As I went through my year of service as Trustee, then 2 nd Vice, finally as 1st Vice on my way to serving as Commander the one constant I found was the lack of the ability to communicate. Whether was internal to AMVETS or external between us and other organizations and individuals there was no really good way to do things. I made improving communications one of the top priorities of my term of office as your Department Commander.
This newsletter, which is still a work in process, is the latest step in improving on our communications. We plan on publishing this on a monthly basis. We’ve already started posting the SEC minutes to our web site and will implement a way to distribute contact information for Department officers down to Post Commanders level.
It’s taken a little longer than I like but we now have a great team in place in the Information Technology Committee. With Kevin Gunderson agreeing to be Chair we added great leadership with a person knowledgeable in computer technology and familiar with the workings of our department. Larry Redman Jr. was added as lead for the Riders and the Sons of AMVETS and his subsequent appointment as Assistant Executive Director only improves our ability to keep the web page information current. Rose Fields now can concentrate on handling AMVETS and the Auxiliary updates and remains as our webmaster in control of our web site. Adding Mike Hanke to the committee puts our Facebook pages and any other social media accounts under the same committee as our web page and email systems.
One note of interest regarding our web site, Rose reported the map showing the location of all our Posts went down recently and she is working on getting that information back up and updated I want to take a few moments here to thank the outgoing committee member, PDC Jim Ruppel. Without his past contributions and efforts our present web site would not exist today. Thank you Jim!
In addition to improving flow of information down from the National and Department to Posts and individual members, I also am looking to improve the flow of information going up through the organization. We need each member to be reporting their programs information to the Post 2nd Vice Commanders and for every Post to be sending their information up to the Department and the National HQ. And every Post needs to be sending their events in to the web site to be posted on the calendar. Let’s get 100% participation. Don’t forget to report information on local projects related to my program, “Operation Home Fires”.
I am making every effort to attend local events throughout the state and to support Post efforts, so get your invitations out to me as soon as possible. Can’t attend every one of those I receive but I’ll sure make every effort to attend as many as I can. Remember “Can and Will” remains my motto when it comes to supporting our Department.
