 Appreciate the great attendance here at this membership seminar. Certainly always nice to see folks coming out and interested in in helping improve the lifeblood of the organization which is membership. I'm Doug Wells, I'm your new membership director. I'm currently on my way to headquarters moving the household and the family. I was appointed on July 1st so it's been kind of a whirlwind for us of course but we're we're doing well especially with all the love and support that we're receiving from all of you. My contact information is on the slide I've got some cards here if folks want to come get one toward the end they're limited but certainly feel free to write down my phone number and my email address if you need anything you know don't hesitate to ask that's what I'm here for. Just a little bit about myself I'm a Michigan native. I was in the Marine Corps from 1996, Hurrah. I'm so proud of my inner Marine I keep it in case and all this cushion so it doesn't get scratched. I was a graduate of DAV's Academy Class 4 in 1996. From there I went to Salt Lake City, Utah. I was there for ten years during that time frame. I also remote managed our office in Anchorage, Alaska. In October 2006 the family and I relocated on behalf of the organization to Detroit, Michigan where I worked until my recent promotion and my wife and I are settling with our children in Florence, Kentucky. They're actually in the truck headed there right now. I just got the phone call of course the wife called two minutes before I was about to start so that's okay and I'm very proud to say that my son Logan is on his way to boot camp next month so he's going to the Marines. Thank you. So just kind of wanted to fill you in on what my vision was for the membership department. First off I want the membership department to be the premier department in the national organization. I want everybody to be associated with it because again as Mark and many others before him we're fond of saying our membership is the lifeblood of our organization and that is going to be the guiding star that I utilized during my time as membership director. You heard both Mark and Barry talk about us attaining and maintaining a 1.3 million membership. We can do that. It is within reach. In fact right before the end of the membership year for the briefest of moments we were above 1.3 million members. Unfortunately as required by our bylaws once we did our Social Security death match we went down to about 16,000 shy and that's about where we are right now. So what does that mean? Anecdotally you can say that we probably lose about 15,000 members that pass on during the course of the year and we lose them off the rolls. Okay. So if we're about 15,000 shy right now in order to get to 1.3 million we're talking we've got to recruit 30 million members over the next membership year or pardon me 30,000 members. I wish we could recruit 30 million. So 30,000 to get to 1.3 million and stay there. We can do that. It is attainable and it's going to be because of people like you pounding the pavement every day carrying around a membership application in your pocket making sure that every single person that's eligible is talked to about the great organization that is the DAV. I also want to enhance our partnership with VA voluntary services. How many VA volunteers do we have in the audience? Raise your hand. Thank you so much. Give these folks a round of applause. I think that's a natural and I really want to enhance our relationship with voluntary services. The more folks see what we do with our voluntary force, the more they're going to be inclined to become members. The more members we have, you know, they have a bigger pool to draw from for voluntary services. It just makes sense. It's a very symbiotic relationship and and John Klein Ditz and I are going to work very hard to enhance our relationship. I've got a bunch of different ideas without going into too much detail right now. But I want to give the average member more tools to recruit with whether that be access to, you know, electronic recruitment or different things that I'm going to talk about later with our new online systems coming out. But there's a number of different things that we want to try to to get figured out that the organization can utilize to support the average member in their recruiting efforts. And I'm always open to ideas. So if you have any idea out there, please share it. You know, certainly there's a lot of things that go into consideration when we implement something. But if you're in a chapter that is successful in recruiting and retaining members and keeping them active, share that knowledge, shoot it up the chain to me and and I'll be happy to look at it and, you know, vet it with the Interim Membership Committee and try to ensure that we're we're spreading that wealth. One of the big things that Plagues says an organization is, unfortunately, not being able to turn around membership cards fast enough. Who would like to see us get a membership card to a veteran in under 30 days? There you go. Yes. So that is that is one of my primary goals. And I have this on my vision slide. But trust me, that's one of my priorities. That's not going to happen down the road. I want that to happen right now. So that's something that I'm going to be working on. There's some challenges there logistically. And of course, we have to be good stewards with our funds. And when you start talking about first class mail versus third class mail and whatnot, you know, we've just got some things to look at. And it's not just the card that goes out to folks. Now it's, you know, there's a lot of DAV swag and the wristbands and the mugs and things of that nature. So but I think it's, it's important when a when somebody signs up to be a member of organization that they're acknowledged as a member of organization within 30 days. So that's something I'll work hard for. Now, in your, in your convention schedule, I did say that we were going to be talking about our new member orientation and mentoring guide. Unfortunately, it's not quite ready. This is one of the tools that I'm going to give to the average member into the chapters to try to help retain the members that you're creating. We're going to be rolling this out very soon. It'll be made available on the website. You can just download it and print it off and give it to a new member when they come in. I'm not going to go into any detail about what's contained in there, but our interim membership committee worked very hard on it. And let me recognize them by the way, Warren Tobin and Michael Anderson. They do tremendous work for them. Apologize for not doing that sooner. But certainly, you know, we are always looking for ways to not only attract new members, but to retain them. And that's the big one. It's very, you know, it's easier to sign up a member for 40 bucks than it is to get them to pay off that membership. That's where the challenge lies. And so, you know, it's unfortunate how many folks, you know, we lose or go inactive. What can we do better? You know, all the way from the chapter level up to national to try to help make sure we're engaging these folks in a proficient and professional way. You know, it's tough today. Time is almost more valuable than money. If you got a, especially a young guy that's got a young wife and kids, you know, what are we doing to attract them? What are we doing to maintain the engagement of our Vietnam era and older veterans? How are we getting their knowledge transferred to the younger generation? Those are the kinds of things that I'm going to be looking at and trying to give us the tools to do. And some of that's contained in the guide here. And the great thing about the guide is that it's not one size fits all. You can tailor it to the differences amongst the chapters to a great degree. Alright, something I wanted to talk about in great detail, especially with the, with our new online computer system on the horizon is the membership application. We do have a new one. I don't know if everybody's seeing it yet or not. But there's several changes. There as a national service officer, I understand the unique challenges in getting a veteran to hand over their claim number or even their social security number, which quite often their claim number is in a day of, you know, identity theft, run rampant, people are understandably reluctant to turn over that information. So on the new membership application, personally identify a little information or a PII is no longer required. You will not have to give a social security number claim number that can be used to steal your identity. And I think that's a great moon for us. But I did want to go over this in some detail because there are the rest of the information that's required on this is required for multiple reasons. Some of it's we have to have it's a deal breaker. If we don't have it, others, you know, if we have partial information, it's okay. But obviously, last name, first name, middle initial, that should be easy. The spouses name we'd certainly like to invite spouses out to be part of the auxiliary. If they're not otherwise eligible for membership in the DAB, of course, address, if they're doing a payment, the membership code number. So we make sure we have the funds going to the correct application. There city town, state, zip, what their gender is. We need their date of birth. We got to have their date of birth because name and date of birth is what we use for social security matches and things of that nature. So again, we don't need social security numbers. We can just do with date of birth. We need their service dates. We'll talk a little bit more about that on the on the back end, but we it's definitely helpful to have the service dates because unless they meet the other criteria, we need the service dates to demonstrate eligibility for the wartime service aspect of their application. And then we're also asking if they have other unique qualifying factors, if they're amputee, visually impaired, hearing impaired, POW, et cetera, so that if we're sending out specialized information or whatever, we can target those individuals for that dissemination. And then of course, everybody wants to be put in the correct chapter. So make sure you give them the chapter preference, the one that's closest to them. I mean, if somebody wants to drive over the next time because that's where their their friends hang out or whatever, that's that's of course fine. But typically, if they have no preference, try to put them in the chapter that's closest to them. We don't want geography to be the hindrance to them being active. Of course, as the sponsor, you want to make sure that you have your sponsor code number, your correct name of the contact number so that if there's a hiccup with the application, somebody can call you. The applicant's phone number for the same reason we want their email. And of course, we need their signature saying that yeah, I want to be a member, especially if they're going to pay by credit card. Okay, and then of course, there's the other financial information located at the bottom. And when you take the application, fill out the receipt and give them the receipt and then shoot in the application to them if they're not going to send it in on their own. So on the back of the application, you've got clear eligibility criteria there. There's still too many folks out there that think that you have to have a service connected disability by VA in order to be a member of the organization. You don't. You just have to have a service related injury or disease. It does not have to be service connected. Think of all the military tirees that have never filed a claim with the VA, but are that are eligible for membership with the DAV? Okay. So I'm just going to read this. Membership has opened any veteran wounded guest injured or disabled in the line of duty during time of war and the persons who have been awarded expeditionary campaign medals. During time of war, quote unquote, shall include the falling periods of service. And you can see it's much more comprehensive than what the VA recognizes as period of war. So I know we've got a lot of service officers out there. Don't refer to the 3.1 and the CFR as your guiding star here. Utilize this information. However, the requirement during time of war will also be met if it is determined that the applicant's wound injury or disability was incurred one at any time as a direct result of armed conflict while engaged in extra hazardous service under conditions simulating war or while the United States was engaged in any war. So it's, you know, there are some other criteria that you can use to fulfill the membership requirements outside of those service states. So Doug, can I make quick comment? Sure, go ahead. And that's it. He's talking about the one on the individual card, not the one in the pack, because the backside wasn't printed on the pack. So if you're using one on the pack, you won't have that in front of you. Correct. Thanks, Juan. So again, they must have the service eligibility or meet that substitute criteria. And, you know, when it's all said and done, if you're as a recruiter or sitting out there wondering is this guy eligible, send in the application, let us make that determination. If he's not eligible, we'll shoot him back as 20 bucks or 40 bucks or whatever it is. Okay. And again, the disability does not need to be service connected. You know, just if they were, you know, deployed somewhere and they got hurt and they've never decided to file a claim with VA, that's up to them. They can, you know, it's not our job to force them to get something service connected or to be a member of the organization and be available of our services. Okay. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the future. And we're going to have a question and answer period at the end. So, you know, I appreciate if you just write your questions down and you'll feel free to come up and myself and the committee will be happy to take any questions afterward. But so DAV360, that is the name of DAV's comprehensive computer program. You've probably heard maybe about it, maybe mentioned in the communication seminar or some other seminars. But it's the all-encompassing computer program that we're going to use for all of our efforts, whether it's fundraising or membership or service case management. The membership portal is going to be called myDAV.org. So that's where you'll go, you know, for your membership applications or your supplies or whatever the case may be. But the very cool features that I want to talk to you about is obviously automated member application and dues management. So you can help a veteran sign up online and do recurring payment off their credit card or they can go in and just pay it off all at once or whatever the case. All that stuff will be automated in the system. For all you chapter officers there's going to be online officer reports where you just fill the stuff out online, no more dealing with the paper copies, having to send them in, maybe getting lost, whatever the case may be. You just do it right in the portal. How cool is it that we're going to be able to do our financial reports online? It'll be a step-by-step process. It'll be very easy to follow and you know it'll take a lot of the guessing out of the process. The line officer and membership rosters with email capabilities. You want to send out an email, a newsletter, whatever it may be to your chapter membership. With the click of a button you can upload the document, shoot it out to everybody that's got that correct information in the system, without having to maintain an independent database. I think that's very cool. It's going to be a mobile friendly site doing it all from your smart device. There's going to be a lot of flexibility there. We're planning on getting that stuff out in 2016 and then the integrated member portals, how it marries up with the other systems. For instance, let's say the veteran goes to see a service officer. They update them in the system there at the national service office. The membership system will automatically get updated with their new address and contact information. Okay, so very brief, very quick. I wanted to leave a lot of time for you guys. If you had any questions, comments or concerns for myself, for the committee. But before I turn it over to you, I just wanted to again express how much I appreciate every one of you and what you do every single day on behalf of the organization. We're going to have a lot more information at midwinter conference. And if there's anything again that I can do for you, just let me know.