Category: Commentary

Quartermaster’s Update (September 2017)

It’s been said that all things change. Geological change appears unchanging to us while Moore’s Law concerning computing seems to allow change so rapid we can hardly follow.

 

As we grow older we change physically and mentally. It seems just yesterday I was a young man with many goals, working hard and supporting a family. Suddenly I realize I’m an old man having achieved many of those goals, approaching the winter of my life and finding the changes in our world and country almost incomprehensible.

 

Change is happening in our post as well. Commander Krawitz has changed our meeting format with the post meeting together with our auxiliary in the large hall followed by separate business meetings, with the post remaining in the large hall and the auxiliary moving to the smaller room. Starting the monthly meeting together with our auxiliary promotes teamwork and encourages shared goals. It looks to me like a good change.

 

Yoga class resumes on 9/16 when our yoga teacher, Alicia, returns from vacation. If you want to change your body and mind, even temporarily, come on out for yoga, it stretches your body and mind while enriching your spirit.

 

Our spaghetti feed fund raiser on September 9th changed from years past when it was held in the spring. Buy your tickets early and take advantage of the advance raffle ticket sales. Hard to beat 30 tickets for twenty dollars and it’s a good way to increase your odds of winning your favorite prize.

 

Speaking of, there are many wonderful prizes for the fund-raising raffle. Local businesses have generously contributed some wonderful gifts just waiting for your lucky draw. Mark your calendar, buy your tickets and let’s have a great time while raising money for our post relief fund.

 

We have received many flags deserving of respectful retirement so we are changing our flag retirement ceremony from one to two this month. First one will start at 10:00 a.m. on the sixth and the second will start at 11:30, September 13th, after yoga.

 

Now for some personal change. After 42 years in Magnolia, my wife and I are selling our house and moving farther north, or east, or maybe south or west. We’ve gotten older, the place was convenient to downtown and our VFW post but change reigns eternal so we decided we couldn’t wait any longer to change home locations. If we find a place close enough to Ballard, I’ll stay active in the post and even if our new home is farther way, I’ll work with whoever you choose to take on the responsibility of quartermaster in the future.

 

As these changes happen, each of us must contribute what we can to further our VFW goals.
I wish everyone in our post more success during the months and years ahead.

From the Commander (September 2017)

By Pete Krawitz

 

Comrades,

 

On August 12th, Comrade Rodenberger and I attended the Department of Washington’s “School of Instruction” in Everett. This event gave us the opportunity to hear from our new State Commander (John Bradburn) and Auxiliary President (Laurie Lukas). They discussed their vision/theme for the 2017/2018 calendar year. Department’s theme this year is TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More. The State Leadership team is particularly interested in the VFW and Auxiliary working together to achieve more.

 

Post 3063 is already making some changes to work more closely with our own Auxiliary. Earlier this month, I met with our Auxiliary president (Margaret Philips) to discuss some ideas and plan a few small changes that will hopefully increase the collaboration between our two groups. We will announce a few of these minor changes at our September business meeting.

 

While the summer is coming to a close, we do have a great event planned to see us into the fall. Our annual Spaghetti Dinner and Raffle Fundraiser will be held on September 9th. We hope to see you, your family, and your friends there! While we are on the topic of fundraisers, if you have any ideas or wish to lead a fundraiser down the road, please let me know. I’ve already had a few members approach me with some great ideas.

 

Lastly, have you ever wondered which pieces of legislation the VFW supports? You can find the list here at this website: http://capwiz.com/vfw/issues/bills/.

Quartermaster’s Update (August 2017)

By Harold Rodenberger

 

July was a busy month around our post. The first day of the month saw your quartermaster setting off on a fishing trip. My name was drawn from those recruiting at least five new or reinstated members so I joined the other lucky winners fishing for salmon out of Westport. Kudos to the members of Westport VFW Post 3057 who played host. Afterward, State Commander Elmer Clark passed out prizes for largest fish, first fish, etc., and celebrated our state achieving 100% membership.

 

On the third of July, our yoga leader, Alicia Brill, led five people through the one-hour yoga class held every Wednesday morning from 0930-1030 in our post hall. It’s an exercise in rejuvenation for body and mind, no matter your skill or physical condition. Why not come to the post on Wednesday mornings and try something new and invigorating?

 

Commander Pete Krawitz conducted our July business meeting in a new format, highlighted by a joint session with our auxiliary in the main hall, where Pete reviewed the goals of the VFW and his goals for our post during the coming year. Pete has some refreshing ideas to breathe new life into our post and auxiliary. I encourage each of you to attend our meetings, learn about Pete’s plans and be inspired to help yourself and your post grow.

 

Our new librarian, Norm Limric, has worked with books for many years and is enthusiastic about maintaining and expanding our library. In today’s flood of rapid-fire social media and sound bites, why not visit our post library and renew your acquaintance with some comforting friends in the form of old fashioned books?

 

Chef Kay Seelig put together an amazing dinner for our third-Thursday Social. The meal of steam-baked Sockeye salmon, buttered boiled small potatoes, corn and shrimp salad and rhubarb-strawberry crisp was universally praised as being her best dinner yet. This month will bring a new adventure in fine dining at your social night dinner so mark the third Thursday (August 17th) and plan to attend.

 

Speaking of marking calendars, our annual charity fund raiser in September (Sept. 9) is rapidly approaching. You can buy tickets ($20 each) from post members. We are already receiving some valuable raffle prizes. This year, raffle tickets are available in advance for a discounted price so ask your ticket seller to let you in on that special deal and increase your odds of winning. For questions or tickets, contact Event Chair Russ Seelig at 206-423-1150.

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.