PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

I hope that 2025 has started out good for everyone. 

· Our Raffle was a fairly good success considering the economy. Of the over 10,000 tickets sold, four outstanding people purchased almost 2,000 of them (subsequently, their chance to win was higher). 

Thank you to all who purchased, sold, and/or made donations. It is appreciated by everyone you help through the Distress Fund. 

· Many thanks to Kathy Conrad for taking over the raffle for me, and to Mike Wilhelm for stepping up upon my absence. And I would be remiss if I did not also thank the rest of the Board for helping me out. It’s heartwarming to know you can rely on others in your time of need. 

To the members of the BRPBA, thank you for the   calls, cards, and prayers.

· Speaking about my “time of need”, I wanted to give you my health update. Currently I am facing surgery and possibly further treatment with chemotherapy and/or radiation. We shall see what happens after surgery. 

Being sick is scary and it made me finally realize how fragile life is. Please keep everyone who is battling an illness or those who are caring for someone battling an illness, in your thoughts and prayers. We all need prayers.

· We will be cutting back on who we mail the raffle to even further to eliminate those who have not purchased tickets in the last five years. This will save a considerable amount of time and money. However, if you want tickets and have not been receiving them, please drop us an email at BRPBAOffice@gmail.com and we will add you back onto the list. 

· We recently had an issue where someone was quite upset with us because they could not receive a members death benefit. On Page 11, Article X of our By-Laws, it states “There will be no death benefit payable if a deceased member has no beneficiary form on file.” There is nothing we can do about this. It’s our law. We are being as transparent as we can. When there is no form on file, it causes major issues with estates who have held on to checks forever, or results in family members arguing over who gets the money and taking it out on us. We just can’t be in the middle of that. I don’t know what else we can tell you to get you to fill out a form. It’s your money after all. 

* On page 9 our our newsletter is a list of members from A-Si who still have no form on file despite us begging and pleading to get it done. Not to mention if there is an old form on file. This causes major issues when a 2nd spouse was not listed on the form and the 1st spouse gets the money. OR if you have changed your address and we have no way of getting a check to you. Please, just take a moment and look at the page and see if your name is on the list. The rest of the names will be in our next newsletter (SL-Z). 

· You may notice a slight difference in our newsletter. We have moved to a new printing company due to dissatisfaction with the people who bought out the old company. 

Daryl