ORANJ
2005 NaCCRA Meeting
REPORT TO ORANJ
NOTES ON RESIDENT LUNCH AND NaCCRA MEETING
AT AAHSA CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 6 – 10, 2005
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
The attendance and participation of residents at the 2005 annual meeting of AAHSA was very disappointing this year. There were an estimated 7,500 attendees at the whole conference, almost twice as many as last year in Nashville. There were an unsubstantiated 30 to 40 residents in attendance. AAHSA officials suggested the reason was that there is no state resident organization in Texas. Others suggested it was the location. Who knows?
It is really too bad because the opportunities to learn and to offer the resident perspective are great. Perhaps NaCCRA could play a role in encouraging attendance. Also, the AAHSA Board has a member who is a resident. Perhaps she should play a role by getting the AAHSA Board to offer some subsidization beyond the low registration fee.
At the lunch for residents there were about 27 people. The President elect of AAHSA, Peggy Mullen attended. She is interested in more resident participation. She will take office in January 2006. A good part of the discussion was focused on Medicare Part D with lots of questions. This was followed by a minister who spoke about community, the theme of the Conference.
We had a few minutes left for general discussion. One criticism was that AAHSA does not offer enough sessions that are aimed at residents. I disagree with this point since there are many sessions which deal with issues about which residents should be informed and where the resident perspective can be useful. Unfortunately, the composition and the limited number of residents did not lead to a very lively exchange.
The NaCCRA meeting was scheduled for the same room just following the luncheon. Charles Paulk, the new President of the organization had circled the room as the residents were gathering and tried to encourage people to stay after lunch for the NaCCRA meeting. He was not too successful as some people slipped away. We were joined however by three people from Texas who were not familiar with NaCCRA and appeared to question the validity of NaCCRA and asked relatively contentious questions.
The agenda included a presentation by Brian Robare, a provider from Florida, who spoke about promoting CCRC life style and the industry.
I spoke with the Secretary about submitting the ORANJ report because the state reports were scheduled for the latter part of the meeting. I had an important education session on testing driving skills and had to leave before the end. The Secretary reported that our report which I submitted and a report from one other state were all that she had.
The President spent some time talking about the switch from just state organizations to individual and organizational memberships. He claims a great success for this in Florida. On the whole the organization while very active in Florida does not appear to be flourishing.
Helen L. Vukasin 11/12/05
