1 Inside this issue: 2016 Legion Membership The 2016 membership has just started. Please mail in or go online at myLEGION.ORG and renew your membership. We strongly recommend you go online if possible for the fastest most efficient way to renew. Contact 1st Vice Edward Amoros or the Post if you need renewal assistance. Post Script American Legion Springfield Post 176 6520 Amherst Avenue , Springfield, VA 22150 Jul/Aug 2015 Volume 1, Issue 5 MOST IMPORTANT DATE July 4th INDEPENDENCE DAY From The Commander’s Desk SUMMER IS HERE From the Com- mander’s Desk Greetings Post 176 and family! Thank you all for making my first year as your command- er such a wonderful year! I now have a bet- ter understanding of how our post functions. Volunteers! Yes, each and every one of you. You are Awesome! It’s great to see so many new volunteers as well. I would like to thank all who made it out to our officer’s installation. And thank you for allow- ing me to serve as your post commander for an- other year. Please wel- come your new Execu- tive Committee and give them a big hand for stepping up and helping to make this ball roll. Last year’s EXCOM was fantastic! Thanks for all your hard work, leader- ship, direction, advice … and friendship. We are very fortunate that the majority will be staying From the Commander 1 First Vice’s “Site Picture” 2 Chaplain’s thoughts & Prayers 3 Sons of the American Legion 3 Red Blood Drive 4 History Notes 4 Volunteer Support Needed 5 From the Ledger Domain 5 General Managers Corner 6 Legion News 8 Calendar of Events 9
Transcript
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Inside this issue:
2016 Legion Membership
The 2016 membership has just started. Please mail in or go online at
myLEGION.ORG and renew your membership. We strongly recommend you go
online if possible for the fastest most efficient way to renew.
Contact 1st Vice Edward Amoros or the Post if you need renewal assistance.
Post Script American Legion Springfield Post 176 6520 Amherst Avenue, Springfield, VA 22150
Jul/Aug 2015
Volume 1, Issue 5
MOST IMPORTANT DATE
July 4th INDEPENDENCE DAY
From The Commander’s Desk
SUMMER IS HERE
From the Com-
mander’s Desk
Greetings Post 176 and
family! Thank you all
for making my first
year as your command-
er such a wonderful
year! I now have a bet-
ter understanding of
how our post functions.
Volunteers! Yes, each
and every one of you.
You are Awesome! It’s
great to see so many
new volunteers as well.
I would like to thank
all who made it out to
our officer’s installation.
And thank you for allow-
ing me to serve as your
post commander for an-
other year. Please wel-
come your new Execu-
tive Committee and give
them a big hand for
stepping up and helping
to make this ball roll.
Last year’s EXCOM was
fantastic! Thanks for all
your hard work, leader-
ship, direction, advice …
and friendship. We are
very fortunate that the
majority will be staying
From the Commander 1
First Vice’s “Site Picture” 2
Chaplain’s thoughts &
Prayers
3
Sons of the American Legion 3
Red Blood Drive 4
History Notes 4
Volunteer Support Needed 5
From the Ledger Domain 5
General Managers Corner 6
Legion News 8
Calendar of Events 9
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77 New Members, 770 mail in re-newals and 283 online renewals for a grand total of 1,291 which gives us a final percentage of 92.6%. We ranked #11 out 18 posts in the 17th District which is at 91%. I’d like to thank CDR Ric Licardo,
Pat Petersen, Jon Taylor, Bob
Eisdvoog, and Joseph Byrnes for
all your hard work and support in
supporting the Post’s Membership
Committee. Membership is the
lifeblood of any Post, it creates the
Edward Amoros First Vice Commander
1st Vice “Sight Picture”
Post 176 2015 Membership fi-nal status: We have finished the 2015 membership year with the following numbers; 161 Paid up for Life (PUFLs) members,
on for another year!
For the officers that
have opted to step
down … Thank you
for all you’ve done
and continue to do for our
post and veterans alike.
We will still rely on your
experience and knowledge
to help us set and achieve
our goals for the upcoming
year. There are still plenty
of volunteer opportunities
available, so … hop on
board and help take us to
the next level. Great
things are still happening
at our post and great people
are still making them hap-
pen. Be one to have a hand
in making these great
things happen?
As summer is upon us and
the kids and grandkids are
on their vacation … it’s a
great time for us to relax
and enjoy life for a bit as
well. I know many will be
heading out for the summer
and we’ll be a little light
handed for the next couple
of months … Be safe! En-
joy! And we’ll see you when
you return.
We are still looking for vol-
unteers to help mentor the
Young Marines youth pro-
gram to get this off the
ground. If you are interest-
ed, please contact me. You
do not have to be a Marine
to mentor or assist with this
program. Just be motivat-
ed!
We are also looking to re-
decorate the Warriors Café.
Committees for each branch
of service are still being
formed. The goal is to give
each branch of service a
piece of wall in the café to
decorate with personal pic-
tures and items (loaned or
donated) of their service. If
that sounds like fun … let me
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From The Commander’s Desk Ric Licardo
First Vice’s “Sight Picture” Edward Amoros
know!
Again, THANK YOU …
each and every one of you
who have put your time in
to keeping our post mov-
ing. Without you, we’d go
no where .. It’s a great
thing to be surrounded by
so many amazing –
people ...I look forward to
seeing you all at our post! FOR GOD AND COUNTRY
RIC LICARDO
PSOT 176 COMMANDER
revenue and manpower to
accomplish so much support
to our Veterans and their
families. I look forward to
another great year in mem-
bership!
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Page 3
Chaplain’s Thoughts and Prayers
Chaplin’s Corner
. FINAL SALUTE
Past Commander and long time Le-
gionnaire Ted Byers went to his final
resting place at approximately 1445
on 6 Jun 2015 Saturday afternoon at
Fairfax Hospital. A memorial service
was conducted at:
Springfield Demaines Funeral Home on 15 June 2015 at 1830. It was very well attended, we had 35 Legionnaires from Post 176 and other Posts in North Virginia.
SICK CALL
Comrade Lew Lipscomb, past Command-er, was diagnosed with colon cancer about 2 years ago. He has recently been
experiencing nausea and de-hydration and admitted to Belvoir Hospital. Comrade Mark Leyden was diagnosed with colon cancer about 2 years ago. He has re-cently has been experiencing nausea and dehydration and admitted to Belvoir Hospital. Comrade Mark Leyden re-ceived shots and is back at home now recovering.
Comrade Bill Moore is in de-clining health. He has pros-tate cancer that has travelled to his bones. He came home from Manor Care Nursing Fa-cility last Thursday and is con-fined to the hospital bed in his family room.
FOR GOD AND COUNTRY
Looking for a dose of daily
wisdom. Try King Solomon’s
Proverbs, read one chapter of
every morning, it only takes
3 minutes!
Chaplin Mike
Lord Guard & Guide
The Lord is my Shepherd, I
shall not want [of anything]
…He restored my soul. Ps 23:1
For God & Country
Post 176 Chaplin
Michael Kempton
(Lord Guide and Guard)
Sons of the American Legion (SAL) Cmdr —Evan Victor
On June 9, we conducted a short meeting and paid our respect to Comrade Theo-dore E. Byers who passed away on June 6 and transferred to “Post Everlasting”. We also attended Comrade Byers’ Legion Service on June 15. While we are sad-dened by Comrade Byers’ passing, we celebrate his wonderful life and his contri-butions to the Post 176 Family. If you are a current SAL member, please renew your membership so that you do not lose your membership privileges in-cluding Post 176 services. We are always seeking new members, so please encour-age your friends, who are eligible, to join Squadron 176. Please contact Chip Byers on membership. Bill Swaner, Financial Officer, provided a financial update. His update included re-
cent membership funds and upcoming expend-itures. The Sons supported the Boys State event at District 17 on June 21 to register the Boys for bus transportation and attendance to Boys State, 21-27 June, Radford University. As the outgoing Squadron Commander, I want to thank all the leaders within the Post 176 Family for your commitment to support Veter-ans and their Families! I also thank each of you for your mentorship and teamwork during the past year! May God Bless the Post 176 Family! UPCOMING EVENTS
July – no meeting August – no meeting September 8 - SAL September Meeting
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Post Script Page 4
Red Cross Blood Drives in honor of Comrade Joe Finch
The next drive is on Aug, 1:30-7:00pm. Please sign up to schedule your Life-Saving dona-
tion!
Go to www.redcrossblood.org and in the search box put
Sponsor Code “AMERICANLEGION176va”
Or call 1 800 RED CROSS (option 3) to speak with a real live person. Tell the
person that you want to donate at the American Legion in Springfield (sponsor code
above) on the 21st. If you don’t make an appointment please come anyway. We always
have open spots because of cancellations or deferments (usually low iron). Post Contact:
From the Ledger Domain by Jon Taylor, Finance Officer
Dentz Trust Update: In the previous Post Scr ipt, I descr ibed the inher itance the post will be receiving from the trust of past Commander Edwin Dentz and his wife past Auxiliary President Evelyn Dentz. Post 176 and the Auxiliary will receive equal and substantial sums. The trust stipu-lates the funds must be used for charitable purposes. Working together, we have received presenta-tions from five investment firms and reviewed their materials with great care. Jointly, we have cho-sen Morgan Stanley as the firm to secure, manage and grow our funds. We have drafted a Standing Rule to our bylaws, which was approved by the Executive Committee for presentation to the mem-bership, to safeguard the funds and control their access and disposition. The first release of funds from the trust is scheduled for July and we will be prepared. Audit Committee Chairman Needed: The General Manager , Bob Eidsvoog, and I perform all of the day-to-day cash management duties. We are proud of our accomplishments over the past few years and can assure you that every cent of the post’s revenue is deposited into our bank ac-counts and accounted for fully and accurately in the accounting system. However, we continue to lack oversight by the Executive Committee, a function we welcome and with which we would en-thusiastically cooperate. At the recent general membership meeting, a call for volunteers for an au-dit committee to provide this oversight, resulted in two members volunteering, with the proviso that they need a chairman with the ability to lead the audits. If you have an accounting background and would like to perform this important voluntary role for your post, please contact me at [email protected] or (703) 994-5019. You may also contact any other member of the Executive Committee. See you at the post,
General Manager Cor-ner Post 176 continues to be on the path of success. We have seen many changes to the care and upkeep of our facility with the painting of the hall and cafe. Repairs to the fascia and power washing of the side-walk. We have had trees trimmed and re-moved and some spot repairs to the parking lot closest to the building. The updates in the Tier I Lounge with new ta-bles and chairs has made the room feel more festive and bright-er. Thanks to the efforts of the House Committee new chairs have been provided replacing to old wooden bar stools that have deteriorated over time and table cloths on the high top tables give the place a patriotic feel. We have kept a few of the old wooden bar stools for those who feel they need the support from the armrests. The biggest change in the Tier I Lounge are the electronic gaming machines provided by a company called V-TABS. These machines have increased activity in the Tier I Lounge and
have become a good source of revenue overall. The Commonwealth of Virginia Gaming Board is reviewing the restrictions on charitable gaming in hopes of keeping disposable incomes inside of Virginia. We expect to be able to double the num-ber of machines in our facil-ity sometime in Septem-October time frame. The payouts for the electronic games are the same for the paper ticket games at ap-proximately 80% going back to the players leaving 20% to split between the house and the V-TABS company. This has been the standard for charitable gam-ing in Virginia. We have replaced another big screen TV in the Tier I Lounge that will surely pro-vide more enjoyment at our tailgate parties coming up in August. Wow, football sea-son is almost here with the pre-season games starting in August. Get your team col-ors together for the football season as we will have the NFL Ticket again this year. I suspect that Seattle will take it all this year so plan accordingly, get your reci-pes polished and share game time with us all. Go Bears! The House Committee will be coordinating the Tail-gates while each Legion Family will rotate the duties of cooking the burgers and
dogs and having the availa-bility to do raffles or fund-raisers. The House Com-mittee will be coordinating the end of the season Super bowl Party. The next change coming will be for our beer station. We are upgrading the beer station from 3 to 6 taps. Currently there are 3 beers on draft with the biggest selling beers available, Mil-ler Lite, Yeungling and Budweiser. With the addi-tion of 3 more taps we will start having craft brews from local and national breweries. Our first new tap beer will be the “Fairwinds” brand of which we have the “Following C’s on sale right now using a separate single Kegerator. Once we have all taps functioning we will be offering different brews for those of us who enjoy a more robust beer. A new beer that is signifi-cant for the American Le-gion is called “Founding Fathers”. Founding Fathers is a brewery out of Minne-sota that has a partnered with “The American Le-gion” and is providing 50% of their profits to The Amer-ican Legion. With each sale of a Founding Father’s beer the local Post will receive a $.25 (25 cents) return. There are 3 brews that are produced and all are on sale
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in the Tier I Lounge. Stand by for more from this brewery as they will be coming to do beer tastings at American Legions across the Commonwealth of Virginia. You will notice that we have stopped the Wednesday Wing Night. Faye Hawkins and Paul Rinaldi worked their fingers to the bone for over a year providing wings and sauces for hungry folks and were just burned out. To cover your food needs we are providing a bar menu and an evening cook. Many of you have already benefited from this change in the Tier I Lounge ac-tivity. Yesica is our cook in the afternoon and also our Sunday café cook and she has made a positive impact on Lounge activity with her upbeat nature. In October we will be having the Early Bird Dinner and looking for volunteers to make spaghetti sauce. Then the Paralyzed Veteran Athletes of America have asked us to do two dinners for them coinciding with the Army 10 Miler and the Marine Corps Marathon. We have more good news regarding our facility as we have received a donation of two powered video screens. One screen is already installed above the stage and we will be working on the integration of a pro-jector capable of providing streaming video from the internet via computer interface and TV via a Direct TV cable box hook up. Our goal is to create a fully capable audio visual presentation via internet, laptop/computer or cable TV. This capability will increase our ability to rent to businesses
needing a room for presentations where we will be able to provide the space, connectivity and food for up to 200 people. In case you didn’t know, we are the largest American Legion Post in the State of Virginia. As such we need to be out front, leading the District and the Department to success in sup-porting American Legion Programs and in sup-port of Veterans and their issues. We have an obligation to continue our cause as being mem-bers of the Largest Veteran Service Organiza-tion (VSO) in the United States and the largest American Legion Post in the State providing support to all four pillars of the American Le-gion mission. So this is a call out to all of our members to please give some of your precious time to support this American Legion Post in any way you can. We have needs for the for-mation of committees that will handle Children and Youth local issues, Americanism national-ly, locally and state wide, Veterans Services and Rehabilitation all locally, and National Se-curity that can encompass local to national is-sues. We also have needs for people who can do repairs, cut grass, trim trees, painting, clean-ing etc. We are looking forward to more volunteer par-ticipation and an increase to the American Le-gion Family.
For God and Country Bob Eidsvoog
Legion Auxiliary 176 - Stephanie Dabbe
No Meetings in July and August but there will be an Auxiliary Meeting in September on the first
Tuesday same time as the General Membership Meeting
Interested in a purchasing a Paid up for Life Membership? Begin-ning this year the American Legion has made it easier than ever to buy a PUFL membership and even offers a $100.00 discount if you pay in one installment. PUFL members receive a permanent plastic branch of service member card as well as a yearly card form Post 176.
Go to www.legion.org/join/pufl, enter your Member ID and last name, and immediately receive a cost quote. If you can’t find your ID or wish to speak to someone in person, call 800-443-3318. You can also pay for your PUFL in 12 monthly installments. Your cost is based on your age so pricing is customized for each mem-ber. You can go to the website and in less than a few minutes you will know what your PUFL mem-bership will cost.
Want to know more about the American Legion? In 2012 the American Legion introduced an updated version of ALEI. As a multimedia training tool, ALEI is an opportunity to learn and discover the rich history, programs, policies, develop-ments and goals of our organization. This course is good for any Legion Family member. ALEI is a 90 min. online course with an exam, the mod-ules include History of the Organization, Veterans Affairs, National Security, Americanism and Children and Youth. The cost is $4.95 for members, users must register a onetime Username and Password to take the course. Go to www.legion.org/alei, register a username and take the course, you will thoroughly enjoy learning more about the American Legion. Upon completion of the exam you will receive a certificate from the National Commander and a cap/lapel pin to proudly display!
Thanks to our PR Committee, and especially Comrade Theron Patrick, the weekly “E-News” (formerly E-Blasts), have undergone a major transformation! The new E-Blasts are going out to almost 1000
email addresses. Each New and Transfer member will begin to receive the E-Blast within 30-60 days of their application being approved and processed. If you know a local vendor, possible recruit or community leader that might want to receive our weekly E-Blast, please let us know at [email protected].
If you are reading this article and not receiving a weekly
