By Harold Rodenberger
Along with four other delegates from our post, I attended this year’s Mid-Winter Conference held in Spokane Jan. 19-20, 2018.
Friday morning Gail Engler, the Post 3063 Service Officer, Joe Fitzgerald, the Post 3063 Junior Vice Commander, and I attended the Service Officer’s training presented by our new Department of Washington VSO, Bill Brown. Bill gave a comprehensive class covering forms, procedures and available resources.
Next on the agenda was the Quartermaster’s Class presented by our new Department Quartermaster, Paul Manley. Paul covered some of the finer points of quartermaster’s duties and answered lots of questions for post quartermasters and other interested people in attendance.
To wrap up the day, I attended Nadine Warren’s very informative and motivating Recruiting Class. Nadine is a great speaker. She showed slides and gave examples of the various techniques to get those all-important younger veterans to join our ranks.
Saturday, we attended the business session. It was a busy day with remarks by the VFW National Representative, Bob Wallace, and reports from the state line officers. In the afternoon, committee chairpersons reported on the mid-year progress of their committees.
Saturday evening was the big event of the conference. Earlier in the day, Patriot’s Pen and Youth Essay
winners were announced and presented with their awards but at the banquet Saturday night, the Voice of Democracy winners were announced and we listened to their stirring essays on the theme: “What does a veteran mean to me?”. Teacher of the Year Awards also were presented at the banquet.
As in past years, at this year’s Mid-Winter Conference our delegates learned some new information about our VFW, the status of our state organization, and returned to our post more enthusiastic, motivated and knowledgeable.