Newsletter No. 9

 HALCROW PENSIONERS ASSOCIATION 

 Newsletter No 9 : April 2014

You have been sent this newsletter because you may be a member of the Halcrow Pension Scheme. If you are not a member then please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email to remove your name from the mailing list or email the webmaster@halcrowpensioners dot org dot uk to remove your name.

The 2014 Annual General Meeting

As advised in Newsletter No. 8, an Annual General Meeting is scheduled to take place in a sub-forum of the HPA forum during the week commencing 28th April 2014.

The proposed timescale for the annual general meeting is: 

The proposed agenda for the AGM is here. Nominations and items for the agenda can be posted in the 2014 AGM sub-forum of the HPA forum or sent to the secretary (secretary at halcrowpensioners dot org dot uk).

Newsletter recipients are encouraged to attend the AGM and contribute to shaping the future for HPA. This will require (i) payment of an HPA membership subscription (if not already paid - bank transfers are preferred to avoid transaction charges) and (ii) registration for the HPA forum (if not already registered). Those members who have paid their subscription and have registered for the forum should have access to the AGM forum which looks like this:

Please check that the access is working and email the webmaster if you cannot see the AGM forum once you are logged in so that you can be given the appropriate access rights. If you have paid your subscription but not yet registered for the forum then please do so. We look forward to your participation in the AGM.

If you have previously registered for the forum but forgotten your password then all is not lost: Click on the  "Forgot your password?" link and you will be asked for your Username/Email so you can start the password reset process.

Pension Protection Fund Index Update

The Pension Protection Fund regularly monitors the health of the UK pension schemes. Some graphs have been prepared showing the status of the schemes monitored by the PPF since January 2012. You can see the graphs here. The number of schemes in deficit had dropped during 2013 but has now started to increase.

HPS Member Database

Those of you who are on the HPS email contact list may have recently received an email with a list of people for whom the HPS administration wanted to update their contact records. This email got the committee thinking about the need to keep the records up-to-date and the follow reasons were put forward:

• The time had come round for some routine administration
• Discontinuence of the process for members to confirm that they were still alive reduced the inflow of updated contact details
• CH2M Hill had asked for confirmation of the HPS membership details as part of the ongoing negotiations about the funding plan
• The HPS Trustees wanted the contact list to be up-to-date in anticipation of the possible need to formally report to members about the outcome of the negotiations

None of these reasons may be the correct one, but it got us thinking.

Purpose of HPA

As individuals we have limited voice, but collectively we stand a better chance of being heard and influencing future changes. In addition to forming a platform for talking to past colleagues, HPA provides, for the first time, a collective body to represent member's interests to the trustees. We need members, both to be able to demonstrate the numbers of people concerned about the welfare of the Halcrow Pension Scheme and also to raise a fund to meet legal or other costs that may be needed quickly to protect your pension interests – we anticipate that if HPA needs to take action then time will be of the essence. Perhaps it is timely to remind people to re-read the transcript of the Court Hearing in 2011 and note the discussion about the pensions liabilities. As a minimum please make sure you are on our mailing list.

We are relying on personal networks to spread the news of our existence as the HPS trustees have declined to make HPS members aware of HPA's existence though one of their routine mailings. We remind all the recipients of this newsletter to spread the word by forwarding this email to anyone else whom you think may be a member (pensioner, deferred or contributing) of the Halcrow Pension Scheme. It is better that they receive multiple copies of this email than remain unaware of the HPA. We would also request people to update their details in our newsletter database (particularly those people for which we only have a Halcrow email address which are now being phased out). If you received this email directly then please use the link at the bottom of the email to access your details.

Thank you from the HPA committee.