20/family) is open to Bank/Fund staff, retirees and their families. Activities for this season are offered through the Getaway Sailing Club in Baltimore.
The BFSC is working with other clubs/marinas to offer a diversity of locations to its members. Members will benefit by special discounts offered by Sailing Clubs or Marinas on rentals, training, membership or other activities.
Further information is available at the Society Website (worldbank.org/1818), or via e-mail at .
Aetna Health Insurance Notices.
Aetna Navigator. The Aetna website (http://www:Aetna.com) now includes access to Aetna Navigator, which provides detailed information about your processed claims, as well as your medical and dental benefits used and remaining and other valuable information. If you have not done so already, you should register to access your account and other information. To do so, go to Aetna.com and under “Members” click “Log In To Aetna Navigator” and follow instructions. You will need your Aetna membership card, so have it handy. You will be asked to choose a screen name and a password to access information about your account. While in Aetna Navigator, you should also register any coinsurance you have, e.g. Medicare, so as to facilitate the processing of your claims. Find the Medicare registration site and enter the appropriate data from your Medicare card(s).
Informed Health Line. This Aetna service gives you easy access to credible medical information. The service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on demand from any touch tone phone or computer within the U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii). Services include: (i) a 24-Hour Nurse Line to help you learn about medical procedures, possible treatment options and help you better communicate with your health care providers; (ii) access to an Audio Health Library containing information on thousands of topics such as common conditions and diseases, gender and age-specific health issues, dental care, mental care and much more, and (iii) Health-wise knowledgebase for those who prefer to view health information online using one of the most advanced health databases available. For further information on any of these services, go to Aetna’s website and look for Informed Health Line.
The 1818 Society’s Website
Much of the information in the Bulletin can be found in a greatly more detailed version on the Society’s website: www.worldbank.org/1818. The website is updated regularly and enables 1818 Society members to find information that is timely and relevant to many of us. Recent entries on the website include:
· Financing our Pensions, an introductory guide by Stephen Eccles (The 1818 Society-nominated member of the Pension Finance Committee -- PFC). In the introduction to the on-line guide, Stephen writes: It became apparent during the 1818 Society annual meeting in October 2001 that there was a need to set down for Society members some basic information about the financial workings of the World Bank Group’s pension plan and about its financial governance. Further details are on the website. Send questions and/or comments to , with a copy to . Retirees can also send letters for Stephen’s attention to the 1818 Society office.