 The end just a little housekeeping for you going here because there is another seminar that starts at 1015 So we're going to need to clear out of here pretty quick unless you're sticking around for the communication seminar I'd like to introduce who we have a ground stage We have run manner the assistant national voluntary services director with me this morning I have Rich Tulfa who is the chair of the Interment Hospital voluntary services committee meeting. He's from Florida Carolyn Smalls with me from Georgia Jerome Washington's not up here with us right now He's on the committee as well from Nevada and Jose Garcia He's not here at the convention set to do some family stuff back home in Texas But I want to thank the committee for what they do They they're charged with a lot of stuff throughout the year and they do a great job at getting it done So thank you committee members for what you do each and every day and for your involvement in your local communities Thank you everybody. Yeah, thank you. Please give him a round of applause I want to thank each and every one of you for getting up right and early this morning to come down and join us to discuss the Voluntary Services Department and some of the things that we have going on at DAV So we'll go ahead and get moving along here You can see my farmers only profile pick up here We're charged with a lot of things you got bronze pretty mug shot up there as well and Katie Gepinger who's a supervisor of the department We're involved with a lot of things in voluntary services not just in the hospital, but in the community With DAV's involvement with the adaptive sports program And just raising awareness for DAV in general whether that's through our scholarship fund through recognizing outstanding volunteer for the year Just a variety of things our contact information is up there and when the seminar is all completed or conventions over all of these Presentations should be posted on the members only portal at DAV So you can log in with your membership number download this or do a hyperlink to it and utilize this presentation to your heart's content Here's the rest of the team. We have Ashley Pele She's responsible for our involvement with the winter sports clinic in the T tournament So she has a direct interaction with a lot of you as departments and chapters who help sponsor and support these events as well Those are corporate sponsors for both of those events. Holly Jackson marine veteran as my assistant Connie Kenny a lot of you had interactions with her her primary focus is the DAV transportation network from start to finish That's when we go to order vehicles get them decal to get them up and out and back out to you Nicole ends while she's a correspondent and her focus is on the local veterans assistance program So a lot of you LVAP coordinators probably here from her on a pretty routine basis I'll ask you to continue to send in your reports as timely as possible so we can keep up to date with those hours Pam hitting is relatively new to our team, but not new to DAV She's working with all the HSCs and gathering the hours for your volunteer drivers miles and veterans transported Chris Ripper is a Floats and does the same thing and then Odie Hall a lot of you have interactions with as a BABS rep or depth Or honorary rep so she does your certifications Everybody that I just called off is cross-training can do the exact same thing anybody else can do but You have good points of references for anybody that you're calling Let's talk about volunteer for veterans. We're really proud of this resource. It's new. It's relatively new still It's an online tool designed to help promote volunteerism in community We have a lot of great opportunities that are in there, but currently we're still lopsided We have more volunteers registered than we have veterans needs So if you know a veteran in your community who has access to a computer can utilize your computer Have them build a profile and volunteer for veterans and tell us what their needs are They can be as simple as changing a light bulb on your front porch To doing some minor home maintenance outside and I mean minor I'm not talking about doing a renovation of a bathroom. I'm talking about maybe Fixing a handrail on a porch or you know, maybe something something like that working outside cleaning out a flower bed Removing weeds Now those type of things it's designed to complement the current LVAP program that we have in existence today But it doesn't require you to do any more paperwork because when the job is completed in volunteer for veterans We run a report at the end of the month and import those hours So the individual volunteering receives credit for his or her time helping somebody in the community Again, this is primarily focused on getting involved outside of VA hospitals, but more in the community All right, so we have all kinds of great resources and things that are available for you Whether that's the DAB transportation network whether that's the youth scholarship program Resources for LVAP we have posters All you have to do is reach out to our team members and tell them hey I'd like to get a bro some brochures 25 of this 25 of that we'll send that stuff to you Now we spend a lot of money annually updating these resources and ensuring they're up to date that they have the information That's need they're fresh. They look great. They're extremely professional I was definitely saying with your scholarships if you're a representative in a hospital Take advantage of our posters that you can post up in a common area Have the brochures if you don't have the opportunity to brief the youth that are coming on and that information off to the voluntary services Chief and encourage them to advise the children volunteering it They might be eligible for the scholarship if they don't at their time to DAB Here's a bunch of links to the videos that we have done Withheld from Dan Clare the communication staff. There are how-to videos for volunteer for veterans We're going to show you a real funny one as we check a transition from me doing the presentation to Ron taking over But we have a video up here. It's a how-to register We have a video how to add an opportunity how to complete an opportunity and how to search for opportunity Opportunities, excuse me. They're very short two-minute videos that you can take back and share with your chapter I think we do ourselves a disservice by not sharing the information That's being passed on not saying everybody does that but we have all these resources and this is a just a Fire hose of information that's coming to you guys when you're here at the convention Please go back and take advantage of it. Check all these videos out There's a lot of time and effort put into that and I think they're very helpful and beneficial and again You can refer back to them or like quick two-minute videos That'll help you through the process of navigating this new resource this right here is an annual joint review and So what happens is in VA voluntary services? This is in the hospital We get a summary annual joint review one time a year and what we're finding is that sometimes these annual joint reviews When they come in they're not being signed off on by a representative there If you as a department have somebody appointed to be a representative It's imperative that they show up to these of these meetings They're quarterly meetings and this tells everything that's happening at that facility on a financial level from the chapter Department and on a you know volunteer level, so I have a headcount of how many volunteers are at I'll just pick on Tulsa, Oklahoma at this point They're not enough. They're not a Fender of not sending me this stuff, but I'm going to use them as an example So now I know what's going on in Tulsa now read these every one of these gets reviewed by me And I send a letter back to the program chief and let them think you know Thank them for sending me that and sometimes there are warning letter We don't want to lose our representation at these facilities So if you're gonna appoint somebody to be involved make sure they are able to make it to these meetings now life happens and I understand people get ill Or sick or if you need to do a change don't be afraid to send us to say hey We need to remove so-and-so and put some somebody else in we're glad to do it These joint reviews are very important for us as an organization because I can also track how much money is being donated by Chapter 12 in Michigan or whoever they're at so I know what's going on in those facilities This right here is a Form 20 And it's a little I know it's a little bit blurry. It's just the way we kind of stretched it out here But when we get these forms in From VABS they need to be completed in their entirety a lot of times I'll get an individual's name First and last name, but I'm missing the address Of a volunteer. How can I recognize he or she for their time if I don't get their address? And I know at VA they say I'm not asking for anybody social security number I've had a lot of emails. Well, is there a form out there? We've updated that form about five years ago But none of our DAV forms are going to request or ask for a social security number We understand identity theft is a big deal. We don't want that information I do ask for the date of birth if I can get it because if I have a common name like Thomas Smith I can't identify who that person is without the date of birth Again, if you can get the information from us during a meeting or directly speaking with the volunteer That's great. It just goes into our database so we know we can identify and recognize That particular individual for his or her volunteer activities. Nothing else Okay, this is the VA form 50 and this is the form that we get that says What they do in a monthly basis in DAV volunteer and voluntary services I cannot track or help veterans without getting these hours reported in 2018 there were nearly 25% of the facilities that end to report any hours for the entire year And I talked about this very same thing at midwinter and I had a bunch of people rush up at the end of the Conference say am I one of them? Am I one of them? We've talked to everybody Just continued to do the best you can at getting me this information and I'm gonna say in a timely manner I really really really need your help on getting all of our information all of the reporting Within 30 days And you know there are volunteers out there giving their most precious commodities that and that's their time And if I don't get that information in a timely manner, I can't recognize them We're doing a better job of getting our awards and our incentives out I talked to a volunteer here. He got a real cool made in America product all of our incentives remain in America very proud to say that and We had to figure out it's a wallet. It's pretty neat real nice leather wallet So get us that information in time to matter so we can update our records and make sure we recognize you as soon as possible Teamwork is essential to anything that we do as an organization So for DAV success, we have to work harmoniously with the individuals we come in contact with It's important for you to continue to be unified as an organization and help us continue to grow Volunteers should establish a good working relationship with program managers in the facilities the chiefs and other VA staff at their local facilities This goes a long way it carries our brand our reputation as an organization Key skills to being a team player include communication Listening being reliable and not forgetting to be respectful to others all things that we were taught as children and as servicemen and women You need to be a good volunteer and clearly communicate your ideas with everyone you come in contact with Just because we're doing something today this way doesn't mean that we can't find a better way to do it So if you have a good idea, don't be afraid to share it I had somebody come up and share an idea with me this morning We'll hold on to that idea and see if it's going to be something beneficial in the future But most importantly to be reliable if you say you're gonna be somewhere do your best to be there This will let your other Volunteers know that you're respectful and it means a lot and they have trust in you for what you're doing Here's a cool little video as we transition It's So I volunteer, you have the same opportunity to make this assignment and tell T.A.P. what happened. This is what protects both artists and completes the assignment. In the end, the flat tire never got fixed. Sergeant Richard Thompson, the swaster and volunteer tracker was hiding from the cats. But we did learn some valuable information. So now, you're ready to go out there and start as a volunteer for veterans. Thank you. We did receive five Academy nominations for that video. And I want to thank, again, the communications staff, more specifically, Austin Schaffner for getting that video done. He did all that himself. It took us a one day great video. I hope you enjoyed it. It's a resource that's available for you. It's meant to be funny, but there are, you know, it's a great way to show how easy you can actually get out and give back to somebody. With that being said, I'm going to turn it over to Ron Minner. He's going to push through the rest of this and we'll turn it over for some questions and answers. Morning. So what I'd like to talk to you about. Some of you that are in here, we're at the CNA orientation at headquarters a month or so ago. And we're going to kind of recap some of these program changes with regard to our volunteer recognition programs, which is our George Sill, DAB George Sill Award, or DAVA George Sill Award, and our Jesse Brown Youth Memorial Scholarship program that we have. How many volunteers are in here? How many of you are familiar with Jesse Brown Scholarship and the George Sill Award? I guess how many applications we got from around the country for George Sill recognition this year for convention? I might be going to tell you the number, but you're not too far off. And on a serious note, it's kind of a shame because you all know somebody at the hospital volunteering. We get our reports into the office and I think, John, every hospital in the country is represented with at least one DAB volunteer or one auxiliary volunteer. In most cases, it's a lot of them. And we're not going out and recognizing them. It may be because you don't know who they are. It may be that they're at a facility away from the one you volunteer at, but we need to do our part. We want to recognize our volunteers and make sure that we're given credit to all of you, and especially recognizing that volunteer that's selected by the committee when we get those applications in. So John and I were talking on our team and we figured, how can we change this? How can we make it easier for you to get that information to us? Because we rely on the departments when those commanders award announcements go out and we rely on the chiefs and program managers at the VA hospitals where they're tasked with so many other things. When they get our request for another application, it usually goes on the back burner somewhere. So we're going to try to make this as easy as possible for all of you. What we're going to do is, these are still going to be commander's awards. I want to point that out real quick. The Jesse Brown Open Application Period is going to begin on May 1st. And you're going to have all year until the following February 28th to get us nominations for the Jesse Brown Scholarship Applicants, or the youth volunteers. On the George Seale side of it, for DAV and DAV Auxiliary, we're going to take our top ten volunteers from every department. That's DAV and Auxiliary. We're going to send every department a list of those top ten volunteers. We're running this list based on who had volunteer hours within the current year that we're working at. That list will show you their current year volunteer hours and their lifetime hours. I'll help clear that is up there for you. Can you see that? You'll see on the far right in the top corner the lifetime VAVS hours, 10,295 in this example here. And then it's got the current year's volunteer hours, 731. And as you go down, they're all listed the same. It tells you what facility they volunteer at. So the idea is we provide you this information. We have access to these reports. We send you those top ten and we're asking the commanders and agitants from every department to establish, if you don't already have one, an awards committee. We want you to determine who that top volunteer is for DAV and DAV Auxiliary. Send that application for those two to us. We don't want an application for all of these. And hopefully at the end of the day, we have, what is it, 104 applications from every department. Auxiliary, one DAV, right? And then you can take those top two recipients for DAV and Auxiliary that you recognize. Send those to us. They become competitive with the other departments for the national award that we give away here at convention. I don't know if we can make it any easier. We hope that this is an easy way for you to have that information at hand and make a selection and send that to us. In turn, I would suggest recognizing those two that you send to us at your state department convention as your volunteer of the year, if you're not already doing that. Auxiliary, it'll be two separate reports for DAV and then the auxiliary report and it'll be the same. Youth volunteers. There's not going to be as many eligible youth volunteers, but we need to do our part to recognize them. That's our future. That's our future leaders. And they're going to carry the torch and they're taking that message on with them to college. And typically we receive a lot of feedback from them. And these become, you know, our torch bears and they're teaching other youth as they get older about those opportunities within the VA systems. And a lot of them become donors as they become more successful in life. And they remember what DAV did for them in providing that volunteer opportunity. More important than scholarship that they receive to allow them to go to college or university or some vocational school somewhere. Just want to make sure we do our part to recognize them. On this report, it does show the address. We had to take that out for the purposes of the seminar this morning. But when you get this, and if you need to contact them or get their application together, contact us at Heckwars. We will provide you with all the personal information that will allow you to reach out to those youth volunteers to get their information, submit those applications. We'll send you the top, how many every youth are eligible in the state. We want to say top 10, but there's times where you may only have five youth that meet the eligibility requirements. If you want to send an application for all five, please do. If you have two that stand out and you want to send those in, and they can still self nominate. So you're not keeping them out of the process. If you don't recognize them, then they can still go through the VA or self nominate themselves. You have the opportunity for the youth. There used to be a 100 hour minimum requirement within the application year. We've gotten away from that. It's hard. Some of these youth are working. They may not have transportation to go volunteer when they want to. So the requirement now is that they have 100 hours minimum lifetime to achieve that eligibility for the scholarship. We thought there would be a big change in the number of applications we received that made a little difference, but not as much as we thought. So again, we're going to send this report to every department as well. Hopefully the department folks and your awards committee, whoever you appoint, give us some viable candidates so the committee can really go through these and make sure we're selecting the right people. We've had some great folks receive the scholarship. You saw our recipient in the opening session and what a wonderful young lady she is, but there's so many more of them out there that we need to recognize and consider for these scholarships. So with the lifetime hour 100 hours, that's not just VADS volunteer hours. This is also LVAP or local veterans assistance program hours or a combination of the two to beat that minimum 100 hour goal to become eligible. And that's what you'll see on these reports here when we send those out to you. That being said, we need to make sure that we capture those hours. I know a lot of chapters go out. I've talked to some of the department leadership and some chapter folks. When you do a project within the community and you have the kids out there, we're not necessarily getting those reports and we get caught up in what we're doing, which is great. But then we forget to say, hey, we need to turn these hours in. And that's for you all as well. And that helps those kids become eligible and we want to track those hours and we want to have as much accurate data as we possibly can. So keep that in mind when you're out in the communities doing these projects outside of the VADS system, because those hours are sent to us automatically. And again, this is just an example. You'll have lifetime hours and for the youth and their current year hours for LVAP and VADS. Those will both be on the report. And they won't. Let me go back. If you notice in that middle column, that middle red arrow here, you'll see some adjustment in hours. So you may go down and this one here is stacked based on the most hours within the current year. If you go to the right column, there's no particular order there. That's their lifetime hours. So naturally we want to recognize people and thank them for what they've done in their lifetime. But when we're recognizing somebody in 2019, we want to recognize them for what they've done over the lifetime, but what they've done in the current year as well. It's also an opportunity for you to engage these volunteers if you don't know who they are, bring them in, figure out what the success stories are, and share that information and just keep building this program. So this application here, we have, it's fillable. You can print it and fill it out if you'd like. We've had to chop it up for you to be able to see it here, so it's going to be in several pages. Please fill this form out in its entirety as best as possible. We want to know as much information if you want to get something from a program manager at the hospital that's with these volunteers every day and or if you know some additional facts about them and their efforts, fill this out. We need that information to make a good decision and make sure we're recognizing those top candidates. Again, this will be two pages when you get the form, but we had to chop it up here so it was fillable. And we've changed who signs this form. I think in the past we had the program managers, the chiefs, the department manager, the department commander, and we were just asking too much and making it more difficult to get the results that we wanted. So as you can see, we're just asking for a commander's signature or someone from the department. And this does not preclude the program managers and chiefs from submitting this anymore. We're making it easier for you where we don't have to go out and get that signature and email those back to us. The George seal will still go out in November. I think the first week of November is our target to get that out. That line will be February 28th. Once you have that committee together, I hope this makes it easy. We can discuss this afterwards, but all we're asking is that you email those two candidates back during the application period. Jesse Brown Memorial Scholarship. Same thing. Fill it out in its entirety. We get a lot of people that will submit an application to us and they say, hey, what can I do to make my kid better than the other ones? Well, it's not a fair question. But what you can do is when they talk about what has volunteering meant to you, well, I went to the hospital and I helped some veterans. Well, we understand you do that when you show up. Tell us a story. What's something unique that you've learned or that you've witnessed and that you've been able to do? What kind of awards, what kind of difference have you made within that system and in the lives of those veterans that you volunteer for every day? We want to tell that story. We need it to be as descriptive as possible because we get some pretty good candidates as the committee will tell you and we want to be able to decipher those applications and make a good decision on those types of savings or who that should be. And again, we're not asking for all the signatures. We're trying to make it simple. This will be a two-page application as well and the email address for the submission is there at the bottom of the form. We're still going to be commander's awards. Don't misconstrue that. We're just changing how we solicit the awards and how we get that information back. And again, at the end of the day, we want to make this as easy as possible for everybody in here and all the departments. And I'm telling all of you this because I want the chapters to push the departments to get on those committees and let's get this information together and get it back to us. And then every department, there's no reason why we shouldn't be recognizing a volunteer of the year at your state conventions. And then we have some of our good candidates there at National for the National Convention. These links are also online. As John said earlier, this presentation will be available for everyone. And you can go there and excuse me, get that information. When the announcements go out for the award and the open enrollment period, if you will, this information will be submitted again with that every department. I want to thank you again. We encourage you wholeheartedly to please work with us, work with yourselves and let's recognize our volunteers for what they do. They're out there every day. We thank you for what you do. And we want to make sure we recognize all of them and give them the credit they deserve. Thank you guys. Just to piggyback on that, and then we'll ask some questions with the youth. Make sure you tell us what they're doing in school. As you saw in the video, Hayley is a track star, 4.0 GPA. Make sure you put all that stuff in that nomination. That goes a long way. These kids are doing remarkable stuff and we don't want to just, like Ron said, focus on volunteerism. How are they acting in the community? What are they doing in their school? Are they in the choir? Those type of things are really, really good tidbits to add to that application. So we have a microphone right here and we have about 20 minutes for some questions and we'll clear out so Dan Clare can prepare for his presentation. Make sure everything's working. Yes, sir. And I want to do a challenge to each and every one of you in the room. I challenge everybody in this room to send me one nomination for any of these things this year. Can I get a commitment from you guys to do that? Can I get a commitment from you guys to do that? Please help us increase these numbers and we'll go ahead and start with the questions. Thank you. Yes, sir? No, sir. No, sir. We are in the process of building a new CRM system that we're going to implement here in the next 24 months. And so for the time being, we will continue to use DAV360 internally. And once we get this new CRM up and running, it's going to roll out in separate phases. We'll probably expand on that in a few years. But for the time being, just keep doing things the way you're doing it. Thank you, Paul. Yes, sir? Yes, there is. It's typically 14 years old. Some facilities have it a little higher depending on the level of care that's in that particular hospital. Check with your program manager at the facility. They have a guideline for that. As far as the LVAP program, I would say 13 is probably a good number to start. But I'll leave it up to the individual parents who are allowing their youth to volunteer at that point. Say your question. Repeat your question for me. I'm sorry. Yes, that's correct. If they're at a state home, you can do that through the LVAP program. If they're at a VA medical facility, they would need to do that through the VAPS program. So just get the form that enrolls them as a volunteer in our system, which was in this presentation, and submit their hours through the LVAP program if they're doing it at a state home. Thank you. Yes, if you're a hospital service coordinator, and that's your responsibility, that's what you want. Yes, and I would encourage you to fill out those forms and submit them to us so we can recognize those volunteers. Thank you. That's correct. It's typically there's not a VAVS rep there, and so we get that and then say that they missed all their meetings along those lines. And that's when we send a warning letter and advise you guys to find somebody who can fill that role so we don't lose our representation at that facility. That's typically I'd say 95% of the time a mistake. And you are saying that if a department has a VAVS rep, then that rep is responsible for making sure that they don't see it. That is correct. It's basically like a counseling session. I don't like using that term, but it's an interaction between the two to say what we've done good, what we can do better, and what are the goals for the upcoming year. Absolutely. Anything for you, John? Yes, ma'am. I'm also on a great stage with you. I just wanted to encourage the other BSOs that did in this program to get assistance with the outside with the bushes. Thank you. Major hospital volunteers there. My understanding is that the various schools were supported. Well, that goes back to our literature and talking about the scholarship program. If you can hand that stuff out or make it readily available where somebody can walk by and grab it, they can make their own informed decision about who they choose to volunteer at their time. I do visit with school counselors and talk to people throughout the country and we share that information. That's why we produce this literature. I would advise you to make a request to get some of our literature and share it with those counselors and let them share that information at will with those youth and they can make an informed decision about who they choose to volunteer at their time with and hopefully be eligible for our scholarship. Thank you. So just to kind of build on that. A couple of years ago we started just around the issue of when we put together a folder with just around information on all the high schools that we talk to the counselors. Many of these high schools require their students to have a volunteer hour for the graduated. So it's a great opportunity to talk about the DAB and to talk about this program and that's how you can get young people signing up in the VA at the hospital for the DAB. Thank you. Thank you, John. I appreciate that initiative. That's exactly what we need to be doing in our community. Thank you. Yes, sir? How do you get a correction to either a site on the website or missing shoutouts? Are you talking about for voluntary for veterans? It's just you should pick the department because it automatically rolls to the department. If you find something, you can send me a screenshot. I'll take a look at it and see if we can get it fixed. We'll definitely want to get that fixed New Hampshire, okay? We'll make a note of that and we'll talk to our IT viewer to get that turned up. Thank you. Yes, sir? Just have them come visit with us. We'll get done here and we'll help you with your problem. If there's not any more questions, I want to thank each and every one of you for coming in and joining us this morning. I hope you found this riveting. I know I love the video myself. Please take these resources back and mobilize them. Again, I want to thank the chapters and departments for their support and sponsorships of our adaptive sports program. If you're unaware of what we're doing in that avenue, please reach out to Ron or myself or Ashley Pele. We've got the T tournament coming up in less than 30 days in Central Iowa and it's a remarkable event and we couldn't do it without the support of the chapters and departments that are present at this convention. Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful day.