Greetings to all Unifor Local 27 Retirees' Chapter members.

The executive has been mulling over various options for our chapter lunch as many members have suggested pizza lunches are being overdone.

There are several issues at play:

• The lunch committee is no longer able to prepare the scrumptious sandwiches and treats that we all loved; our thanks go out to Celia and Jessie for the work they put into serving up delicious lunches.

• The uncertainty that Covid has brought to everyday living is also making it harder for us to plan lunches due to attendance being an unknown from month to month.

• The price of food is skyrocketing; restaurants are passing this cost down to customers with higher prices.

• Some of the options we are considering such as sandwich platters are more costly than pizza, so we need to be careful with amounts ordered. If sandwich platters cost $250+, we cannot afford to lose $150+ and then have to throw out food.

   

The first thing the executive has decided is, starting with the October meeting we will be increasing the lunch fee to $5 from $4. This slight increase will help to offset the large, inflation-driven increases in restaurant or catered food. We feel this should not have too big an impact on the membership.

The most crucial steps we would like to take are, we will be passing a list during meetings, asking the membership to sign-up for next months lunch and for at least the next 3 or 4 meetings, we would like members who did not add their names to the list to RSVP their intention to stay for lunch.

These steps are being taken to allow us to better judge the amount of food to order.

We asked for this feedback for the catered September 14th meeting and the numbers turned out to be very close to what we expected

We will be sending out a few emails through the month, asking the chapter members who did not add their names to the list to let us know as soon as possible by email or phone if they will be staying for lunch.

If for some reason your intention to attend the meeting changes, a cancellation email or phone call would be equally appreciated.

We may to be able to discontinue these requirements in the new year or when we are able to return to a degree of normalcy.

Thank you ahead of time for your assistance,

Your Executive.