by Ron Whalin, ORANJ president
Three meetings of the National Continuting Care Residents’ Association (NaCCRA) were held at the 2015 LeadingAge Conference in Boston. First the state presidents met, then the NaCCRA Board of Directors met, and later there was a NaCCRA/LeadingAge meeting for all resident of CCRCs at the conference.
NaCCRA State Presidents’ First-Time Meeting. The National Continuing Care Residents Association has nine state organizations: Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Washington. New Jersey’s ORANJ is the second largest behind Florida’s. We had an excellent opportunity over lunch to describe our organizations, share status and get to know each other. I gave everyone a copy of the ORANJ brochure. Plans are underway to do the same at future LeadingAge conferences. Also monthly teleconferences are being considered.
NaCCRA Board of Directors Meeting. After lunch, the Board convened. I am not a member of the Board but was called on to participate from the “gallery.” NaCCRA interim president Ruth Walsh has signed an agreement to work closely with LeadingAge. LeadingAge outgoing CEO Larry Minnox has not signed the recently revised version – it will be signed by the new LeadingAge CEO Katie Smith Sloan. Charlie Paulk of Florida (attending via teleconference) was elected to the Board, bringing the total membership to nine, the number required to elect new NaCCRA officers. The Board elected Bob Nicholson of Washington state to be President, Walt Boyer of North Carolina to be President-Elect and Jack Cumming of California to be Treasurer. William Ratcliff of Maryland will continue as Secretary..
NaCCRA meeting for all CCRC residents at Convention (sponsored by LeadingAge). The meeting opened with a welcome from Larry Minnix, CEO of LeadingAge. After a short report on the Board meeting, NaCCRA presented a panel of four speakers: Joe Anderson (Board of Directors Chair), Helmut Golde (Washington CCRC Resident), Lynn O’Connor (CEO of various communities) and Katherine Pearson (Penn State Professor). Final speaker was Steve Magg (LeadingAge Director) who spoke on “Those New CCRC Consumers You’ve Heard About? The’re Here!”