Commentary

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.

By Harold Rodenberger

A few weeks ago, Julie Small called our office wondering if we could help celebrate her father’s 105th birthday. Since her father had served in the Army in World War II she thought it would be appropriate if some VFW members could attend the birthday celebration and render honors to her father.

On Sept. 16, Color Guard Captain Joe Fitzgerald, and I arrived at the birthday celebration for Joseph Alex Small. Family and friends gathered around as we congratulated him on his birthday, presented two small American Flags, and his new VFW cap. Near the end of our visit, he whispered in my ear, “I feel overwhelmed.”

As Joe and I left the party and returned to our homes, I reflected on the feelings of love, friendship, and community I had felt there. In addition to Julie and Alex’s son Tom, who had flown up from his home in Texas, there were other family members, neighbors and friends from various backgrounds and circumstances, united in celebrating this momentous occasion.

Sometimes I feel near overwhelmed by all the news of rancor, hate, and divisiveness that bombards us daily. Then I see and feel the powerful feelings of good will at an occasion such as this and am reassured that there are millions of good people in every corner of our country. They gather at homes, schools, churches and other places simply to be together and celebrate some special event.

Good will and friendship usually don’t make the news but it’s good to remember that such feelings are alive and well despite news to the contrary.

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/.

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.

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.