Category: Auxiliary

From the Commander (December 2017)

By Pete Krawitz

 

November, as predicted, was a very busy month for the post. Comrade Guncay coordinated this year’s Veterans Day VA hospital visit. It was one of the biggest turnouts we’ve had in recent years with over 20 volunteers. I’d like to thank all that attended to include our sponsored Boy Scout Troop, Magnolia / Ballard Troop 80, who came out in full force this year. Our color guard was in high demand and took part in a few events. Additionally, some of the leadership team members have been working closely with the district leadership team to plan the future of our Auxiliary.

 

As many of you probably already know, our longtime Auxilary President, Margaret Phillips, stepped down from her position as of 1-November. We are now looking for someone to pick up where Margaret left off and lead the Auxiliary. There will be a special election held during the next Auxiliary meeting on Thursday, Dec. 7 at 7 p.m. Please get the word out! Remember, it’s not just spouses that are eligible for the auxiliary. Please visit https://vfwauxiliary.org/join-us/eligibility-information/ for the eligibility criteria.

 

The holidays give many of us an opportunity to slow down a little and spend some time with our friends and family. When Clare and I first moved to Seattle in 2014, our closest family member was over 2,000 miles away. While this was nothing new, especially after numerous overseas assignments, this was the first time celebrating a holiday without our military family. I’m thankful we found Ballard Eagleson VFW Post 3063. The special holiday social events, in particular, have been the source of some great memories and friendships. Hopefully, many of you will be able to make it out to the post on the Dec. 21.

 

On a more somber note, our charter will remain draped in December to mark the passing of yet another one of our WWII veterans. Comrade Herb Leake recently passed away. During the holidays, please keep the families of Comrade Leake and many of the other Comrades that we have lost this year.

 

Clare and I would like to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Auxiliary Coordinating Holiday Food Drive

The Post 3063 Auxiliary is collecting nonperishable portable snack items at the post during the holidays. Cash and gift cards will also be accepted. All proceeds will benefit homeless clients of the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC). For more information, contact Donna Limric at 206-852-5434.

 

Food drive box
The Post 3063 Auxiliary’s Food Drive flyer on it’s collection box.

From the Commander (August 2017)

By Pete Krawitz

 

As I write this month’s column, I’ve had the live video stream of the VFW national convention in New Orleans on in the background via the VFW’s Facebook page. Even though I wasn’t able to join our Seattle delegates this year, I can still listen in and see some of the same speakers. It’s encouraging to see the VFW leveraging technology to make these conventions more accessible to folks that are unable to attend.

 

Hopefully, our post will be able to leverage the same technology in the future, making some of our meetings more accessible to those who have difficulties making it in each month. With that being said, I did recently attend (physically not virtually) my first department (Washington State) VFW convention down in Olympia. It was a very positive experience. We were able to meet with some of our comrades from all over Washington state. While technology is great, nothing beats the face-to-face experience of a convention. If you haven’t had a chance to attend one of the state conventions or mid-winter conferences, I highly recommend it.

 

For those of you who were able to attend the business meeting in July, I hope you liked the new format we are experimenting with. For those of you that weren’t able to make it; we are now meeting in the main hall and will be kicking off the first 10 minutes of each meeting with the auxiliary to give us an opportunity to announce and discuss items that impact both groups. We also started using a projector to display the meeting agenda, enabling everyone to follow along with what is going on and to make the most of the hour we get to discuss business together each month. We will still stay true to the VFW rituals and ceremonies, just with a few slight modifications. I truly value your opinions and feedback, so please feel free to reach out to me if you have any ideas or comments on how we might be able to get the most value out of our monthly meetings.

 

One last thing I’d like to touch on is communication. I’ve been working with Adjutant Alyson Teeter to come up with a plan on how we communicate with the post on a regular basis. The post officers are often bombarded via email with offers, solicitations for volunteers, advertisements for local veteran events, etc. While we would love to pass these items along to everyone via e-mail, we don’t want to spam our entire membership base. At this point, we will only be sending you one communication a month (the newsletter), however, we would like to allow individuals to “opt-in” to other communications if they are interested. We often put these “extra” communications out on our Facebook page, but acknowledge that not everyone is on that platform. Hopefully, we will have more information in the next month or two on how you can opt-in for these additional communications.

 

I look forward to seeing you at our next business meeting.

 

Commander Krawitz’s First Column

By Pete Krawitz

Comrades, as I take the helm for the next 12 months, I want to thank you once again for entrusting me with this tremendous responsibility. I also want to especially thank Nestor, Aaron, and Harold for their leadership and guidance over the last few years as I moved up the seats. As you probably saw in the last newsletter, Nestor and Harold, like Aaron, led the post in earning a white cap at the department convention. This enormous achievement now marks two years in a row that our post has earned this honor. I have some big shoes to fill!

With that, I’m very excited to work with you and the post leadership team to continue to build upon some of the great successes that we’ve had over the last few years. The leadership team has already been discussing many great ideas, but we do realize that we only have a short amount of time to analyze, discuss, plan and implement some of them. I will be relying heavily on your feedback and the guidance of the current and past leadership team members as we move forward. I have four main areas that I’d like for us to focus on during this 2017/2018 term. These priorities are membership, community, accessibility/continuity, and the auxiliary.

What does all of this mean? Come to the post business meeting next week (July 6) to find out! We will be kicking this first meeting off with a joint session with the auxiliary to discuss all of these priorities and some specific goals before we break into our normal business meetings.

The one priority I’d like to briefly discuss is the topic of membership. Getting younger veterans signed up and involved in the VFW is a priority that we hear echoed at the district, state and national level time and time again. A few of us recently attended the department convention in Olympia this weekend, and this message was no different.

While I do agree that we need to attract younger veterans, I also believe we need to try and achieve this without alienating our older members in the process. One of the main reasons I joined this organization was to learn from the post-military experiences of our older service members. For some, reintegration back into civilian society (specifically in Seattle) can be challenging. However, it can be a heck of a lot easier when you surround yourself with sisters and brothers who speak your language and have been living in this community for many years.

It’s incredible to think that the VFW has been in Ballard for nearly 100 years. Let’s work together to ensure we are here in the community for another 100+ years.