Category: Recruiting

From the Commander (January 2018)

By Pete Krawitz

 

2017 was an exciting year for Post 3063. When I began my journey as your post commander six months ago, I laid out four critical priorities; Membership, Community, Accessibility / Continuity, and the Auxiliary.

 

On the membership front, at the time of writing, our post sits at 88%. We need about 16 new or reinstated members to at meet the 100% goal. I’m confident we will make it. While my stretch goal of 150% may not be attainable this year, I have no reason to doubt that we can double Post 3063’s current membership count (currently 142 members) in the next 2-3 years, especially as our city continues to grow at this rapid pace.

 

In regards to the auxiliary, there are still many unknowns and we are still without an auxiliary president. A few individuals have expressed interest in taking on the role; however, we will know for sure after the special elections that will take place on Jan. 4. Our auxiliary has the potential to be a very critical and active partner once more. Whatever the outcome of this election, I ask that we all be patient and supportive of the new president and our brothers and sisters in the auxiliary.

 

I couldn’t be more impressed with our community outreach this year. Our color guard, under the leadership of Jr. Vice Commander Joe Fitzgerald, has been in high demand and busier than ever. We also have a new VA hospital visit coordinator (Comrade Guncay) and continue to make our regular visits to the patients during the holidays. Even some of our new members (Comrades Cavin and Rose) immediately jumped into helping the veteran community and represented Post 3063 by volunteering at the recent Seattle Stand Down event. These are just a few examples of the excellent community work our post members have engaged in this year.

 

Regarding accessibility and continuity, this is what most of the leadership team is going to be focusing on over the next six months. I have asked the leadership team to start documenting some of our processes. We are going digitize our records and create templates that will make running the post a little less daunting for those considering taking on a post leadership role in the future.

 

Change, no matter how small, is never easy. I’m very thankful of everyone’s support, guidance, patience, and most importantly, the willingness to test out some of the changes we’ve implemented this year (meeting format, projector, etc…). While none of these changes are necessarily set in stone, I believe many of these slight modifications are the first few steps to make our post more resilient and able to continue operating for many years to come. With that being said, we still have a lot of work to do in 2018. I look forward to your continued support as we continue to solidify our presence as Seattle’s premier VFW post in this rapidly changing city.

 

All the best to you and yours in 2018. Happy New Year, Comrades!

 

Quartermaster’s Update (October 2017)

By Harold Rodenberger

 

September was a good month for our VFW Post.

 

We’re off to a good start in the membership department with six new members on board. This puts us in the lead for our district but the year is still young. Our commander has set a goal of fifty percent above our 100% goal so it will take steady growth to achieve that lofty goal. Every one of us needs to keep an eye out for potential new members. Remember, very few new members ask you if they can join, almost all need to be invited before they will join our ranks.

 

We held a great fundraiser on Sept. 9. About 130 lively participants had a tasty spaghetti dinner and did their best to take home some of the many attractive raffle prizes available. Special thanks to Chairman Russ Seelig who organized the event, solicited many of the prizes and did yeoman duty as sous chef. Hats off to Kay Seelig for cooking her famous sauce and the rest of the dinner. My favorite part of the dinner was that complex salad which was dressed just right, tossed just prior to serving and served as a perfect foil to the rich spaghetti. Thank you to the Seelig family and the other volunteers in and out of the kitchen for their work. Kudos to all our other volunteers who gathered raffle prizes from local businesses and individuals, sold dinner tickets to friends and neighbors and, most importantly, attended the event. As I write this, the numbers aren’t final yet but it’s safe to say we made a lot of money for our relief fund and had a good time doing it.

 

Speaking of food, Chef Kay was out of town for the social so Russ and helpers stepped up and served a Vietnamese meal. If you were there you know it was good, but if you were absent, you missed Banh Mi, spring rolls, salad etc., that brought a refreshing taste of Vietnam to our Ballard VFW Hall.

 

Our two September flag retirement ceremonies had to be cancelled. One because of the smoky air and one because of unpredictable winds. We will be having at least one replacement ceremony this month, depending on weather, so please keep an eye on the website if you want to join in this special ceremony.

 

Commander Krawitz has refined the new meeting format in a more inclusive and stimulating way. If you haven’t been to a meeting in the past three months, please plan to attend one of our meetings and join in the new approach.