Dear Friends,
I have an important request to make of all of you, our members and employers!
Over the past several weeks, you have seen messages – both from me and from the Pension Boards’ Member Services staff – encouraging employers and self-paying members to transition to online payment of their benefits invoices. You may remember reading that online payment is the new standard for the Pension Boards.
At this time, I would like to request that each of you begin making your payments using our online payment portal!
Dear Friends,
Since we began sending you these weekly updates in March, our goal has been to keep you informed about your benefits, available programs, and process changes while assuring you that all Pension Boards' business operations are moving forward as they were before the start of the pandemic.
You have heard from us. Now, we want to hear from you!
Dear Friends,
Navigating a crisis early on requires safety, caution, and agility. As the Pension Boards has carried out our work these past 22 weeks, we have done so carefully and with flexibility. As we look to the future and how we will emerge in a post-COVID context, we are laying a solid foundation for how best to serve you in a “new normal.”
Dear Friends,
As we come to the end of the 21st week since the closure of our offices in New York and Cleveland in mid-March, our colleagues are working successfully and efficiently under the present circumstances to modernize key processes, manage day-to-day operations in their respective departments and advance our organizational strategic objectives.
Dear Friends,
When the Pension Boards’ physical offices closed and staff began to work remotely, we were focused on responding to your immediate concerns about COVID-19. Throughout the past four months, we have also continued with our day-to-day operations, adapting, however remaining focused on our strategic initiatives.
Dear Friends,
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
(John Lennon, “Beautiful Boy,” 1980)
These words, written and sung by John Lennon 40 years ago to his then-five-year-old son, carry a message for the present times. Many of our “best laid plans” changed in recent months because of circumstances beyond our control. Yet, these unexpected deviations from the courses we imagined and planned have also been rich with new insights, learnings, and ways of doing what we do. In your congregations and ministry settings, many of you had to move from in-person worship and meetings to live-streaming and video conferencing. You created new ways of serving compassionately and effectively that will likely influence the way you carry out your mission in the future.
Dear Friends,
A recent social media post encouraged congregations that were preparing to resume in-person worship to not speak about re-opening, but instead about re-gathering. We now are halfway through July, and four months into our request that our colleagues work remotely. The Pension Boards, like churches and many other places of work and ministry, has never closed. As we continue to slowly test our plan for re-gathering in our office spaces, we continue to use systems, technology, and most important – care and compassion – to serve you, our members and employers.
Please be advised that if you are not working for a United Church of Christ (UCC) employer, Conference, Association, National Setting, or any UCC-affiliated organization, and contributions are no longer being made to your Annuity Plan account, your account is considered inactive.
Dear Friends,
I hope this message finds you and your loved ones well and safe, and that you were able to enjoy the Independence Day holiday weekend.
It is hard to believe that we are now at the end of our seventeenth week since our offices closed on March 16. A few staff colleagues performing essential tasks are on site daily; however, the majority of our colleagues continue to telework efficiently, and remain focused on serving you.
“I got shoes, you got shoes, all God’s children got shoes.”
African American Spiritual
Basic necessities such as shoes and decent clothing were rare among slaves, but expressions of protest and hope were not. The meaning of the spiritual I Got Shoes was hidden from the oppressors but clear to those who sang it as they worked the fields: outrage at the cruel treatment of those who had no right to declare ownership of human beings, and confidence that justice would ultimately prevail. The day would come when they would attain freedom and dignity; all of God’s children would get shoes.