Oregon MOAA - Minutes 17June2005

THE OREGON COUNCIL OF CHAPTERS

THE MILITARY OFFICERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

Minutes of the June 17, 2005 Meeting
Oregon Veterans Home, The Dalles, OR

1. The meeting was called to order by the President, COL Chuck Kuhlman, at 12:06 p.m. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.

2. The 18 members present introduced themselves, South West Chapter, Southern Oregon and Lower Columbia did not have any representatives in attendance. Bill Pierce from MOAA headquarters Benifits Dept. was a special guest who talked about membership.

NAME                                                OFFICE                                  CHAPTER
COL Chuck Kuhlman                           Council President                      Willamette
LTC Gary Zwicker                               Council 1^st VP                         Willamette
MAJ Jack Herring                                Council Secretary/Treasurer      Willamette
CAPT Woody Tiernan                         President                                  Willamette
MAJ Snell Prince                                  Personal Affairs                        Emerald Empire
CDR Ron Youngman                            President                                  Portland
COL John H. Hill                                 1^st VP                                      Portland
1/LT Bill French                                   Vice President                          Corvallis
MAJ Bill Kellogg                                  Past Council President             Emerald Empire
CWO Steve Watkins                            Newsletter                                Emerald Empire
COL Bert Toepel                                 1^st VP                                      Emerald Empire
CDR Jim Hardie                                   Past President                           Central Oregon
LTC H. A. “Mac” McDonald               Legislation                                Willamette
LCDR Bob Lee                                    Delegate                                   Portland
CW3 John R. Meredith                        President                                  Central Oregon
CDR Ben Tabler                                  Delegate                                   Portland
CWO Al Drenkhahn                             20years seniority                       Portland
COL Marc Polz                                   good old member                     Portland3. The minutes of the March 04, 2005 meeting were read and approved.4. Secretary/Treasurer.   Treasurers report, the Council had a $662.06 balance in the Check book as of June 15, 2005 and as of May 31, 2005 $4,139.55 in our money market account with AG Edwards. The total assets on June 15, 2005 are $4,801.61. A check for $2500.00 has been provided to Central Oregon for convention seed money. The check had not been cashed as of this report.reasurer’s report was approved as presented.

5. Committee Reports

a. Web Site, Chuck complemented Bill on the Web site. The web site address is OREGON-MOAA.ORG. Please send Bill any changes to your chapter officers so the Web site can be kept current. Bill will post Oregon Veterans Benefits on the web site. The Kay Wynn award info needs to be on the Web site.

b. Legislative, Mac McDonald there are 147 bills in the state legislature that affect Oregon Veterans issues. The most important is House Resolution 34 which should get a hearing next week. This bill would give the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (ODVA) 1% of the gross income from the lottery. This would provide 8 to 10 million dollars of funds each year for the ODVA. It looks good for passage. Please e-mail legislators. Normally there are three veterans groups working to get legislation passed, they are MOAA, American Legion, and Paralyzed Veterans. The groups are not always on the same page. The groups need to work together or nothing will happen. The bills need to be prioritized because 5.1 million dollars is all the veterans groups will get from the State of Oregon. Many of the bills will not pass because of cost, while others will pass because they will not cost the state any money. Every thing is stuck in the Senate right now.

Chuck suggested that we have a local Storming of the Hill to let the legislators know what the veterans, reserves, regular military, and National Guard needs are. The majority of the legislators do not know the needs of the military veterans.

Bill Kellogg will provide a link to the Oregon web page that gives the contacts for Oregon Legislature.

Mac will bring 15 uniforms to the convention.

c. Membership Recruiting, Bill Pierce MOAA Benefits Dept., Jim Paul’s is the one who came up with this concept called “give me 10". At the end of last year we had a little over 367,000 (367,879) national members, we recruited about 26,000 of which about 41% were active duty, National Guard, and Reservist’s. We will continue going to conventions and try recruiting new members, we just got back from a Public Health Service convention where we acquired 300 new members. I am in charge of opening an office in the Pentagon where there are 12,000 officers in a target rich environment. We loose a lot of members thru death, last year we had 20,000 deaths. Of all the people who are not life time members 91% renew their memberships with MOAA. However, what this means is that 19,000 did not renew there memberships. The Admiral’s goal is to replace those who have died and not rejoined so we at least maintain the same number of members that we had last year. We expect that we can get roughly 22,500 members from our recruiting efforts. Jim Paul’s then came up with the idea that every chapter could come up with 10 new members who are members of national then we could fill the goal of 5,300 new national members. Numbers mean power and influence on Capital Hill. That is our goal for this year. The campaign will kick of on Sept. 8^th with information being provided by August 1st.

d. State Conference, time and place, 31 July Central Oregon will have a MOAA picnic at Cyrus Pond, everyone is invited. Ron Fox is the Point of Contact (POC) for the Conference in Bend. The Conference will be 7-9 October 2005 at the Riverhouse in Bend. Convention days are the 7^th and 8^th. There will be trips for the spouses on Saturday. Sunday th 9^th there will be a no host breakfast, Golf, and a trip to Mount Batchler. John Meredith is looking for sponsorship in the Convention Flyer. Forms are available, contact Ron Fox, John Meredith or Jim Hardie. Ron Fox’s e-mail address is rhfox10@earthlink.net this e-mail address has a spam blocker and the first time you send something it needs to have MOAA in the subject line.

6. Old Business

a. Kay Wynn award was set up at the first convention for TROA to recognize someone in the State who made an outstanding contribution to TROA. Kay Wynn who it is named after was the first Oregon Council of Chapters President. It has developed into who has done great things for the local chapter. Only one nomination has been submitted. Major Snell B. Prince, USAF (Ret.) Was nominated by the Emerald Empire Chapter for the Kay Wynn award. His nomination was approved.

b. Name Tags – Name tags were shown and discussed. Chuck said that the Council would order name tags for all Chapter Presidents and Council Officers, no rank on the name tags. The cost per badge is $5.00 The name of the Business is Delp’s Awards, 1010 Tyinn #4, Eugene, OR . Ph: (541) 686-5515.7. New Business

a. We need a nomination for 2^nd Vice President. BG Norman Hoffman was nominated and elected by unanimous vote of the members present.

b. Storming the Hill -- Was in Washington DC on April 7^th , 2005. The date of the Storming the Hill just happened to be the date of Pope Paul’s funeral. Thus the capital was basically shut down as the President, etc. were attending the funeral and others decided it was a good time to leave Washing ton. Chuck said that Gordon Smith was the only Senator he saw and all of the rest were staff members only. Nancy Visser accompanied Chuck on the visitations. Issues discussed were the SBP program, the DIC deduction from SBP payments, and the paid up SBP after 30 years but not starting it until 2008 which meant that some would be paying more than 30 years of premiums. They also left behind position papers on Guard and Reserve medical insurance issues.

8. Chapter Reports

Willamette Chapter, The chapter has 138 members counting 30 Auxiliary members. Our dinner meetings are Steak Fry in September and our Christmas function, all other meetings are luncheons. This month we are going to try a early dinner meeting. I attended the North Salem High School Junior ROTC Awards night where we Awarded our Sgt Donald L. Walters scholarship to a deserving Junior ROTC Cadet. We also presented the MOAA national leadership award.

Corvallis Chapter, Bill French one of our concerns was the Cadet sponsored dinners prior to getting their commissions. It was decided that Cadets could bring their spouses to the dinner. This increased attendance not only with the cadets but also with the Professors of Military Science of the Air Force, Army and Marine Corps all present. Hopefully, this has opened the door for more participation from the Military Science Staff and Cadets.

When I joined the chapter I was the youngest by 20 years. Recruiting younger officers helps with the overall chapter age problem. Once you get a few younger officers then it is easier to attract more.

Portland, Our chapter has 271 members, the list I held up has 1020 potential members. Our membership committee will meet and we will send letters out and follow up with telephone calls. Not all potential members will be contacted at the same time. Nancy Visser, performed our installation of officers. Our chapter participated in Memorial Day celebrations at Skyline Memorial. Our next meeting will be the 7^th of September.

Central Oregon, MG Charles Rosenthal gave the presentation for Memorial Day services up at the local Memorial Gardens. He did an outstanding job. We give 4 $1,000 dollar scholarships. When we started about 12to 13 years ago we gave one $500.00 which we had to scrape together. Black Bear dinner gives 2 free meals each year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Emerald Empire, General Hoffman put on a very good Memorial Day presentation at the Springfield Memorial Garden. To generate funds for scholarship started putting adds in the newsletter, when the business cards took up to much space they just put in the Donner’s names. Each month one member gets to put his bio in the news letter. ROTC Cadets are getting their commissions today and at a dinner we had for them last month, one Cadet was awarded a $1,000.00 check. Next meeting is June 22, 2005.

9. Next Meeting:

The next meeting will be October at the Convention date and time to be announced at the convention.RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,John C. (Jack) Herring
Major USAF (Ret.)
Secretary/Treasurer


Welcome Council Page Local Chapters Convention News Documents and Reference Material Photo's Contact Us Links Council Meetings: Agendas and Minutes THE OREGON COUNCIL OF CHAPTERS THE MILITARY OFFICERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Minutes of the June 17, 2005 Meeting Oregon Veterans Home, The Dalles, OR 1. The meeting was called to order by the President, COL Chuck Kuhlman, at 12:06 p.m. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited. 2. The 18 members present introduced themselves, South West Chapter, Southern Oregon and Lower Columbia did not have any representatives in attendance. Bill Pierce from MOAA headquarters Benifits Dept. was a special guest who talked about membership. NAME OFFICE CHAPTER COL Chuck Kuhlman Council President Willamette LTC Gary Zwicker Council 1^st VP Willamette MAJ Jack Herring Council Secretary/Treasurer Willamette CAPT Woody Tiernan President Willamette MAJ Snell Prince Personal Affairs Emerald Empire CDR Ron Youngman President Portland COL John H. Hill 1^st VP Portland 1/LT Bill French Vice President Corvallis MAJ Bill Kellogg Past Council President Emerald Empire CWO Steve Watkins Newsletter Emerald Empire COL Bert Toepel 1^st VP Emerald Empire CDR Jim Hardie Past President Central Oregon LTC H. A. “Mac” McDonald Legislation Willamette LCDR Bob Lee Delegate Portland CW3 John R. Meredith President Central Oregon CDR Ben Tabler Delegate Portland CWO Al Drenkhahn 20years seniority Portland COL Marc Polz good old member Portland3. The minutes of the March 04, 2005 meeting were read and approved.4. Secretary/Treasurer. Treasurers report, the Council had a $662.06 balance in the Check book as of June 15, 2005 and as of May 31, 2005 $4,139.55 in our money market account with AG Edwards. The total assets on June 15, 2005 are $4,801.61. A check for $2500.00 has been provided to Central Oregon for convention seed money. The check had not been cashed as of this report.reasurer’s report was approved as presented. T 5. Committee Reports a. Web Site, Chuck complemented Bill on the Web site. The web site address is OREGON-MOAA.ORG. Please send Bill any changes to your chapter officers so the Web site can be kept current. Bill will post Oregon Veterans Benefits on the web site. The Kay Wynn award info needs to be on the Web site. b. Legislative, Mac McDonald there are 147 bills in the state legislature that affect Oregon Veterans issues. The most important is House Resolution 34 which should get a hearing next week. This bill would give the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (ODVA) 1% of the gross income from the lottery. This would provide 8 to 10 million dollars of funds each year for the ODVA. It looks good for passage. Please e-mail legislators. Normally there are three veterans groups working to get legislation passed, they are MOAA, American Legion, and Paralyzed Veterans. The groups are not always on the same page. The groups need to work together or nothing will happen. The bills need to be prioritized because 5.1 million dollars is all the veterans groups will get from the State of Oregon. Many of the bills will not pass because of cost, while others will pass because they will not cost the state any money. Every thing is stuck in the Senate right now. Chuck suggested that we have a local Storming of the Hill to let the legislators know what the veterans, reserves, regular military, and National Guard needs are. The majority of the legislators do not know the needs of the military veterans. Bill Kellogg will provide a link to the Oregon web page that gives the contacts for Oregon Legislature. Mac will bring 15 uniforms to the convention. c. Membership Recruiting, Bill Pierce MOAA Benefits Dept., Jim Paul’s is the one who came up with this concept called “give me 10". At the end of last year we had a little over 367,000 (367,879) national members, we recruited about 26,000 of which about 41% were active duty, National Guard, and Reservist’s. We will continue going to conventions and try recruiting new members, we just got back from a Public Health Service convention where we acquired 300 new members. I am in charge of opening an office in the Pentagon where there are 12,000 officers in a target rich environment. We loose a lot of members thru death, last year we had 20,000 deaths. Of all the people who are not life time members 91% renew their memberships with MOAA. However, what this means is that 19,000 did not renew there memberships. The Admiral’s goal is to replace those who have died and not rejoined so we at least maintain the same number of members that we had last year. We expect that we can get roughly 22,500 members from our recruiting efforts. Jim Paul’s then came up with the idea that every chapter could come up with 10 new members who are members of national then we could fill the goal of 5,300 new national members. Numbers mean power and influence on Capital Hill. That is our goal for this year. The campaign will kick of on Sept. 8^th with information being provided by August 1st. d. State Conference, time and place, 31 July Central Oregon will have a MOAA picnic at Cyrus Pond, everyone is invited. Ron Fox is the Point of Contact (POC) for the Conference in Bend. The Conference will be 7-9 October 2005 at the Riverhouse in Bend. Convention days are the 7^th and 8^th. There will be trips for the spouses on Saturday. Sunday th 9^th there will be a no host breakfast, Golf, and a trip to Mount Batchler. John Meredith is looking for sponsorship in the Convention Flyer. Forms are available, contact Ron Fox, John Meredith or Jim Hardie. Ron Fox’s e-mail address is rhfox10@earthlink.net this e-mail address has a spam blocker and the first time you send something it needs to have MOAA in the subject line. 6. Old Business a. Kay Wynn award was set up at the first convention for TROA to recognize someone in the State who made an outstanding contribution to TROA. Kay Wynn who it is named after was the first Oregon Council of Chapters President. It has developed into who has done great things for the local chapter. Only one nomination has been submitted. Major Snell B. Prince, USAF (Ret.) Was nominated by the Emerald Empire Chapter for the Kay Wynn award. His nomination was approved. b. Name Tags – Name tags were shown and discussed. Chuck said that the Council would order name tags for all Chapter Presidents and Council Officers, no rank on the name tags. The cost per badge is $5.00 The name of the Business is Delp’s Awards, 1010 Tyinn #4, Eugene, OR . Ph: (541) 686-5515.7. New Business a. We need a nomination for 2^nd Vice President. BG Norman Hoffman was nominated and elected by unanimous vote of the members present. b. Storming the Hill -- Was in Washington DC on April 7^th , 2005. The date of the Storming the Hill just happened to be the date of Pope Paul’s funeral. Thus the capital was basically shut down as the President, etc. were attending the funeral and others decided it was a good time to leave Washing ton. Chuck said that Gordon Smith was the only Senator he saw and all of the rest were staff members only. Nancy Visser accompanied Chuck on the visitations. Issues discussed were the SBP program, the DIC deduction from SBP payments, and the paid up SBP after 30 years but not starting it until 2008 which meant that some would be paying more than 30 years of premiums. They also left behind position papers on Guard and Reserve medical insurance issues. 8. Chapter Reports Willamette Chapter, The chapter has 138 members counting 30 Auxiliary members. Our dinner meetings are Steak Fry in September and our Christmas function, all other meetings are luncheons. This month we are going to try a early dinner meeting. I attended the North Salem High School Junior ROTC Awards night where we Awarded our Sgt Donald L. Walters scholarship to a deserving Junior ROTC Cadet. We also presented the MOAA national leadership award. Corvallis Chapter, Bill French one of our concerns was the Cadet sponsored dinners prior to getting their commissions. It was decided that Cadets could bring their spouses to the dinner. This increased attendance not only with the cadets but also with the Professors of Military Science of the Air Force, Army and Marine Corps all present. Hopefully, this has opened the door for more participation from the Military Science Staff and Cadets. When I joined the chapter I was the youngest by 20 years. Recruiting younger officers helps with the overall chapter age problem. Once you get a few younger officers then it is easier to attract more. Portland, Our chapter has 271 members, the list I held up has 1020 potential members. Our membership committee will meet and we will send letters out and follow up with telephone calls. Not all potential members will be contacted at the same time. Nancy Visser, performed our installation of officers. Our chapter participated in Memorial Day celebrations at Skyline Memorial. Our next meeting will be the 7^th of September. Central Oregon, MG Charles Rosenthal gave the presentation for Memorial Day services up at the local Memorial Gardens. He did an outstanding job. We give 4 $1,000 dollar scholarships. When we started about 12to 13 years ago we gave one $500.00 which we had to scrape together. Black Bear dinner gives 2 free meals each year on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Emerald Empire, General Hoffman put on a very good Memorial Day presentation at the Springfield Memorial Garden. To generate funds for scholarship started putting adds in the newsletter, when the business cards took up to much space they just put in the Donner’s names. Each month one member gets to put his bio in the news letter. ROTC Cadets are getting their commissions today and at a dinner we had for them last month, one Cadet was awarded a $1,000.00 check. Next meeting is June 22, 2005. 9. Next Meeting: The next meeting will be October at the Convention date and time to be announced at the convention.RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,John C. (Jack) Herring Major USAF (Ret.) Secretary/Treasurer