Fun in the Sun in Florida Tri-Chapter Pre-Rally

Merry Christmas from your Military & Veterans Chapter officers!

Chapter Meeting Minutes from Gillette WY Convetion.

Military Veterans Chapter Meeting Minutes from 20 July 2018 Gillette, WY - FMCA Convention

Call to Order by President, Dell Jackson at 4:33 P.M.

Pledge of Allegiance Invocation

Introduction of National Officers, Jon Walker, President, Rett Porter, Sr Vice President and Charlie Adcock, Immediate Past President, Charlie spoke to membership

Introduction of INTO Officers None

Reading of Minutes of previous meeting 15 March 2018, Motion Carried Introduction of New Members

Treasurers Report

*Removed $1,000 from PayPal to Regular Account, Motion Carried Introduction of MVC Acting Secretary Marie Dickinson

Presidents Report

*There there has been an increase of 100 members and 65 were picked up at Perry, GA

*Website is reported up and working after two years of waiting. There are 37 Chapters enrolled

*There will be a Flag presentation on Saturday during the coffee and donut hour Vice Presidents Report including Governing Board Results

*Reported the Governing Board had had a great meeting

*Jon Walker reported the FMCA Membership is finally turning around present membership is up to 76000 and counting.

*The NEW changes to  By-Laws were accepted to read as follows: 11the term Recreational Vehicle is defined as a self-contained wheeled vehicle that includes  permanently  install cooking, sleeping and sanitary facilities". Therefore, motor coach, motor home, and coach  will all be known as recreational vehicle.

*Added to By-Laws All Towable Vehicles can now join FMCA

*Be advised new information will be onthe Website for the Winter/Spring FMCA Convention in Perry, GA

*Past Budget of $5 million and No dipping into the Reserve Account

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMET

Sr. MSgt, USAF, Scott Wold, A100% Disabled Veteran received a job with Tiffin Coaches and a member of FMCA was introduced to the member hip

Old Business:

A Revision of By-laws to accept Recreation Vehicles, as follows, to finalize those submitted as approved at the Perry, GA meet ing .

Definition to read "the term recreational Vehicle is defined as a self-contained wheeled vehicle that includes permanently installed cooking, sleeping, and sanitary facilities"

The Articles to be changed are as posted and emailed to all members. Article II Para I "coach" becomes "Recreational Vehicle"

Article Ill Para 3 "motor coach" becomes "Recreational Vehicle" Article Ill Para 5 "motor home" becomes "Recreational Vehicle"

Article Ill Para 6 "qualifying motor coach" becomes "Recreational Vehicle" Article IV Para 3A "motor coach (motor home)" becomes "Recreational Vehicle" Article VI Para 3A "coach" becomes "Recreational Vehicle"

Discussion and Motion made and Carried.

Parking at International Conventions-Area Groups want to be parked together instead of parked all over the convention areas; this would make for better group business and get-togethers.

MVC would like to provide a meal for MVC Members ONLY with Happy Hour-NO ONE REPLIED

Members are asking for a List of Veteran Friendly Campgrounds in the USA. Now only have for Disabled or 100% Veterans.

New Business:

Lap Robe Distribution, Marion Braum and Marie Dickinson to Co-Host

*Please contact these women if you are making lap robes and would like to send therri out to needed Veterans as a friendly jester in Hospitals and Nursing Home or at home. Just send Veterans name- and address through Vet to Vet. Five lap robes were given to VFW POST in

Gillette, WY for some of their needy members in Nursing Homes. Presentation was made at the Dinner at the VFW and Presented by Co Host, Marie Dickinson

*Shepherds for Lost Sheep, Donation, dogs for needy Veterans. Motion made and carried for MVC to match donations from convention. Check was sent out immediately.

By-Law change presented by Past President John Lee. John spoke to change our By-Laws to allow electronic voting as presented and approved at Governing Board M eet ing. Motion made and passed. To finalize at Perry, GA meeting in March 2019.

Future Rallies:

*Future Rallies will go out on the Website.

*FMCA Spring Rally in Perry, GA. Wagon Masters are: George Young. And?

*Flag Presentation will beSat morning during coffee hour members needed to carry flags

Past Rally Report:

Northwest Rally activities had to be cancelled as no member participation

Great Lakes Area Rally pre rally had to be cancelled due to no member participation

Good of the Chapter:

Members have suggested 2 new membership eligible ca_t egories,          surviving spouse of a retired Veteran and a Department of Defense retiree as they are imbedded with active servicemen and face the same dangers. These will besubmitted and voted on at the Perry, GA meeting in March 2019

Adjournment  Motion made, carried Submitted by Acting Secretary, Marie Dickinson

Vet to Vet Lap Robe

The Gillette Elks Lodge #2825 presented Dean Marrington with the first 

‘Veterans To Veterans’ lap robe in Gillette, Wyoming.  The lap robe is complements of the Military Veterans Chapter of the FMCA; they left us with 4 lap robes to distribute. This one was made by a friend of the president of the Chapter, Ruth Veteran. 

Dean was born in 1926 and joined the Navy in 1944.  He served in the Pacific Theater during World War II.  Dean has been a member of the American Legion for seventy years.  Being a member of the Honor Guard, Dean attends and holds the American Flag at the funerals of veterans to honor their service to our country.  During one eight year period, he attended 232 funerals.

Dean started Gillette Plumbing & Heating.  Dean married Avis and they had 

six children.  Dean has 6 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. We hope that this lap robe warms his valorous heart as well as his body!

Members, If you were at the FMCA Rally in Gillette and attended the MVC meeting, you will remember that Marion Braum requested a member step up to distribute the lap robes she & Ruth had made and any others that may be made in the future. Jerry & Marie Dickerson volunteered to take in future lap robes to distribute them. Please contact them if you know of a vet who is in need and/or send them any lap robes you have made for the Vet to Vet Project!

By-Laws Voting Clarification

I did not mean to convey that electronic voting

was available, we just want your feelings on

the matter.

With the sharp eyes of our Past President, John Lee, 

we have identified 4 more Articles that need updating and they are....

Article II   Para 1   "coach" should read "Recreational Vehicle"

Article III  Para 3    "motor coach" should read "recreational vehicle"

Article IV  Para 3A "motor Coach (motorhome)" should read

                               "recreational vehicle"

Article VI  Para 3A "coach" should be "recreational vehicle"

Thanks

Dell Jackson, President

Please go to the MVC webpage to take the survey on the new By-Laws at:

https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com/

Gillette Convention Dinner and Breakfast RSVP's Needed

Need RSVP's For Dinner and if want breakfast by June 25th. Dinner provided by MVC to its members and spouse.

Dinner at Elks Lodge Friday 7/20/18 right after our Meeting.

Elks Lodge is across the street from Cam Plex.

Dinner menu:

Pork Loin

Hashbrown cheesy potatoes

Baked beans

Coleslaw

Rolls

Desert

Water and Lemonade

Music by a local DJ during Dinner

If no RSVP, no dinner...Elks Lodge needs accurate numbers for food preparation.

BREAKFAST  - ALL YOU CAN EAT - Your cost $9.00 per person:

Biscuits and gravy

Bacon and sausage

Scrambled eggs

Pancakes

Fruit

Donuts

Coffee and Juice

RSVP Please to:

Dell Jackson, President

Military Veterans Chapter of FMCA

Terms of Use Reminder

This Memorial Day weekend, we would like to remind all of our members that the Military Veterans Chapter online presence is provided for the business of the MVC. It is not for political commentary, personal posts, etc. Please do NOT post your personal or political comments, memes, pictures, etc. in the MVC blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Please take a moment this weekend to reflect on the ultimate sacrifices made by some members of our armed forces, which is what Memorial Day is all about. Please give them the respect that they are due.

Have a safe Memorial Day!

MVC Web Store down for updates

The MVC Web Shop is down for updates. We have had some trouble with the PayPal cart not working as it should and we are working to resolve the issue.

Please bear with us as we work through the problem. Look forward to a new and improved MVC Web Shop soon!

Post-GLAMARAMA Rally CANCELLED

The rally scheduled for the Great Lakes Area (called the Post-GLAMARAMA Rally) has been cancelled due to lack of reservations.

Members, you asked for events and need to support them! This rally has been put together for quite a while and it is a shame to have to cancel at this point. We have received quite a lot of feedback and much of it is requesting new social events and more rallies.

PLEASE SUPPORT YOUR CHAPTER and attend a rally near you!

The Events page on the website has been updated. Hope to see you in Gillette!

Order MVC Hats and Shirts and renew your membership online!

We have a new page where you can order official MVC hats and shirts and also renew your membership online!

Click on the third tab labeled MVC Shop to order your gear online and pay securely via PayPal. You can choose to pick up your gear at the next rally (and save on shipping costs) or pay shipping and get it right away. 

Email Communication

A note from our communications department... for the past few months we have been using a new email service and it has some enhanced features that help us provide better service to our members. Some of the trends that we have noticed show that less than half of our members actually open their email to read them.

This is troubling since email is the fastest way to get word out to our members. Websites are passive and require members to log in or find the site to look at the information posted but email is direct and timely (as far as the internet goes, anyway.) Email is a vital part of our communications strategy and helps us to achieve our mission of "Veterans Helping Veterans."

Please take the time to validate your email address. If you have not received any emails from MVC in the past few weeks, chances are good we have the wrong email address for you.

Do NOT post your email address here as a comment on the blog! We will be posting a place to update your email on our website shortly.

Perry Agenda and Presdent's Report

Here is the agenda for the rally in Perry.

We also have the President's report as it will be presented in Perry at the FMCA International Rally.

Please think about topics of discussion and any topics that you may want to include.

Don't forget to register for upcoming rallies! We have flyers on the web page at https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com/events.html that you can download and fill out to register.

Results of Member Data Sharing Survey

Member Data Sharing - Survey Results
Our previous survey asking about sharing member data had 70 responses, they break down as follows:
30 - Email
27 - Secured Web Site
11 - Don't send out personal info
2 - other (only share if members opt in.)

​Statistically, this means that the majority who responded want some form of security on any shared member data or do not want their data shared at all. Some responses indicated that sharing the data would be a "deal breaker" for them and they would terminate their membership if their data were ever shared. Only 17 percent of our chapter members responded. Additional comments or ideas can be discussed at the chapter meeting in Perry March 15-18.

Mission Statement and Membership Benefit Survey

MVC has posted a new survey to gather thoughts on our Mission Statement and on Membership Benefits. The survey is located on our website (at https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com/) and is open to all until March 31, 2018. Please take some time to read the survey and put your thoughts forward. We want to make the website as inviting and informative as possible for potential new members. Think about things that differentiate our chapter from other veterans and RV interest groups.

Also if you happen to think of anything else that may be a welcome addition to the website, please use the Contact page (at https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com/contact.html) to write down your thoughts and ideas. The Contact page is available anytime for your feedback.

As always, we appreciate your time and efforts!

Last Chance to participate in Survey

The next couple of days is your last chance to participate in the survey about how to share our contact list. If you haven't taken the survey yet, please go to https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com/ and scroll down to the survey to complete it. We have over 50 responses so far and over 400 members, so this is your chance to be heard!

While you are on the new website, please take a moment to look around and provide feedback. The next survey (starting on March 1) will be about our mission statement and how we can attract new members. This is YOUR website and we welcome any and all feedback!

Thanks!

Survey

So far we have had 34 responses to the survey posted on the home page of our new web site! If you haven't yet, please take the time to go to https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com and take the survey.

If you have suggestions for the web site, or want to add even more to what we have, please click on the Contact page and send us an email! This site is for all of us in the chapter - let's make the most of it!

Announcement and Survey

MVC is proud to announce that we have started our very own web page dedicated to the Military Veterans Chapter. We will continue to maintain a presence on BlogSpot and RVillage, but we have also added MVC to the ranks of Facebook pages (Military Veterans Chapter - FMCA) and Twitter handles (@MVCFMCA) so we can be more up to date and communicate more effectively with our members. You will find that Twitter and Facebook integrate well with our blog site.

Our new web site is found at:

https://mvc-fmca.weebly.com

On the Home page, if you scroll down, we have a survey for you. Please take the time to fill this out.

MVC is considering providing all members access to each other's names and email addresses. We would like you to respond to the following question:

How do you think MVC should provide member info to other members? *
Email Secured Web Site Don't share personal info Other
If Other please specify:




Thank you for your responses!
The MVC Communications Team