Lynn Nasralla, a senior consultant with Johnson Insurance, presents a $10,000 cheque to Mega Recruitment Drive grand prize winner Valdine Christiansen, who lives in Ottawa and used the money to take her recruit, friend Lynne Schulz, on a cruise in May. Photo: Dave Chan
Valdine Christiansen is going on a Caribbean cruise with the person who’s responsible for her winning the grand prize $10,000 in cash courtesy of Johnson Insurance in Federal Retirees’ annual Mega Recruitment Drive.
“I just happened to recruit a friend of mine — Lynne Schulz — who is now a member,” Christiansen says. “I was telling her about the MEDOC travel insurance and told her she should join. And then we decided that if I won, we would split the money and go on a trip.”
Christiansen and Schulz’s friendship goes back to 1980 when the two met while working in Emerson, Man., for the federal department of customs and excise, now called Canada Border Services Agency.
“We’ve been friends ever since,” says Christiansen, who moved on from customs to the Canada Revenue Agency, first working in Winnipeg, then Toronto and finally in Ottawa, where she retired in 2017. “We were shocked that we won. We’re going on a cruise in May. We’re both thrilled.”
Asked why she’s sharing the whole prize with her friend, she simply says: “I’ve known her forever and it’s something that I want to do. I asked who was linked to my name when it was drawn and it was Lynne.”
Christiansen, who joined the Association when she retired in 2017, says that until now, she hasn’t deliberately been actively recruiting members, but she may start as the prizes are enticing.
“I don’t really go canvassing for new members,” she says. “I just know that if there’s something that I think is beneficial for other retirees, I will recommend it. In this case, I did it primarily because of the travel insurance. And we like Johnson for home and car insurance, too.”
She’s had first-hand experience with the MEDOC travel insurance, and she and her husband have put it to the test because they’ve occasionally had to cancel trips.
“We’ve never had a problem,” she says. “It’s excellent.”
The Mega Recruitment Drive, now in its fifth year, brought in 1,163 new referrals, 629 of which translated to new memberships. That’s 13 per cent more than the 1,031 new member referrals it garnered in 2022 and more than double drive’s first year total of 550 referrals. Federal Retirees’ ranks now number 170,467.
Costa Rica-bound
“It’s wonderful — what can I say?” says Dartmouth, N.S. resident Sandra Mason, who won the second prize in the Mega Recruitment Drive — a trip valued at $5,000 from Collette. “I don’t think I’ve ever won anything.”
While she considered an Alaskan cruise, or a trip to Europe, Mason has decided she’d like to apply her winnings to a trip to Costa Rica. Mason is widowed and is now considering which of her relatives or good friends she might want to invite to join her.
She has been retired for 18 years, but only joined Federal Retirees in 2022.
“I went to a [branch] dinner and it was very informative,” she says. “I had a good time and suggested it to a friend I worked with for many years.”
That friend, Carroll Spears, is the person who named Mason on his registration form, thereby giving her the chance of winning. “Thank you, Carroll,” she says.
Mason spent her career in the federal public service, working for different federal departments, including Supply and Services, Public Works and Transport Canada, all in Dartmouth, N.S.
Sandra Mason, of Dartmouth, N.S., won the second prize in the Mega Recruitment Drive and plans to use it to visit Costa Rica.
Super-recruiter
From North River, her small Newfoundland outport of just 560 residents, Joanne Morrissey has been the MRD’s most enthusiastic recruiter for several years in a row. This year, she won the award for most referrals for the fourth year in a row and she also won the award for most members recruited.
Her technique is to reach out to people she knows and tell them about the benefits of membership. She referred a total of 32 people this year, and 12 of them have joined so far.
She also participated in a retirement seminar. A Nova Scotia company is contracted to give retirement seminars to federal employees and when they do so, they invite the nearest Federal Retirees branch to present.
“We have a spot in the seminar to talk about membership, the benefits,” she says. “It’s nice to make them aware of it, so they’ll have it in their minds when they do retire.”
Morrissey says that for her, as someone who’s been “a union person,” her whole life, membership is most valuable because there’s strength in numbers in terms of pension protection and the rights of older adults. She’s so committed, she actually bought her daughter, who is still working in the federal public service, a membership for Christmas.
“I do really think that if everyone recruited one person, we could double our membership,” she says. “That’s kindergarten math. I don’t believe that everyone can’t recruit one member.”
Compliments of Arbor Memorial, she won $500 for being the top recruiter and $250 for referring the most prospective members. And, from IRIS, she won a pair of Maui Jim sunglasses.
She says she’ll donate the money she won to whichever of her favourite charities seems most in need at the time that she receives it and she’ll keep the sunglasses for herself.
Rewarding a friend
Rhona Thacker, of Red Deer, Alta., won the early bird draw, taking home a $500 AMEX cash card. And like Valdine Christiansen, she plans to treat the person she referred. She will take her friend, Sophie Zawadski, and Zawadski’s husband, Doug, out to dinner, along with her own husband.
“It’s perfect timing,” she says, adding that Zawadski retired the week after Thacker received her prize in the mail, so the timing made it a nice retirement treat for the party of four. Thacker still works at the Lacombe Research and Development Centre, but likes the benefits association membership brings.
“We work in Lacombe, Alta., at the research station,” Thacker explains. “I work in meat research — beef/pork research mainly as we have a beef and swine herd.”
Zawadski, meanwhile, has worked with different scientists at the facility for almost 36 years.
The Mega Recruitment Drive returns on Sept. 3, 2024, so start lining up your referrals and you, too, could win some great prizes while strengthening the association’s numbers.