Thoughts from the President

Thoughts from the President

Dear valued Gleaner members:

Life is an adventure, and Gleaner Life has several exciting developments as we move through summer and into the second half of 2023.

The main pieces are in place for the 61st Biennial Convention coming up Oct. 20-22 in Rosemont, Illinois. The Society exists to serve and protect you, our members, so please become familiar with your Board of Directors. I would also like to welcome Jeff Price to the Board. He was appointed at the end of May to fill the remainder of a term that ends in October 2025, and is part of a well-known Gleaner family from West Lockport (IL) Arbor. We are grateful to Jeff for offering what is truly service-based leadership.

Speaking of arbors, we are happy to welcome two new arbors. Eagle Arbor has begun serving the Julian, Pennsylvania, community while Miami Valley Arbor in the Dayton, Ohio, region was chartered in June.

Just as this summer edition of Forum Magazine wrapped up, we honored our top agents at the 2023 Conference of Excellence in Pennsylvania. I’d like to publicly congratulate Jerry Cvach as our overall top agent and Tara Gordon as the overall runnerup. Cvach was No. 1 in providing annuity solutions. Michael Drayton was our leader in life insurance, Daniel Zeiger added the most new members to our Society, Debi Tiell-Hershey was our “Fraternal Agent of the Year,” and Gary Sirak was our leading new agent. We will have photos and additional winners listed in the fall edition of Forum.

Premium growth continues upward. The Society is averaging $8 million in monthly premium for 2023 and, at the time of this writing, we are on pace to attain $11 million for June. Please refer to the chart below for perspective on this accomplishment:

Due to an error in spring’s Forum Magazine’s financial report, it is necessary to correct the 2022 balance sheet statement. I have decided to reprint the entire financial Balance Sheet and Operations numbers and also print first quarter 2023 numbers. (Please refer to page 13.) The quarterly comparison demonstrates considerable improvement in Net Income — end of March 2022 net income of negative ($1,010,213) compared to March of 2023 net income of positive $2,846,883. Please be advised that I do expect adjustments to future net income as Gleaner invests to overhaul and improve our legacy computer systems.

School is out for summer but will resume before we know it. In the spirit of our fraternal mission, I would like to suggest parents and grandparents of young adults, especially those transitioning from high school to college, take time to get closer to God. There will be many new challenges and doctrines introduced and promoted as college life begins to take hold. Unfortunately, not all of these are good and there may be times when academia promotes a worldview inconsistent with our strong faith in God and his son Jesus Christ. As parents perhaps we can introduce a different type of academic thinking to our children. May I suggest you encourage your children to discover the deeper meaning of our faith by advocating a philosophical read over the summer?

Three books I recommend:

1. “The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief” by Francis S. Collins. (An atheist scientist turned Christian, Collins was head of the Human Genome Project that mapped the entire DNA code for human beings.)

2. “Faith, Science and Reason” by Christopher Baglow.

3. “Reason to Believe: Why Faith Makes Sense” by Richard Purtill (deep philosophy).

We hope all our Gleaner members find new adventures for summer’s remaining days. A list of upcoming events is on pages 6-7. May we gratefully carry out the challenge of being a protector and a blessing to our families and communities, and look forward to Labor Day’s traditional pause to finish the season.

Kind regards and fraternally,

Anthony Clark
President and CEO