Since our newsletter is now available in a printable, color version with a mass-emailed link, the newest “President’s Corner” notes can now be found on the first page of all newsletters at the “Chapter Newsletters” sidebar topic.
Archive for President’s Corner
Greetings brothers and sisters,
Well, it has been a very long winter and hopefully it is coming to an end now. The chapter has been very busy with meetings and getting ready for our election and “Welcome Home” celebration. This will be the first one since it officially became a holiday.
We will have our election at our April meeting, so plan on being there. We will elect a president, senior vice president, junior vice president, treasurer, secretary and 3 board directors, plus our delegates to the State Council meeting and election. The council meeting is tied in with the veterans celebration in Deadwood on May 2,3,4
One other thing: we are selling raffle tickets for the elk hunt and the fishing trip,
so please sell and turn in your tickets. The money we raise is what makes it possible to help needy veterans. And that, plus honoring our veterans are what we are about. Our Honor Guard does a fantastic job of that – they have been very busy at funerals and have logged a lot of miles. They are still in need of new members. If you would like to join them, contact Floyd, Connie or Jerry.
Thanks for letting me be your president this last year.
Rollie
Greetings brothers and sisters,
Summer is over and it was a very busy one for us as we were involved in a lot of activities. We hosted the S.D. VVA State Council meeting at the new Armory – what a beautiful facility. Also in the morning of the state council meeting we had the Agent Orange Town Hall Meeting. Jack Kempter and Maynard Kadlivik put on a tremendous meeting. There were over 80 people that attended and I believe that with the help of the VSOs that were present, a lot of people were helped with some very good information. We even had a gentleman from Texas that stopped in and gave a testimonial to be used by the Agent Orange Committee. The next State Council meeting will be held in May with a veterans reunion at the same time in Deadwood. We’ll give more information when the date and location are finalized.
By the time you get this letter, hopefully, the government is back functioning.
Until then, we need to make sure we are available to help any veteran that might not get counseling or education assistance of disability payments while our government is closed.
One other point I want to bring up is that we need to remember that we are all brothers and sisters united by our membership in the VVA. We need to support all of our brothers and sisters that are in need of help or support even though we may not like them or agree with them or do not like what they have done. We need to unite in support of all veterans. We are not all well and a lot of us have some major medical or mental problems, but we still need to support each other.
Thanks Rollie
Greetings brothers and sisters.
I just returned from the VVA national convention in Jacksonville Florida. As this was my first convention and the first time we sent a delegate, I was not sure what to expect, but it was a fantastic experience. The VVA now has 70,000 members and there were 795 delegates there plus the AVVA had their convention concurrent with the VVA. We had nominated our chapter for 4 awards: newsletter, website, chapter of the year and Don Reconnu for member of the year. I also ran for director at large, so I was kept very busy talking to caucus and met a lot of good people. I believe we really amazed a lot of people when I told them we were only 2 years old and had 320 members. I did not win a seat on the board but I did have several people support me and ask that I come back in 2 years and run again. The best part of the convention was when they announced that Don Reconnu won the member of the year award. So for a chapter a little over 2 years old, we did quite well with Don winning and also telling our success story of membership. This is all because of our members and all your hard work and support – for this I thank you.
The convention really makes you aware of what the VVA is and all it has accomplished for all veterans – not just the Vietnam Veterans. We were entitled to 6 delegates because of our membership, South Dakota was entitled to 11 including our 6 and we had 2 delegates present. The next Convention will be 2015 in Springfield Illinois, so start to think about attending. Next year the leadership conference will be in Wichita. Both of these are much closer than Jacksonville, so hopefully we can have more attend. Let me just close in that the convention was a lot of fun for me and my wife, so if you have any questions, just ask me at the meeting,
Thank you,
Rollie