 Hey, good morning everyone. Let's start the the formal Communication seminar. Thank you for coming. I'm Dan Clare. I'm your communications director I have some of my team members here not all of them are here And I'll talk about those guys in just a second, but I just want to thank you for a great convention. It's been pretty exciting I'm really exciting when when can you remember a convention that that had an opening session that was that packed? I mean, it's been great. There's a ton of momentum and I just want you guys to know that when It's very much DAV is very much a team. It's a team sport The reason why DAV is doing so well right now while I think a lot of other veterans service organizations are having challenges Even some of the upstart veterans service organizations are having some pretty noteworthy challenges Is that we have a membership out there who's committed to service? service first Communications is great But what we're really about as an organization is making sure veterans get their benefits making sure they get jobs making sure they're able to Take care of their family honoring their sacrifices through our volunteer efforts That is the reason why Everything that I go through today and every sign that we have where we're making progress and momentum The reason why we're able to do it is because we have an active and engaged membership The more we're able to engage the more we're able when we need to any godfather fans in here When you're when you're able they call it go to the mattresses, right? You know, I mean, I don't want anyone in here sleeping with the fishes or anything But you go to the mattresses when you need to do it when we need to fight when we need to fight for legislation We need to go to the mattresses And and to do that we have to have an engage we have to be able to activate We have to be able to get up and go when the time comes we have to be expeditionary that way So that's something that's very important and and I'm I guess one of the other things I'll say and and I'm I don't mean to step on Barry's toes or Mark's toes, but You guys are the reason why we're successful and and we at national headquarters We're trying to honor That's the work that you do with the work that we're doing and it's it's it's very easy I'll get into let me let me get back to my team and I'll kind of get in the meat of the presentation Jim Prok here and yours on our team here Just kidding but pretty close Steve Wilson assistant national director of communications Steve comes to us from the Air Force. I know a lot of you know Steve already Steve is a trainer Among other things he's a historian. He's a PhD candidate But Steve is an Air Force veteran who trained public affairs officers Through the Defense Information School, so he has a really good background Getting people prepared to engage and talk with the media Todd Hunter We stole Todd from the White House. Todd is the is our primary video editor So when you see Gary's Presentation and he thanked me for some of those videos up there between Todd and Ashley Burns who's not here, but she's the deputy national director of communications They're the folks who are producing those videos if you've seen those videos and you like them Please give these folks a round of applause Brian lead is a combat disabled Marine Corps veteran Todd's a Marine Corps veteran Mary and Steve are Air Force veterans I'm both Charity Edgar is right coming right up the aisle Charity Edgar fresh off the boat from Afghanistan. We got her back one piece You get a little emotional if I start thinking about it But charity did just finish a deployment to Afghanistan where she served with tremendous honor and distinction She was mentioned by the president of the United States the other day She carries her own chair up here because that's how we roll Mary Deaver Mary raise your hand Mary is an Air Force veteran We also stole her from the Defense Information School where she was teaching people how to how to be good at public affairs Mary helped us have any are you any of you familiar with the Spartan weekend? Jim up front very very familiar with the Spartan weekend. We we did a very cool event this year where where we went to Washington, DC and We connected with some folks who? FDNY of the fire department of New York Had some steel from the World Trade Centers They took that steel and melted it down into a sword and on that sword at the National Disabled Veterans Life Memorial About 75 or 100 veterans Gathered around on Mother's Day, and we are Gold Star Moms And we also made a pledge to one another Bobby Barrera was a big part of that we made a pledge to one another that before we were going to make a decision That would end our lives. We'd talk to one another And that's pretty cool, you know give her a hand So I'm I'm I'm gushing a little bit, but I'm extremely proud of the work that these folks do they're not the whole team We have a couple folks that are back at National Headquarters who are doing good good work James Killen who I'm gonna talk, you know, I'll pull a slide up on him Joe Chaneli, how many of you are familiar with Joe sat in on some of his seminars? Joe has gone on and we're proud of him. He's taken over as executive director of American Veterans So we're pleased with Joe doing that Create a little vacuum because DAV is the best social networking Charity in the veteran service organization community and that's again, thanks to the work that you guys are doing And I'll get into that a little bit more, but James Killen came on staff He's also a Marine Corps veteran and Air Force veteran He's public affairs officer in the Air National Guard in Kentucky, but he joined the team He's working on social networking And I think that right now one of the differences between DAV and other organizations is that We are legit. Our audience cares about veterans on a level that is Unparalleled with any other group You just won't find people who care more about veterans than DAV who care more about service and just doing the right thing by veterans And that's the reason why We are probably going to have some very very exciting news coming down the pike at some point about some break out break away Big page turners for for our social networking efforts, but we're doing pretty darn good out right now anyway What do we do? What does the communication staff do? How many of you are familiar with DAV magazine? I think and that's another one with these folks Shannon isn't here Doreen isn't here Shannon Doreen Doreen Brionis is our production manager and Doreen is a phenomenal person if you need help with your logos with DAV logos That stuff's available on the membership drive, but Doreen can help you with that if you're working on a billboard If you need just some help some guidance some feedback whatever you want give us a call Doreen Doreen will work with Shannon our senior graphic designer and We're gonna make it happen, but I think DAV magazine and these are the folks who write it I think it's the best magazine also in the veterans service organizations, so please give them a round of applause for that You will not find Therapeutic shoes and DAV magazine you'll find substance about what DAV is doing in support for our mission I like a replica 1911 pistol as much as anyone else But we're sticking to our guns on that and on our communications efforts are doing really well As I mentioned social networking We we had a long-standing goal. We started I think about three or four years ago We were hovering around 78,000 people on Facebook We have one at the time we had 1.2 million members, so Facebook's cheaper to join than DAV why can't it's free to join DAV's Facebook So why aren't more people doing it? We made a concerted effort to get out there and and and do that and we Last year. We were really proud. We got 1.2 million Facebook followers, which is fantastic Unfortunately, you guys Recruited so hard that you made DAV hit 1.3 million members and we had to redouble our efforts But we hit it this year, and I'm really proud of you guys who are part of that. Thank you very much for it One of the things that as I mentioned before engagement is a thing that separates DAV's Facebook from From our competitors there are Veterans groups who have more followers on Facebook, but when DAV or when I'm sorry when Facebook does their metrics and the Facebook changes their metrics every once in a while, but For the six or eight months where they were comparing VSOs on on Which ones were the most effective from Facebook's perspective DAV? DAV was number one above some other very good at marketing in ways very very good Charities who are out there and it wasn't because we have more followers We don't but it was because our audience is so real The people on our audience, you know, they're engaged and they're they're paying attention And there's a give and take and a feedback and that feedback is very important for a lot of reasons Let me just pull up James picture and stuff so you can write down some contact information if you want that Engagement is very important because it goes both ways if I send you the magazine We can talk about what's going on with DAV and and we'll get some emails from feedback at DAV.org And if you have chapter news by the way, we don't get enough chapter news Steve does an internal search all the time. We're looking at what's going on. We have more right now more Interests in the media and more more stories coming out about our chapters than at any time that I I can remember Being a part of DAV and we've been searching for that kind of content for a long time But a big difference now I think is that a lot of you have been told We're a little bit intimidated by the process and you've seen you've attended Steve seminars or you've just seen What's going on and said if I want to accomplish my mission? I Have to get out there. I have to make people know that there's a lot of work that we do all the time But the effort that we make to make the media aware of what we're doing Pays off in dividends because it's I'm gonna use one of those hokey military terms. It's a it's a force multiplier It's getting what it's about it's getting more people to our meetings Having 1.3 million members on Facebook if all we're doing is talking about what we ate for lunch is not doing veterans any good But if I'm able to engage volunteers to that if I'm able to gauge the opinion of our Facebook followers It makes DAV more effective and we can watch when we put out a statement or anything And we know that we're gonna get pros and cons But but it helps us keep an eye on the pulse of what's going on in the veterans community. It's a it's an extremely active group So like I said, it's about meeting the mission and and what we want to do more and more is help you meet the mission We have some programs and things that I'll talk about that. I think are really cool But but Facebook and communications. This isn't glory work unless you're Jim Sersley over here Let's give him a round of applause He Jim told me if I didn't recognize him. He was gonna shoot me with a crossbow. So I had to say something Mark or Barry yesterday went through a video on on think of that and I'm just it's part of our it's part of our Engagement think of that is a really cool way to say. Thank you. It's like sending someone a digital personalized card It's really cool. They they just take your pictures and a few messages and set them to music and you can share we've been working harder and harder because You know, you find out where people's limitations are and one of the limitations was that not everyone had the photos You know, too, they didn't have four or five, you know The two or three photos or whatever that you need to To honor a veteran on their computers. So we made that easier this year. You can just kind of pick a pick a photo from from a list, but It's it's a great program It's gonna be opening up this Veterans Day again and we're excited about it But it is this is a program that's had tremendous success outside of DAV It's not had tremendous success among our members I wouldn't say not enough people are getting on doing this and I don't know why maybe there's some feedback You all can provide us. They'll help us with that but getting involved in these and this type of thing Even if you're just spreading the word to other people to do it It makes a huge difference. We want to we want and we want you guys to own this stuff guys and cows So you want to talk about public service announcements? Let's let's look at my one piece of video because I'm gonna bore the heck out of you with me talking the rest of Time, but I'm pretty proud of this one I am a veteran and my victory was finding the strength to be a champion. I Am a veteran my victory is having a job. I can be proud of America's veterans are on their most important tour the tour of their lives My victory was finishing my education Mine is proving a disability is not a limitation at DAV We're on a mission to help veterans get the benefits they've earned my victory is having my new battle buddy Veterans face their challenges DAV is there to help for victories great and small I'm a veteran and my victory is getting the help I need to put my life back together DAV offers veterans of all generations a lifetime of support. I Am a veteran my victory is being there for my family When America's veterans win we all win Help us support more victories for veterans go to DAV org It's like the 16th time. You've seen it probably since convention started But I wanted to show it just because What I'm particularly proud about with these new public service announcements is that I think that we've made an evolution And DAV's done that over the last several years where we're trying to incrementally get better all the time You know you just want to keep pushing until you're better and better and better And I think that this message is more on track with what DAV does Than anything that we've done in the past or that anyone else is doing anywhere and it is kicking tail out there In an election cycle in an election year. We anticipated that we were going to be down to Two years ago levels, you know we we we looked at at You know what we were doing far before the elections and we tried to calculate well Where are we going to be with our PSAs? We've already succeeded our PSA goals for the year Before the election cycle really began and I think that we are going to kill it this year with this stuff How many of you have seen DAV billboard? Isn't that awesome You fly in here to Atlanta and you're gonna see Jim Sersley hanging out on the wall all the time I don't know why they put it close to the bathrooms. That's something you guys might ask Jim about later on but there's just there's There's a tremendous amount of interest Atlanta Airport I'd been told last time I was here in Atlanta that it is the busiest airport in the world right now And so the busy at the busiest airport in the world the AVs they're hanging out How many of you have met someone because they saw a DAV billboard? I think that's going to change over time You know, I think that there's there as the momentum builds We're gonna see more and more where our public service announcements are gonna help us with with Some of our membership goals with some of our volunteer goals We have I have and I maybe it's something you want to stop up in the communications department and check out But we have some placements of DAVs Especially the one that you see up there on the right of that veteran is family We've we've very intentionally wanted to honor women veterans and be diverse and how we represent Veterans not everyone's visibly disabled and we wanted to make sure that we were inclusive and another thing that Inclusive does for us Is it allows us to get placements places where we might not otherwise? The guy on the left in this placement isn't probably going to end up in ebony magazine This woman is going to more likely end up in women's magazine This one here is going to end up an outdoors magazine or somewhere else the guy on the right there Just and ended up in entertainment weekly and in people magazine full-page ads honoring DAV It's extremely cool to open up a magazine a big national magazine a 60 or 85 Thousand dollar value depending on the publication that was donated to DAV a Difference between what when you see another veteran service organization who seems to be everywhere? And everywhere you see them. They're asking for money When you look at a charity like that, that's a solicitation There's a mix between a solicitation and and some of that may be considered service on some level because it is Promoting awareness, but DAV public service announcements are donated So every time that you see a billboard did that cost DAV? It cost us material costs, but it was donated the space was donated We ran out of our budget for this year in our first quarter because people like our billboard so much So the first quarter we were done. There's there's DAV in Times Square. How about that? There's a veteran who posted on his Instagram account found a billboard when he is driving by There's the our previous campaign at a busy airport another different busy airport These things are just flying off the shelves We we exceeded our budget and and we took the governor off and did more But this is very a very wise allocation of funds We received a twenty thousand dollar donation recently because a Someone who was in a position to allocate a donation saw DAV at O'Hare International Airport Saw our billboard and said gosh that DAV let me look into that a little bit more Looked us up happened to be a three-star general who's been on CNN a few times And he said that's a charity that I want to support and we were one of the veterans service organizations He supported so if you're if you can get free advertising that makes you money. That's pretty cool, too Here's here's some of those placements. Here's time magazine. I didn't mention them before but that's a full page Donated ad in time magazine our cost for that was the design are the time that we spent designing that and and the Small resources that we spent, you know on on the production of that So we should all be pretty proud of that We have we have now for about six years been working on Spanish Spanish language public service announcements Spanish language resources on the website And I just I don't know why it was a it was a continuous struggle We'd get the track down and then there'd be several different versions of Spanish and it didn't work out Julio Iglesias, Jr. Has narrated DAV's public service announcements In Spanish so right now and this is fairly recent our PSAs are going out in Spanish Spanish audience is very significant. We're proud of that. We're proud that we have a DAV Spanish page now Where people can go and check out DAV and get help at the end of the day. What's it about? It's about getting help if you or or your your Survivors or families speak Spanish. DAV should be accessible for them, too. I think You can play a significant you already do play a significant role But you can play an even more significant role in public service announcements if you help us spread the word about them It is one thing for national from the booming Metropolis of Cold Spring, Kentucky to send out to a nationwide audience a bunch of public service Announcements and say play me it works. It's working very well And that's just part of the outreach that we're doing on public service announcements We're very proactive is Don Syos in here Don's Department Adjutant in New York Don and I just cruised around a couple years back and we'll be doing again pretty soon I think and we're we're getting in front of these folks We're trying to be as aggressive as possible and and be in their face and say hey look here's DAV Here what we look like please help us But when when we're in Nebraska, there's Chuck Ogles Chuck Ogles right here Chuck Ogles daughter just happens to be involved in a in media buying. Oh, thanks, Doreen Doreen bring us give her a round of applause Doreen I'm serious Doreen is one of the hardest working people I've ever met in my life, but here's some DAV PSAs Could Todd maybe could you help me just you guys just kind of throw these out there and people can check them out There's several There's several different kinds so you can go through those Where was I what was I talking about something important Chuck Ogles there he is Chuck's Chuck's daughter sells media Chuck's daughter is doing placements of DAV billboards. I was in my hometown in Lincoln, Nebraska And I was so proud For me it anyway I was so proud to see a billboard there But every one of you should be proud when you see a billboard you have a role because When you're in your community and you are in the face of the media They're looking at you and they're saying here's someone who is providing a true service To veterans in my community. That's the kind of charity that that people want to support at the local level So getting our content out in front of station managers is an important thing We're gonna come out with some guidance a memo and some more information, but just off the top of your heads Our outstanding disabled veteran of the year who happens to be in our PSAs He went all over Michigan on his own initiative and Shared our PSAs they got picked up picked up picked up picked up if you're out there and You're doing this they get picked up So we're gonna have some guidance on how you can do it But all you have to do right now if you meet someone or know someone who has Access to billboard space or you meet the media you want to be building relationships with the media anyway, right? So as part of that if you're telling them about DAV public service announcements after they've You know, you've they've seen the good work that you do That's good for us. So all you have to do really is send someone to DAVPSA.org We tried to make that as easy to remember as possible Actually, if you were to type in DAV PSA comm net dot God knows how many dot whatever's there are out there. You're gonna get there and And you're gonna be able to download the PSAs. We don't need discs. We don't need thumb drives We don't need anything you can do it. However some of you want to reasonably Hand a PSA to someone when you're doing things Or hand something to them So we do have packages of discs that we are willing to share But the problem is all these things cost money and if I just send out a bunch of PSA discs that aren't being used Well, you know, that's it's it's really nice that we could have them You know during our chapter meetings in a stack, but I really want these things to move I want it to go So if you have Meetings set up if you're if you're reaching out and doing meetings with Station managers and there will be guidance on that if you're willing to do it I'm willing to send you some stuff that you can hand them as a memento They they already have I promise you through many through relationships that we have They have access in a variety of different formats to our public service announcements But you will be able to hand them a disc if you set up a meeting But I'm doing that case-by-case just because I can't afford to send up out a bunch of stuff Especially if I'm not sure that it's gonna go out One of the things we did last year In the last year we did around Veterans Day that we're really proud of is the veterans poll survey It was it was incredibly It was incredibly important It got picked up by the Wall Street Journal as a and part of the reason why we couldn't get to you before Veterans Day would have preferred to have done that was because we had an exclusive arrangement with the Wall Street Journal And they picked it up and ran it But coming out of coming out of that We got a lot of earned media when we released the results of the survey One of the things that we did to promote it and you can see it up top and that we're doing just in general Are these radio media tours? Joe Villalante is not in here, but I forced Joe to do these I don't know if Dave's ever done them Dave Gorman. I thought Dave was in here But what a what a radio media tour is is it's when you get on the phone and you set up Let's see here 26 interviews Consecutively and you go through and and it's us putting DAV in front of radio stations in the biggest markets We can find over and over and over again I don't know if anyone heard I did the last two I don't know if did anyone in here here on the radio anything about the veterans poll survey or heard my Voice made for television face made for radio kind of thing I Don't They they hit a lot of people we had more than 4,000 airings more than 19 million listeners that we hit on radio And Steve Steve covers a lot of media stuff But if anyone out there can just you'd you have no idea how easy it is to start a relationship with a radio station Burl Burl Jimmerson will tell you all about that and maybe I'll talk about burl if we have time I'm in a little bit here But if you start a relationship with a radio station, they will put you on over and over again They love it. They have time to fill and they have Shrinking budgets, but they have a great listening audience and they have an important listening audience because it's a it's a lot of our colleagues so Building relationships is great in that on that front, but let me get back and part of and It all kind of ties together. We did another one on on Memorial Day Had very similar results You do 26 interviews, but you know how wire media works You do 26 interviews, but if you know what a handful of them were live five live, maybe And lives a little bit different Steve can talk about that in his seminar lives a little bit different But the of the 26 if 10 of them are picked up by a wire service news radio or whatever So, you know a radio station will pull in a national feed on on some national radio that comes your way They just get repeated over and over and over again and in the case Memorial Day, they get repeated over the course of the entire The entire weekend and you as a veteran and a DAV member and most of you as DAV leaders You're a subject matter expert That's why I beg you to stay stay in tune with the AV's legislative priorities and resolutions As long as you don't go off the track with with our Resolutions as long as you're by part or not partisan at all You you have the power to go out there and talk to these radio stations and do things and what we had hoped With the veterans pull survey was that when we sent that out to our chapters and departments We're hoping that it'd be a prairie fire kind of thing where people would use that when they're talking to the media It's some really neat facts. It's the only nationally representative survey that covers all generations of veterans and all genders of veterans But here's some of our some of our results and I I can barely see them out there And I'm sorry, but what it says is male veterans and female veterans often report different views Let me pick this up. Okay. I can't read it. We're all in trouble basically How many of you how many of you feel that women veterans get the the attention they deserve? We're we're a better There's there's no one that's raising their hands and that's very good But one of the one of the things we found out through it was More than half of women veterans now you have a statistic to tie to the issue if you're talking to media You have a little bit of a hook you have a subject to talk about when women women's history Come month comes up when there's a holiday or when women veterans issues are up You have some stats and things that you can turn to That you see when you see people on doing interviews all of you have that now veterans pulse Dot or you all have this resource. There's there's no print copies You can go on there They'll pull up a PDF and print out if you want to if you're doing a radio interview You can sit there with that pulse survey right in front of you and pull stats from it But here we have more than half of women veterans feel they don't get the same respect as their male counterparts Men feel a little bit differently about that and and they just don't think about that quite as much But it's interesting that 44% Female veterans would encourage their daughters to serve in the military and Men will tell you based on another survey result that They're less likely to feel that women veterans are neglected However, if you talk to those same men for some reason only 34% of them would encourage their daughters to serve in the military What does that tell you? Isn't that a statement isn't that interesting? This veterans pulse survey is full of facts that are interesting Facts about VA health care About how many veterans feel that Let's see Only one in five veterans agree the federal government treats veterans well Well, you have a stat and you can point to a source and you can drive people to the source and it's positioning DAV as a thought leader which is very important and it's what we are right When you stand up and and everyone works with a lot of ESO's and that's important and there are a lot of there's good work going on and a lot of a lot of our our brothers and sisters and other organizations, but Wouldn't you say that usually the DAV folks are the ones especially when it comes to issues specific to disabled veterans know More about what's going on at VA than other people. Wouldn't you say it nod nod? Now you have some stats that you can go to if you want to do media outreach or if you have an interview set up You can you can go to this. It's still a very valid source. I'm getting some kind of reminder up there. It's probably shut up dummy I'll talk again about grassroots outreach But but I did I did want to say that it's been incredible how much Reporting you guys do you're not sending it into us, but the people are saying it to local media I almost prefer that so when we do our scans sometimes we're reaching out to often we're reaching out to departments and saying hey We saw that great photo that you put in the Bellevue leader Or the store you did on something else and we want to share it on our social networks Or we want that picture. We want you to send it in to feedback at DAV org So that we can consider it for the magazine We just need a little bit of information that goes with it We're usually pre-proactive. We'll come back out to you, especially because we're not getting as much as we'd like But we're getting a ton of grassroots outreach And I was talking before about goals and how you achieve goals How many of you have a challenge? staffing fulfilling Volunteer drivers is that an issue at all? Yeah, I mean let you know they fly through the physical process at VA So I don't understand what the concern is really well We want to help you with that too If you go to the media and you say look we have this great program That helps people helps people get to and from their hospital appointments veterans This is a feel-good story. You can pick it up anytime you want come with us We'll take you on a trip go with us and and and take a ride and and Burl Jimmerson just I Don't want to say stumbled is because your department does great work But you you got engaged with the media and they did a series produced for them a series of public service announcements about the Transportation Network in his area had a huge impact in what they're doing in Denver, Colorado's Paul Jackson in here in Denver, Colorado. Oh, there we are Denver's or Colorado's represented here We had CBS cares when they found out about that program Donate a van to the Transportation Network and run a series of public service announcements for us If you if we can give you the tools to go use the media to recruit volunteers How many of you by show of hands would use them? So thank you and I'm gonna hold you to it and we're gonna get some some template press releases and things together and some Guidance that says hey Here's some talking points and things that you can say that'll help you recruit volunteers Because at the end of the day what goods communications if we're not helping the organization achieve its goals So that's something that we want to work more towards as well Steve Wilson here's Steve's contact information Write it down if you want if you can't see it come up and and Steve will hand it off to you But there's a couple tips I have and I give these over and over again If you have an event or you get a call from the media, and it's about something good or something positive that you're doing Give us a call if you want and we'd be thrilled to help you If you're in a crisis situation Where there was a crash of a van or? someone Borrowed a little bit of money from their chapter if you're in a situation like that I'm definitely call us because we need to get Our reputations are greatest asset, and we need to protect it So if you're in a crisis communication situation Give Steve a call give me a call If you want some you know how many of you a lot of people have told us over and over again Conventions great these seminars are great and the fact that we're we have so many people in here tells you about the commitment DAV has to service And people you know People people in this room obviously are substantive people who want to help out But if you get a chance call Steve if you need some help and And our training our seminars not just this one but across the board our seminars are made available online This one will too if I don't break the camera We'll be this one will be posted too and you can share it with your members back home so that Conventions not just a one-time deal. We want to make it as worthwhile as possible. I Just want to go over a few things. We did last year Barry hit on a lot of those. We had a great relationship with Leanne Rimes I don't know if you're saying I don't I don't remember much about the relationship with Leanne Rimes I'm not going to tell you more. I'm going to make you go out and find it because it was it was really cool If you're paying attention to DAV magazine as many of you do read how many of you read DAV magazine cover to cover? That's awesome. So what you're doing every time you read DAV magazine cover to cover is you're absorbing talking points you're learning You're learning the facts behind issues and when there's a national story your local media want to pick it up they want a local perspective on a national story and Going through DAV magazine will give you some ideas on how you can approach that but again if we can help you We will the DAV What we did this year, I'll just tell you straight up what we did We did there was a mix of a donation and there was some cost to DAV for that race And when we ran out of our budget in terms of being able to provide the the products for signs What we did was we just doubled down to do more billboards because we thought that would be more helpful for you guys Then a one-day race Web traffic was up almost 10% last year across the board Twitter We're blowing it out of the water We just we need to keep our foot on the gas on all this stuff for next year and this has been preempty You know Barry I think mentioned this we are thrilled. We've been thrilled Mike Wolf has been a tremendous friend to DAV But we're you know We're always focused on what's really going to move the needle for DAV and and this year we had an opportunity with ABC Where we're going to have a full week on on millionaire So we're thrilled with that good morning America segment ABC news is a big national outlet It's gonna have a much larger footprint We won't see as many things But we'll see a we'll see a bigger audience when we hit it We evaluate all these things based on the return on investment whenever we're spending a dime on Anything in DAV but especially on on things that might seem a little bit Distance distant from providing a direct service for veterans. We're extremely careful because what we're doing is taking an investment that donors have made in DAV and Stewards we're trying to get the very most for DAV that we can out of those dollars, and I think we're doing a pretty good job out I'm proud of all the stuff that we're doing A lot's going on we need to keep going we need people when you get those memos from national We need you to open them. We need you to check out your leadership emails Because when we need to activate we need you and I hope that you guys will step up on that I just I have my staff here I've talked right over the top of them as I often do so I'm sure they're thrilled with that But if you have questions, I have my experts up here And we want to help and if there's ever anything that we can do for you And Mark will back this up because he's the one who told me this is how it works If there's anything that we can do for you we want to help you If it's going to help DAV you're going to do you're going to be more effective often than national can be So do I have questions?