President’s Message - VFW Auxiliary Department of Ohio

President's Message

Bulletin #1

HELLO #TEAMOHIO!!!

I hope that as you are reading this message, everyone is healthy, healing and in positive spirits! I am so very excited to continue to HONOR & SERVE our Veterans & their families along side each of you. This has been a very busy few months since taking office in June- National Convention, Department C of A and Ohio Day. I am so very honored to serve as YOUR Department President. Working together with each other for the good of our organization should be fun and that my brothers & sisters is what I hope to accomplish this year!

My theme this year is "Veterans are the Heart & Sole of our Country", Membership theme is Dr Seuss and program theme is RED FRIDAY- Remember Everyone Deployed. I encourage each auxiliary to use the FUN of the Dr Seuss theme to recruit, Rejoin & Retain members-after all, it's up to us to promote this ELITE Veterans' organization we are so blessed to be a part of. RED FRIDAY< you ask just what does that mean? Well, it means on FRIDAYS-we ALWAYS WEAR RED! R.E.D. stands for REMEMBER EVERYONE DEPLOYED. WE must ALWAYS remind our communities to keep our Troops in their minds, hearts & prayers both here and deployed. They say it takes a village to raise a child-well, it takes US as auxiliary brothers & Sisters to remind them of the sacrifices our Troops endure every minute as they fight for the freedoms,

we take for granted. The program pin is $2, and the keychain is $3 each-I purposely did not have our organization on these because I wanted every single person in our communities feel they can wear the pin/keychain. If you have a special event (especially if the public will attend, get these out and help spread the R.E.D. FRIDAY message & prayers! Remember, each pin/keychain purchased goes towards YOUR Auxiliary's Hospital program donation.

I hope everyone enjoyed the program training sessions that was held at the Department C of A and School of Instruction. Did it help understand to learn what, how to report and fill out the reports early in the program year? I would love to have some feedback to improve things for the Midwinter Conference. This is all new to me, and I don't take criticism as a bad thing but as a learning experience. What would you like to see more of? Program information in the bulletins? I want to make serving and honoring our Veterans FUN-it is sooo much easier to be successful at something when you truly are having fun while doing the task. We all have busy lives, we are all volunteers but putting the fun into what we do will make it less stressful and more enjoyable without getting burned out.

I hope each of you have checked out the Department Website () to get the report forms, the monthly newsletter I have put out to keep communication out there in our department and coming soon: Program Chairmen reporting updates, a calendar of events for the year and a few more things in the works but I don't want to let the KAT OUT OF THE BAG JUST YET! Let's just say we are working on making reporting even easier!

Remember the Chain of Command-it helps process things faster when this is followed. Afterall, if our Military follows it so should we! If there is an issue(s) within an auxiliary; first step is to speak with the Auxiliary President. If the President cannot solve the issue or know how to handle things, the District President is contacted and steps in to assist TOGETHER with the Auxiliary President. The District President along with their Deputy Chief of Staff will work on help solving the issue as a TEAM. If they need further assistance, the Department President and Department Chief of Staff will then get involved. If the issue(s) is something beyond the Department level-WE WILL CONTACT National for guidance/assistance. If the proper chain of command is not followed in this manner, the process will not get handled in a timely manner. Some issues are time sensitive and by following the chain of command properly, HOPEFULLY the problem/issue can be resolved, and everyone can move on and we can get back on track doing what we love to do-SERVE OUR VETERANS! WE MUST REMEMBER THAT TOGETHER AS A TEAM WE ARE INVINCIBLE!

If you attended the Department C of A/School of Instruction, you heard Department Chief of Staff talk on the section in our BYLAWS in regard to Verbal/physical abuse another Auxiliary or VFW Member (Page 72 Section 809D-2nd bullet/ 1st smaller bullet). This will be enforced after investigating any issues that fall within this section. Each of you are AMAZING individuals, and not everyone will like each other but we have to remember WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO and our actions reflect back on the Veteran that gave us our eligibility. So, Please RESPECT EACH OTHER AND BE KIND. I am only asking you to leave any personal issues outside of the event/meeting. I encourage each of

you to act in a RESPECTFUL manner (that the Veteran that GAVE you your eligibility would be proud to watch you) as you honor and serve our Veterans.

Congratulations to District 5 Auxiliary 4811 as they won the contest, I promoted on Facebook for all auxiliaries that purchased their BOND by July 31st! Aurora, the National Home Buddy Poppy Child pulled the winning auxiliary number at OHIO Day at the VFW National Home for Children this past August 6th. They will be given the basket at Founder's Day! There is a second contest to each auxiliary (even those that were entered in the 1st contest) to have a chance to throw a whipped cream pie in my face at MIDWINTER Conference if they have their BOND purchased by the deadline of AUGUST 31st. Reminder, that BONDs must be purchased by the August 31st deadline or unfortunately, any auxiliary that does NOT purchased by that deadline will be put on suspension. This is in our National BYLAWS! Who wouldn't love a chance to throw a pie in my face?!

There is a 3rd contest too! For every auxiliary that is 100% reported in all programs (except membership) will get 1 chance to win a special prize from me. For those auxiliaries 100% reported in all programs INCLUDING MEMBERSHIP will get 5 chances to win the prize. The prize will be awarded at MIDWINTER CONFERENCE!! I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU to have fun and get your auxiliary to be eligible to win something from me!!

Have an event at your Post/Auxiliary? Send me a picture of the event or at least the information so I can include it in my monthly newsletter. Anything (clean please) that will help get your event supported by other brothers and sisters from around our state is wanted! The

more we support each other the stronger our TEAMOHIO will be!

I hope to see all of your faces for the Meet & Greet for Madame National President Jane Reape, at the Whitehall Post 8794 (4100 E Main St Columbus, OH) on September 23rd (please make reservations so that the post has enough food for all who are attending (614) 231-5900). The menu will be announced as the date gets closer. I know I am sooooo very excited that National President Jane will be with us at Founder's Day September 24th at Greenlawn Cemetery. Don't forget to send in your reservation for the luncheon immediately following the cemetery remembrance. There will be NO WALK-INS to the luncheon.

Gosh, I hope I got everything in here that I wanted to, if not.... Look for it in the September newsletter! Remember that we are all human, mistakes are just lessons we needed to learn. Please keep our Troops in your prayers, stay healthy, safe, in a positive mindset and to love each other as CHRIST LOVES EACH OF US!

Loyally Yours, Kathy Matesic

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