 Good morning everyone. I'm really excited to see a full house here this morning. We weren't sure how many people would show up. This is a brand new seminar that we're doing for the first time at Benefits Protection Team Leadership Workshop. And I'm Joy Elam. I'm the National Legislative Director here for DAB. And our special guest here with us today is our former National Legislative Director, who I know all of you know, Joe Bialante. We were really excited to be able to, that Mark was able to fit this seminar into our busy schedule this time for convention, but we thought it was so important. As you know, we're trying to reconstitute our Benefits Protection Team, our grassroots advocacy, and we realized in when we go out to conventions and we talk to a lot of you that a lot of people just didn't, we're not sure what they should be doing, and we know we have a lot of new people in DAB that are just coming in. And we wanted to make sure that you really know what the duties and responsibilities are if you're chosen or appointed as a Benefits Protection Team Leader in your department or your state chapter. So this seminar will be focused on, we've developed a new toolkit and Joe is going to be going through the toolkit with all the different sections. We've got some handouts for you, and I see we ran out. We will have additional copies that we'll make available up in the resolutions coordinated in office if you want to stand by, step up, or we will, they're all going to be posted on DAB's website as part of the virtual handout from the convention. So they're available there as well when you go home if you don't need the hard copy right now. But the goal of this seminar really is just to first give you an overview of the toolkit that we developed and also then give you an opportunity to hopefully at the end we'll have some time for questions, and we might invite a couple of our internal legislative committee members to share with you what they're doing in their departments because we see a couple of people that are really doing it right. They've really got a hold of how they're handling their grassroots and we're going to need it more than ever in the future. I mean this is the real, that's why I'm so glad that we have a full house here because we're going to need everybody in DAB to really work together, you know, forward, going forward to protect our benefits and protect our healthcare system. So without further ado, we'll go ahead and get started. Joe's got the PowerPoint on the floor so I'll let him make up any remarks. Thank you Joy. A couple of, can everyone hear me okay? A couple of housekeeping things. I just like to see a show of hands for those individuals that have been appointed their Department of Benefit Protection Team Leader. Can you raise your hands please? Great. How about chapter, Benefit Protection Team Leaders, any of you here? Okay, this will be applicable to you too. I'll be talking mostly about departments but the same thing is true on the chapter level. As Joy mentioned, you know, we've had this program before and unfortunately we allowed it to we, like we, I mean me, all through the cracks. I don't think we gave the departments and our Benefit Protection Team Leaders at the time enough information on what was expected of them and how to do their their job so that's what we're doing this time around is making sure that everybody understands the program, how it's run, and what's expected of you. So this is a program about our Benefit Protection Team Leaders. Those are the individuals back at the department or chapter level who we're going to be relying on to get our word out. As I mentioned, we had this program before but we're trying to do it now so that we can take it to a new level so that DAV can speak with a consistent voice across the country and make sure that members of Congress and individuals in the administration know who we are, what we want, and what disabled veterans need and their families also. You know, the threats are real and you've heard probably between the secretary and the chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, some of those threats that are out there. You know, VA health care is at a critical point right now and there are some people that want you to believe. The choice is the way to go that we can give veterans the money and let that money follow the veteran where they want. That's not true. It can't happen that way. There are nine million veterans enrolled to VA health care, six million who use the system. You can't allow that many people to just choose where they want to go and think you're going to have the funding necessary to pay for that care. It's not going to happen and those people that want to use VA and need to use VA are not going to have a choice. So there's a threat to health care. You know, we've seen a threat again to rounding down our cost of living cola. It may not seem like a lot of money, but over decades it adds up. I mean, considering it's, you know, tens of millions of dollars that the government will save annually by rounding down our colas, but it has an impact on disabled veterans. And also, you know, there's been a lot of talk about eliminating individual unemployability for veterans over the age of 65. For some reason, members of Congress have it in their minds that, you know, any veteran who, once they turn age 65 and walk into VA, get individual unemployability because they don't want to work anymore, they're retired, and you just don't understand the system and how hard it is for those individuals who want to continue to work but because of their service connected disabilities, they can't. And, you know, it's up to us to make them understand that this is not a welfare program. It's not a handout that our individuals that probably need to work beyond the age of 65 or want to work beyond the age of 65 and can't because of their service connected disabilities and this program needs to remain viable. So, you know, those are just a few of the threats that are out there. So, what we're trying to do is to work smarter. You know, you don't hear Congress trying to round down coal is for Social Security recipients because they know what would happen. They need to be hearing from 50 million people who are on Social Security that that's not the way to go. So, they don't touch that rail and that's where we want to be. We want to be in a situation where when we tell members of Congress, this is a good idea, this is a bad idea, they pay attention to what we have to say. So, what we put together, as Joy mentioned, are the tools that you're going to need to do your job so that we speak with a single voice and we've put together a toolkit for you and I'll be talking about it in detail. And these tools can also be used at the state level. You know, a lot of times you pass resolutions dealing with property taxes for local veterans or maybe, you know, eliminating license fees for hunting licenses or driving licenses. Those are issues that are local issues and these same tools can be used on the state or local level to get the job done. The duties, you know, basically it's pretty simple. As Benefit Protection Team Leader, your responsibilities are for coordinating and overseeing DAB's legislative agenda, including the resolution's process, which we'll talk about in more detail, and grassroots efforts. And you're also, again, at the discretion of your department commander, responsible for advocating on the local level with regards to resolutions that were adopted by the department. Now, the nice thing is that all the time that the Benefit Protection Team Leader spends on these areas will be covered under LVAP. So you'll be able to report your time under the LVAP program, the local veterans assistance program, and get credit for the time that you spend in taking care of the legislative and grassroots process. You should have a copy of your duties that are handed out. They're enumerated here. You can also find them on the website. I'm not going to go over them right now, but it gives you an idea of what's expected of you and what you need to do. And, Joe, I would just mention on that one of the most critical, important things you can do to get your information up to date is joining the commander's action network. And I just helped one of our members right here just sign up for it. She wasn't aware about it. What is that? It's our alert system for our grassroots. So if you go into a DAB's website, how can you help select advocate? That'll take you to the legislative portion of our website. And under there, there's a section that you can just click on to join our commander's action network. What we do in our office in DC is put together alerts. So when something comes up, for example, a bill is coming up on the floor, and this bill is going to be paid for. It's a great benefit, but it's going to be paid for by our rounding down our colas for the next 10 years. We need you to take action now. And then you go to take action. And what you put your zip code in, it pulls up your two senators, your representative, and you're able to do a letter right there. We provide a letter for you. I see we have a question in the back. Good morning, Joy. I take you to step forward. I do that. I send it out to the senators in the congressman, but then I share that on Facebook. So that people in my friend network see that, and veterans again on veterans, a family member can then share that with them, and it rolls like dominoes. And that's what Joe will be talking about in more detail. But commander's action network, if you do one thing after convention, if you haven't signed up for that, do that one right away. One thing I forgot to mention for the housekeeping. If you have a question, please ask it while we're going through the presentation while it's still fresh in your mind. There's a mic over here if you don't have a loud voice. And, you know, please feel free to ask your questions when they come up. The key, the cornerstone to the toolkit is DAB's legislative process in you. Many of you may have seen it. It's been updated to now include some of the social media. Some of us are using not all of us, but some of us. And so we've updated it so that it includes social media, you know, in the past, in there, we talked about, you know, phone calls and letter writing and telegrams, you know, those things, not so much anymore. But so it's been updated. And it's there for you. It covers a lot of different things. A resolutions process. And again, as a benefit protection team leader, we're looking to you to oversee the resolutions process back there in your departments and chapters. Resolutions are important. And we'll find out more about that here in a minute. Also, the talks about the legislative process, how a bill becomes a law, you know, how they get introduced, what part of our resolutions play in that. And it also talks about our advocacy campaign, how to conduct an advocacy campaign. Finally, it talks about we're nonpartisan. It's important to remember that especially in a year like this, when we have presidential elections, and, you know, all the house and a third of the Senate up for reelection, a lot of people get involved. And as an individual, it's your it's your right as an American citizen. And you earn that right as a disabled veteran to get involved in that process. But you have to do it as an individual and be careful not to make the statement, you know, DAVs to force this candidate, that candidate, or even to imply it by wearing, you know, a DAV cap. Sometimes people see that and they associate the organization with the process. And so we just have to be careful. So we put a dos and don'ts for election year, along with DAVs national policies on the back. So that's just a really good reminder. Resolutions, I said it's covered in the legislative process in you. They're important because they mandate the action of the organization and its members. You know, we it tells us the dos and don'ts of what we need to be, you know, supporting or opposing under the National Constitution. Article two, it states our purpose. And that purpose is to advance the interests and work for the betterment of all wounded gas injured and disabled veterans. That's our purpose. That's what we're all about. That's why we exist. Under our national bylaws, Article two, Section 2.1, participating in political issues, which have a direct bearing upon the welfare of America's disabled veterans. That again is what we're about. Yes, ma'am. There should be a handout. If you didn't get one, we'll make more copies. But it's a single sheet. It says dos and don'ts for an election year. So we'll make, we'll get some more copies for you. In room 222 on the second floor in the resolutions room. Article 2.2 paragraph one, no member shall appear before any legislative body or speak in the name of the organization. We're pounding a position contrary to any red resolution then in effect. So we don't have a resolution on an issue. You can't be out there saying the organization supports it. You have to be careful. The legislative staff does the same thing when they're asked to testify on legislation. The first thing they do is they look at a resolutions book to see if we have a resolution on the issue and what that resolution says as members again, you know, you're prohibited from doing anything that is contrary to a DAV resolution as a member identified with the DAV as an individual. Again, you have your rights. Section 2.2 paragraph two, no federal legislation shall be sponsored or endorsed in the name of the DAV unless it has been approved by the adoption of a resolution. Again, the same thing. We can't support something that we don't have a resolution on. There are a couple of exceptions and they'll be coming up in a minute, but we need to ensure that we have a resolution that allows us to support or owe a particular issue. Under paragraph three, we find those exceptions and there are any attempt to repeal or deprive disabled veterans or their dependence of benefits already provided by law regulations. So in other words, we may not have a resolution that says we would oppose any legislation or regulation that would take away individual unemployability for veterans over the age of 65. We don't need a specific resolution on that issue because this exception in our bylaws gives us the authority to oppose that because they're taking something away. The other part of that exception is that when our national leadership, the commander, the national adjutant or the executive committee, deems support of legislation to be beneficial to disabled vets. And again, if we don't have a resolution on a particular issue, but the leadership of the national organization deems that that legislation is important to the benefit of disabled vets, they can allow us to support it. It's got to be careful about that because there's a lot of legislation that sounds like it's beneficial. But when you scratch down to the essentials of it, you realize that it's not reasonable or that it puts us in a very untenable situation trying to support it. So it's rare that we find legislation that we don't have a resolution on that is beneficial to disabled vets or other families. But we do have those two exceptions. A resolution process. It's important that you understand about the process itself and how it works and familiarize yourself with it because again, we're going to be staff will be relying on you back there in your departments and your chapters to oversee that process. Normally resolutions that can be introduced by an individual at the chapter level, anyone can introduce a resolution at the chapter level. And then it comes before the chapter for consideration or the benefit protection team chapter benefit protection team leader or maybe if you have a chapter resolutions committee, they can propose resolution at the chapter meeting. Yes, Joe, how do we learn the proper way to write up a resolution and how it should look when we submit it in the document, the legislative process and you will cover that in a minute, too. Quickly, but in there goes into detail about again, what our purpose is and you know, keeping resolutions on which pertinent to us and then how to how to write it title where as clause was in their resolution. And we have a webinar to that Adrian taped that's available as well as taking you through the steps of drafting a resolution. So should it be prepared like that at the chapter level before it's presented to the department or is that to be drafted at the department level before we submit it to the legislation in Washington? You know, it's always good for the maker of the resolution to have their thoughts in there. So you know exactly what it is they want to accomplish. But again, and we'll cover that here in a second. You can at the department level once a once a resolution is introduced and passed by the chapter goes up to the department, the department level, an individual can also introduce a resolution at that level and be voted on. So if you're a chapter member and you don't feel comfortable writing a resolution, you can always take it to the department at their meeting and get some assistance and having it written up properly. And then as long as the department passes that resolution, then it will come up. And again, you know, at the department level, it's a chapter resolution and be voted on. It can also be introduced at the department level by an individual or by your department legislative committee or resolutions committee, whatever you whatever you have once that resolution is passed by the department. And keep in mind to all national wants are resolutions dealing with national issues. You know, at the national level, we're not interested in, you know, the state of a wanting to exempt disabled vets from property tax. That's a great, it's a great thing, but it has nothing to do on the national level. So keep that at the department level and work on it at the department level. Don't send it in with all the other resolutions after your convention that deal with national issues. Keep those resolutions local and work on there. Now again, even at the national level, other than those resolutions that have been approved by departments that come in and go to the resolutions coordinating office, there can be resolutions introduced our NEC, if you were at the first meeting, saw them approve resolutions 001, which is our statement of policy. So the national executive committee at national convention or at midwinter or anytime can introduce a resolution and have a voted on. Also, convention, there's convention committees. And during those convention committees, resolutions can be introduced and adopted at that point. And see a lot of them, particularly in general resolutions, you know, thanking the hotel, thanking the VA, and then a resolution commending the national commander for the job that they did during their tenure. Was there a question in the back? And again, it's important, learn the process, understand it. The other thing you need to do is educate our members who are going to be coming to national convention and who want to be on a convention committee. Let them know about the process. I mean, we don't have a lot of time 70 to 80% of our resolutions are long standing resolutions that are currently in our legislative program book or on our website, you know, have them familiarize themselves with the resolutions, understand the resolutions and then when they come and they're on the convention committees as a delegate from your district, they have an idea of what these resolutions are all about. And a lot of times you get a lot of questions and sometimes resolution has been around for longer than I've been in the organization. And you want you want to be able to answer those questions, which also want to be able to get through the process and get the discussion down to the important stuff. And us, us having the resolutions is so critical because like Joe said, when we go up to testify on behalf of the organization, if a particular issue is really relevant that year about suicide prevention or, you know, mental health issues or whatever the case may be, we need to have a resolution. That's why we're trying to always think ahead. We encourage people to, you know, look through the book, which resolutions we, you know, usually need those from year to year. So we can comment in a positive way for the organization on pending legislation that we're, they're looking at. And as I mentioned earlier in this toolkit, it talks about the construction of a resolution and goes into the various elements of a resolution. First one being you need a title. You need to be concise and to the point and make it understandable so that by reading the title alone, you have a basic idea what it is that we're trying to accomplish. Whereas clauses, again, with the whereas clause, you need to be concise and to the point and you need to develop the justification for what we're trying to do. And the example here is on the current receiving. It talks about the fact that veterans, uh, greater below 50% don't receive their military retired pay and their VA disability compensation. It goes into why that's not fair. And so you have to build upon that, build your justification for why it is, um, that we need this resolution and what we're trying to accomplish. Finally, the resolved. Again, to the point and it tells us what it is we want to do in this particular case, it's to support legislation to remove that inequity of concurrent receipt for those veterans rated less than 50%. So all it's all in there goes into much more detail explaining the dos and don'ts of writing resolutions, what we're looking for. And again, if you have questions, the legislative staff are there to answer those questions for you. First place I would look at being the resolutions book or online at the resolutions. See, do we have a resolution on the issue? And then if you still have questions about why we don't, you can talk to the legislative staff and find out what it is. What reason there may be for not having a resolution on that issue. The toolkit talks about the legislative process. You learn all about how bill becomes a law. In normal cases, they're introduced by a member of Congress. Sometimes you have similar bills, what they call companion bills introduced in the House and in the Senate. It's not necessary to have one introduced in each chamber. Sometimes, you know, we do it just so that you give both chambers, you know, the idea and they start thinking about it and start discussing it. But you know, in reality, all you need is one bill introduced in one chamber, or to get through the committee process and approve and then out to the floor for a vote, and then sent over to the other chamber. Again, the importance of our resolution process tells us mandates to us what we can support what we must oppose, and what we need remain neutral. Not all legislation impacts disabled veterans. Not all legislation do we take a position on it may benefit some other group of veterans. And so long as it doesn't hurt disabled veterans, their families and survivors, we can remain neutral on it. Now, if we do have a resolution, you can proactively go to your member of Congress and ask them to introduce legislation on the issue. Say there wasn't any legislation introduced on Space A available travel, and you wanted your member of Congress to introduce it. We have a resolution on that. You can take that resolution into them and encourage them to introduce a bill that would accomplish that goal. And we would therefore, since we have a resolution, be able to support it. So Bill isn't introduced by your member of Congress. As long as we have a resolution on the issue, you can take it in there and get your member of Congress to introduce it. And again, as I mentioned, to be introduced in one chamber, passed, sent over to the other chamber, as long as it's passed in that chamber, there's no changes, then goes on to the president, who has the option to either sign it or veto it. And that again is covered in much detail in the legislative process in you. We talk about grassroots campaign. I love this picture because it gives you an understanding of how important our grassroots are. You know, I'll never forget testifying before the Veterans Affairs Committee. And a pretty strong veterans advocate said to the panel of veteran service organizations that were testifying, you know, listening to you and you're telling me all your organizations think this legislation is important, but to be honest with you, I haven't heard from any of my constituents on this issue. That there's an issue involving homeschooling and I've heard, you know, from hundreds of thousands of people on this issue. Clearly, it's important to them. So, you know, it's important that our grassroots take the time to get out there and make their elected officials know that these issues are important. And that's, you know, where you come in and we'll discuss about developing a network. But normally, what will happen is legislative staff will make a decision on what to send out, what to highlight for our grassroots, you'll get an email and an alert that you'll be able to use if you're a member of DAB can, you'll get that same alert. Now we do have information on the benefit protection team leaders, their email addresses, and we'll be able to also communicate with you through that avenue. So you get the alert, sample letter, or an action plan. In some cases, you know, maybe requiring you to take some action immediately because there's going to be a vote. Yes, sir, I just have a question because I'm apparently go by trade before I came to work with DAB. What's the turnaround time before a person introducing a bill like a resolution to the senator or congressman to be able to have a move forward on the floor? Why now? You know, it depends on the issue, it depends on the member. In some cases, you know, they can do it quickly in other cases that languishes. You know, I've seen bills that have been introduced that have gone through hearings that have been approved by the Veterans Affairs committees and then, you know, just don't come up for a vote for whatever reason. So it's just, it's just a missed situation. Yes, ma'am. You're going to talk to a legislator aggressively encourage them to co-sponsor a bill, their legislative usually they'll say, we're going to vote for you as soon as it comes up for a bill knowing full well that it'll never come up for a bill. So they're saying to your face that they're going to support you, but they're not being truthful. And they get away with that because of the way the system works in some states. Ask them to co-sponsor the bill that you want to come up for the vote. Thank you. So we've gotten your alert, your sample email and sent out. Have your call to action. What do you do now? You get the word out. And there are a number of different ways to get the word out to members in your state or the chapter level. First one, pretty obvious. You don't need to do it all the time depends on the importance of the issue. But phone calls, that gets the word out, emails, quick way to do it. You can hit a lot of people with the press of a thumb and get the message out. Now, I would encourage you, if you're putting together your networks for email, blind copy, because you never know if you don't blind copy it's someone out there could hijack that email list and use it for things that you might not want them using it for. So make sure it's blind copy. You're sending out emails. Social media. Again, as I mentioned, we've updated the legislative process and you talk about social media, talk about Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter are different ways to now get the word out to a large number of people. If you're not sophisticated in social media like me, you might want to reach out to some of the younger veterans in your area. You know, that's a way to get them involved. Ask them to help you in getting word out on social media. One of the things I think for those of you who are at the benefit protection team seminar with Dr. Shulkin and then the following with the service and legislative seminar, the Veterans First Act, which is in the Senate, it's gone through the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. It's being held on the floor, but it hasn't been brought up for a vote in the house. We have 26 bills that have passed through the house. And so we need for that action for those to come together. We got to get it passed through the Senate. So we were talking about we need a big grassroots push because during an election year, they're going to come back from the summer break and they'll be there for a short time before they go out for campaigning and election season. So this is cumulative of the last year and a half worth of work. We've testified at, you know, numerous hearings, hundreds of bills we've testified on. It's all these legislative priorities that DAB are all wrapped up in this Senate bill, this omnibus bill, and the individual ones that were passed by the house. And it's going to take our grass roots to be pushing all members to bring this to the floor for a vote, the Veterans First Act. So that'll probably be the first thing, but you need to be signed up for Commander's Action Network, because that's where we're going to post it. 20. Is anybody in my staff know? Peter, I'm I'm not been used to calling it the Veterans First Act, but 20. You have a bill number, Peter? We'll get it for you. We'll get it. I'll look it up real quick. Yes, sir. I'm assuming you would know which people in the houses are opposing our bills or in support of our bills. 2921. What is it? 2921. Thank you. Do you send alerts out to us as to those folks in the house that aren't opposing our bill so that we could work more diligently on them as opposed to ones that have invited you? You know, we have the ability to pinpoint states and districts with our alerts. And I'd have to go back a while to remember, you know, the last time when we ran into a situation where there are individual members who were roadblocks or who we needed on board. But as Joy mentioned, this Veterans First Act, I think probably may be the next opportunity for us to have that situation come up where senators, you know, may try to block it. So yes, we can do that and we will do that. And so we do have that capability. Yes, sir. You know, another way is, depending on the timing, our DAV meetings, whether it be your chapter meeting or your department meeting, get the word out. Make sure if you receive a recent alert and email, bring it to the meeting. You know, the woman in the back talked about putting it up on Facebook, and that's excellent to do. Part of what we encourage here in this document is, you know, to get that information out, to repost it or retweet it. But another way is to bring that alert and that sample email letter into your meeting chapter department and, you know, let those members know who may not be members of DAV can or don't have access to a computer. Let them know what the issues are. Give them a copy and encourage them to do a handwritten note if they don't have access to emails. And if some of you remember the time from the benefits team workshop at midwinter, we did, we had everybody write right during our seminar a note and I forget what it was on, in particular, we needed, there was something that was really... We handed it to that time Chairman Filner and Chairman... Akaka. Akaka. during the commander's presentation. And that was very effective because they, they saw, you know, hundreds of, you know, hundreds of actually handwritten letters on that particular issue. It was very effective. And so it's important, you know, get the word out. If you're going to send by snail mail a letter to your member of Congress, do it to the district office. He sent it to their Washington office. It's going to be radiated somewhere out in Maryland and in some cases they overdo it and all they get is a envelope full of ashes. So if you're handwriting it, send it to the district office. This green center here is you, the Benefit Protection Team Leader, Department Chapter. You're the cornerstone of this whole program. What you need to do is develop a network and it should be a call network, an email network, social media network, whatever it is, this chart applies to all of them. But say this, say we're calling in this particular instance. You need to have a call list, get an important issue that comes in that needs to be addressed immediately. All you need to do is make four calls. First call could be to your department commander. And again, you're encouraging that individual to then get the word out to the department leadership. If you're doing an email, that first gray circle could be your first network, all your department leadership, your department line officers. Second call or email network or social media network could be your chapter benefit protection team leader. So again, it's important that you let each of these individuals know that you expect them or assign them who they should be calling or emailing once you get the message out to them. So this chapter benefit protection team leader may have as part of their assignment, their chapter commander, and maybe three other chapter benefit protection team leaders in the local area. And now you've got your third call or group of emails. Again, this one could be your second chapter benefit protection team leader that you're reaching out to war. It's an email and you have your department leadership. The first one, the second one is your chapter benefit protection team leaders. This third one could be family and friends. And the fourth one, again, if it's a call, it's chapter benefit protection team leader. Emails, social media could be your co-workers. And again, it's important that they understand that you get the message out to them. They in turn need to get the message out to their networks. And that's how you build a network of networks. And now they make their four phone calls or send out to their networks. You can see how your message is now out there growing to the masses. And, you know, if you're making four phone calls, you're talking maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes at the most. You're calling those four people, relaying the message for them. If you're sending an email on social media, you're talking five or ten minutes. But look at the number of people that you've gotten the word out to. So what do you do now? You've gotten the word out. You've received your alert from national legislative staff. You've contacted your people. What now? I'm way ahead of myself here. In the majority of cases you've done your job. All you need to do is follow up. Make sure that those people that you gave the message to received it and have gotten the message out. In a small number of cases you're going to have to take it to the next level. And I understand what's going on with the Veterans First Act. This is probably going to be one of the first tests to see how well our Benefit Protection Team program works. You're going to need to take that, I believe, to the next level. And that is personal contact with elected officials. Phone calls. Need to call up the office. And again, no situations where you may have your elected official not in support of this legislation or as part of a roadblock, let them know it's not acceptable that this legislation is important. Maybe fire an office visitor. You know, you can attend. A lot of times you'll get little postcards or announcements from your elected officials that they're having a town hall meeting at such and such a location, such and such a time. Go and raise our issue. You know, because not only do you have the members' attention, but you have all those people in the audience that may not be aware of how important this piece of legislation is to disable vets. So raise those issues. And you can collaborate also with your other VSO partners. You know, we often do that collectively. We're working on something like this Veterans First Act that everybody supports. So if you're department, you can also in your you talk with the American Legion or the FW or the Paralyzed Veterans. In your area, you can also say as a VSO groups, we'd like to come in and meet and talk about this issue. And, you know, if you're able to have the information that's needed, sometimes they, you know, okay, they'll meet with the group and talk about the issue and what the, you can find out what the problem is, but it might be the way to sway them and push it over. And we do have information in this document on building these coalitions. And in many cases, you know, TAB on the local level is already part of the Veterans Coalition. In this document, we also have samples. In this particular case, these are sample letters inviting a member of Congress to a DAV business meeting or a DAV town hall meeting, you know, we can set up our own town hall meetings and encourage members to come to that, or a social event. You know, a lot of chapters or departments have social events, breakfasts or, you know, around Memorial Day or Veterans Day. Sample letters in here to help you craft the letter to your elected officials, inviting them to these events, and also candidates, town hall meetings. Yes, sir. I just wanted to bring up, I'm putting together a breakfast right now with Applebees. They're doing any nonprofits where they'll do a breakfast and they'll do everything. They'll give you the tickets to do everything. They'll look for 100 people to show up and then they split it, I think, 60, 40 or something like that, so just a note to everybody. Applebees is doing those as well. Great. You know, we do, again, talk about having candidate town hall meetings, and this is an election year. You have candidates out there that want to get their message out to us and there's nothing wrong with DAV chapters and departments holding a town hall or a candidate's town hall meeting. Get your candidates in there to talk about veterans' issues. There's a couple of caveats. Number one, make sure you invite all of the candidates. You have two candidates or three candidates. Make sure invitations go out to all of the candidates. Now, sometimes you're not going to find individuals who are going to be up on, who want to be up on stage together to try to be flexible. You may have to hold two town hall meetings or maybe you bring in one candidate to talk and then they leave. The next candidate comes in and speaks. They all don't have to agree to come. As long as you've made a reasonable intent to get them there, only one candidate shows up. We're not being partisan. You know, we've invited all the candidates, one chose to come. We want to hear what they have to say, what their message is. And again, it's not only listening to them, but it's letting them know what's important to us. And you'd be surprised how helpful that is when these individuals know what it is we want when they come to Washington. We'll also have a guideline in there for successful congressional meetings. We outline what you need to do to have a successful meeting. The first thing is the schedule meeting time with your elected officials. And again, we have sample letters to help you do that. You can send the letter to the local office, the local district office. You can fax your letter if you had the fax information to their congressional office in DC requesting the meeting depending on where you want to meet. Or you can again do it by email if you have a contact information there. We also talk about what you need to do to prepare for that meeting. And, you know, though the issue, I would not go in there with more, you know, than two or three issues. And if you can, you know, have just one issue that's great, understand the issue, be prepared, and determine who's going to be the spokesperson and maybe you as the benefit protection team leader, maybe someone else in your group that you want to appoint as the spokesperson. Because maybe, you know, it's a congressional office and you're not in that member's district, but John Jones is. And so it's a lot easier if, you know, the member knows that he's talking to one of his constituents. So understand the issue, pick a spokesperson if you're going in as a group and make sure you have a leave behind. And that is, you know, information as to what the issue is. And again, call on the legislative staff to help you put that together if they haven't sent something out. And normally, you would have had an alert on the issue that is enough for you to leave behind. And for right now, we just did the update on DAV's key legislative priorities. It's a virtual handout. It's on the website. It covers our key issues on fully developed appeals and appeals reform, caregivers, women veterans, and the update on the commission on care. And all of the information is sort of a one-pager and then with the ask at the bottom with the bill numbers attached. So you get a little bit of information on the bill. It's an easy thing. You can print it out, able to bring that up, to educate yourself, to have that discussion, and then as a leave behind for the staff member. This is the update on DAV's key legislative priorities. It's from our benefits protection team workshop, and they should have posted all of the handouts from the convention are available on the website. I'm sorry. I don't have this one printed out, but I could, we can have some, a few copies made if you need, if you need, if you don't have access to email or can look it up on the web. Sure. And Paul just let me know that we do have more handouts in the back of the room next to the water cooler. So when you leave, I think they went, they made extra copies, and so you'll, for the handouts that we gave today, it'll be available in the back. It's important also during the meeting to keep it short. You know, you don't want to take up too much time. You don't want to become a nuisance. You don't want to argue with the member of Congress if they don't agree with your position or staff member. Be polite. Again, leave behind the handout, and also mentioned in this guideline is what do you do after the meeting? You know, what you need to do is send a thank you letter. And we have three different examples in here. One, if you've met strictly with the member of Congress only, there's a sample letter, you know, in there, how to address it to that member of Congress. If you met with the member of Congress and staff, again, how to do that letter, or if you just met with staff, you know, what you say in that thank you letter. And it's also good once you've made that contact with staff, you know, keep going back. Follow it up and, you know, stay in touch with them. One other thing, too, that I failed to mention during the meeting, you know, be ready to answer questions. And if you can't answer the question, let them know that someone from the legislators, national legislative staff will get back to them and then make sure you let the national legislative staff know what that question is. Don't, you know, feel you have to answer all the questions. You may not know the answer. Don't try to fudge it, but just let them know someone will be getting back to them. And our information, you know, will be available in the handout as well in terms of our, the names of our legislative staff and our number up in DC. And you can call anytime as Joe said, you have a question, a concern, somebody, you know, you went to their office, they asked you about a particular piece of legislation, where you, in that way, you can either give them our number for their staff to follow up or have us, one of us, follow up with them. But that personal contact and being able to be able to get a meeting with your member or their key staff person is critical for us because if an issue comes up and we know this particular senator, for example, has a hold on a piece of legislation, we want to have our local people be able to get that meeting, get in there and talk to him or her, and, you know, have that personal contact. We can't stress how important that is. The document also goes into writing campaigns, both letter writing, again, if you write the letter, send it to the district office or the state office. And we have a couple of examples in there. One in support of a particular piece of legislation, you know, H.R.123, another sample letter in there, if it's an issue, such as healthcare. And, you know, it's always good, even with the sample emails that we send out to you, if you have a personal experience, add that to the email. The emails are, you can edit them, you can add your personal experience, and the same with with a letter. Put in your own personal experience. You know, if you're a spouse of a disabled veteran in your writing, you might want to mention, you know, what it's like to be that individual's caregiver, or what it's like to, you know, rely on that individual's disability compensation as full means of income. So, a sample of letters there, there's also sample emails, again, the same thing. If you have a personal experience, include it. Social media, I'm feel a little uncomfortable talking about this issue. I kind of scratch the surface of what social media is, but there's more information that was put together by our communications department in the document talking about social media. You know, in 2013, 93 percent of Congress were on Twitter. You know, they pay attention to it. National Journal put together a book on social media and the importance of social media, and they talked to a number of chief of staff or members of Congress who say, they monitor Twitter all the time to see what the public is thinking. So, you know, again, if you know how to use it, do it if you don't. I find a young vet in your community who's willing to, you know, help. And not even our young, not only our young vets, we have our Interlegislative Committee Chair Alabel and a number of others, like Jim Pecuner from Virginia have been doing an excellent job on that. So, they've educated themselves on it. Now they're doing it regularly and we're hoping at the end we'll have a chance to hear from them as well about what's really been successful and about them, how they went about it, how they just educated themselves. Can I make a couple of comments? No. Sure. Well, if you don't mind. Sure. Because I talked to you, I gave you a call. My name's Alabel. I am on the National Legislative Interim Committee. I talked to Julia a while back and one of the problems, one of the reasons we put this together is the message is not getting out to the people at the local Chateau level. You know, I have gone around to district meetings, chapter meetings, and people, members need to get their information from us, not talk radio, not cable news, not from their next door neighbors, brother-in-law, whatever they need to get it from us. So, one of the things I thought regarding social media and I owe Jim a credit for educating me is that we would like to consolidate, many departments now have Facebook pages, they have Twitter accounts, and what we would love to do is consolidate, get a list of every department's Facebook page and Twitter account. So, if you want to, after the meeting, feel free to come up to me and give me the information on it. And when there isn't a legislative alert, we can tag the Facebook page, we can notify the Twitter account that this needs to get out to the membership, it's just another way of getting our message down to the grassroots as quick as we can. Let me give you one other phone number here for, if you don't get it to me after the meeting, you can call the gentleman's name is James Kellen with the communication department and I'm going to be meeting with him tomorrow afternoon to discuss consolidating this. His phone number is 859-442-2036. Once again 859-442-2036. So, again, it's another way of trying to get the message out. Somebody talked about social media early, it's a pebble in the pond, the waves go out, and it's just another avenue for us. One final comment from me, swear to God. One of the things I've given so many of these presentations about the benefit protection team, the easiest way to get the information out on this, is dav.org, and Joy talked about it earlier, CAN, C-A-N, dav.org, SLANT, C-A-N. Second way is dav.org, SLANT, grassroots, that will take you to the toolkit, whatever. And the third one is, so you get the proper information, is dav.org, SLANT, setting the record straight, and that's all one word. So just go to those links, and you'll get all the information you need on the benefit protection team. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Can I have a picture? Thank you, Al. Thanks, Al. Sign up sheets, sign in sheets, came around. If you have one that word ended up, could you hold it up in the air, and Paul or someone from my staff will come grab it or pass it his way. So we want to make sure we get those. Yes, sir. Yeah, for communication purpose, Greg Morris from a Chapter 35 of Sarinite, Alabama. For communication purpose, and trying to get us involved with getting that and everything, the registration information that you're getting from us, for those of us who do have email addresses, how is the national using that information? Well, if you're signed up for DAV CAN, then you're getting that information pushed out to you. If you're a benefit protection team leader for your chapter, hopefully your department benefit protection team will get it out to you. But the easiest way to make sure you get the information is sign up for DAV CAN. And the benefits protection team leaders that were appointed at the department level are going to be receiving after convention. You'll receive your packet. It'll be a hard copy of the toolkit, a a pin, a couple of pins for your members and for the leader and some other items. And Mark also wanted to include in there, I believe, a copy that we all got in our backpacks for a convention, which is the life memorial document. I'm thinking we're probably going to send a couple of those to you. And that will be a great entree being able to go and talk with your members of Congress and as a gift, sort of letting them know about the memorial about DAV for those of you who haven't made contact yet. Yes. One of the things that when I signed up at midwinter for the CAN is, is it fillable? So can we, I had a hard time being able to link them with like fill on the blanks to personalize this. Is it fillable now? It should be. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I'll double check on Iqani. Again, once you get these alerts, retweet them, you know, call us to action and put them out there. Make sure that you post them on Facebook, as was mentioned earlier, or LinkedIn if you're on LinkedIn. You're a blogger. Same thing. Post these alerts on your blog. Make sure that, you know, we keep getting this word out to a large group of people. We talked about social media. Let's talk about the media. So they're an important element also. And you can do letters to the editor. And we have samples of letters to the editor in the, in the packet. Also, the communications staff, legislative staff can help you craft. A letter to the editor on the particular issue. Go reach out to them. And there were various blogs, as Al mentioned, under setting the record straight or our DAB, you know, campaign for this year. We've done a number of op-eds or blogs under the, under the setting, setting the record straight campaign that you can use. You know, they're, because these are the discussions that are coming up about the VA healthcare system. And those were all done by Gary Augustine. And they're up there for you. Again, you can forward them to people. It'll help educate them on the issue about the discussion on the VA healthcare system. Another avenue is op-eds. A little different than the letter to the editor. There are sample letters in there on doing an op-ed. And again, use the communications staff, the legislative staff, to help you craft those letters on, on the issues that are important. We talked briefly about coalitions earlier. Yes. What is an op-ed? Op-ed is just talking about a particular issue. What is an op-ed stand for? Op-ed. It's, uh, Opposite editorial. Yes. And it's sent into the newspaper and they'll print it. I didn't hear it. What is it stand for? Op-set editorial. Opposite editorial, Joe. Opposite editorial. You got that? It's just, it's just where you're stating your position. Different than a letter. It's a little different than the letter to the editor. But it's basically similar concept except you're stating a position and you can't always get them printed in, in the media. Some cases you do letter to the editor you might have a little bit more success with. But again, communication staff and legislative staff are there to help you put it together. Coalitions, as I mentioned earlier, many cases, DAB's already a member who a veteran's coalition on the local level used them, you know, get the word out. And a lot of times, you know, members of other organizations are also disabled vets. Maybe active in some other organization may not know what the issues are that are going on that are affecting them. So it's good to use those coalitions both to, you know, strengthen your voice and also, again, getting the word out. If you belong to other civic organizations, you know, the Elbs, the Lions, Knights of Columbus, get the word out when you attend those meetings. Let them know what's going on again. And there may be members of those organizations that are also disabled vets. Midwinter, as a benefit protection team leader, I hope that you'll be able to help to coordinate meetings in Washington, D.C., for your delegation that's coming in. And I hope, you know, your departments will bring you in to midwinter to meet with members of Congress. It's extremely important that, you know, we use that time when we're in Washington to make sure that our members hear, I mean, that the members of Congress hear from us. Again, make sure you schedule the meetings before you leave your state. It's a lot easier to do it that way. And then coordinate with other members of your department that are coming. You know, something we've tried to do and haven't been very successful in getting the word out is during midwinter, you have a lot of members that can't come into Washington, but they can take that same time and contact their members of Congress, local office, or even a D.C. office, again, to get the word out. And, you know, with our members in D.C. going in and meeting with elected officials, as well as generating calls or personal visits into the local office, that word starts to magnify and members are paying more attention. So if you have members that are staying back that can't come to midwinter, make sure that they are doing something back home to get the word out. Again, we have sample letters on meeting requests that you can use as an example of how to schedule that meeting. The area that we really haven't used very effectively is called brass cops. And those are individuals that have personal contact with a member of Congress or key staff. And again, it could be neighbor, if yours are a neighbor of the member of Congress that you know, could be a family member. Your sibling could be married to a member of Congress or could be a friend, someone you know that also knows a member of Congress. Campaign workers, and we've got a lot of them now out there working on various campaigns. You may know one of those individuals. They could become brass cops for us. Classmate, a member of Congress that you know. Golfing buddy, someone who would play gospel to a member of Congress when they're back in town. Could be your commander or your adjutant. You know, a lot of times DAB commanders and adjutants know they're elected officials and the elected officials know them. Sometimes they're able to pick up the phone and make a personal call. Use that. And if you're a good benefit protection team leader, that brass cop could be you. You know, being able to pick up a phone and call that member of Congress. Talk to them. Make it personal. Brass cops are an important element because again, there's usually that personal contact that that brass cop has with the member of Congress. Identify your brass cops. And we have a survey that's part of this packet that hopefully we'll be sending out to our DAB can to try to identify individuals who may have that personal contact. We'll also be finding out and you need to find out what they're comfortable with. You know, are they comfortable with making personal contact? You know, going into the office and talking to the member. Picking up the phone and calling that member. Or are they more comfortable with just sending an email? And then again, what subject matter are they comfortable with? Are they comfortable talking about healthcare or maybe just benefits? These are all areas that we'll try to identify and that you should be identifying so that you know who to go to and when to go to them. And it's important when you're dealing with brass cops use them sparingly. You don't want to use them to contact a member of Congress to, you know, co-sponsor a COLA bill. I mean, COLA bills are going to get passed. There's no way Congress is going to let COLA legislation not pass. So that's a waste of a good resource. But when you're dealing with Veterans First Act, you know, that would be a time when you want to activate that grass top and get them involved in reaching out to that Senator, a member of Congress to let them know that this legislation is important to us. MSOs. Why do we have MSOs up here as part of this? Well, you know, if you've come to midwinter and even if you've listened to some of the talks that have gone on here at the convention, we talk about what we do. You know, we always put in the commander statement at midwinter. All the things that DAV NSOs do, how many clients they see, how much money they generated, how many volunteer hours our volunteers spend helping other disabled Veterans, how many bands we donate. And the reason we do that is because it's important for members of Congress to understand that we're doing something. You know, we're not just asking for benefits or services. We're out there doing something. And the MSO is a great example of that. And you know, you get the schedule where you can go online and see when our MSO is going to be in your area. Reach out to your elected official. Let them know when that MSO is going to be there and when or where it's going to be. Encourage if the member of Congress is back or their staff is there. Encourage them to come out and see what we're doing with our MSO or encourage them. You know, they usually have problems with veteran constituents who are dealing with VA. It's a good opportunity for you to offer those services. Let them know it's going to be an MSO here. If you have any constituents that are having problems, this is the place to send them. If they can come down and tour it again, you know, they're going to have a captured audience of veterans there. You may be able to get members of Congress down there. They see what we do and how we do it and it has an impact. The next time Joy or staff go in and see them, they remember. B.A.B. You know, they're out there helping my constituents. And that's what we try to to let them know when we do the Commander's statement. When you hear some of the speeches that are given, we talk about all the things we do because it's important. Nonpartisan, again, that closes out this document and it's important that we remain nonpartisan in everything we do. And we can disagree with members and what they're doing. But we can't pose or support any individual member running for office. And you've got to be careful. We can oppose what they're doing or we can support what they're doing but we can't oppose or support their candidacy for public office. We have to be extremely careful because not only does our congressional charter prevent us from being partisan but our Constitution and bylaws and our IRS code that we're under for being a nonprofit all prevent us from partisan politics. So be very careful. Again, your individuals, your citizens, you've earned the right to petition Congress as an individual. Do it. We encourage you to do it but again, be careful that it's not construed as being done in the name of the DAV.