 All right, hello everybody. It's Brian Lowe at DAV. Again, this is part two of a two-part interview series between myself and Doug Wells, DAV's National Membership Director. If you did not watch part one, please do. There's some valuable information in there about the Recruit-A-Warrior Program and where you can go and how to get your personalized links. Like all those recruiting points when you reach out to veterans that you know in your area to become DAV members as well as hot lists and how those can help you guys recruit new members during such an interesting time on the ground. But here in part two, we want to talk about the importance of that recruiting as those of you who may not know DAV is celebrating our centennial anniversary, a century of service to veterans. And as exciting as that is, you can't help but think about the future and that's where recruiting becomes very important. We're also going to start with Doug and ask him a little bit about chapter operations during this pandemic. How are they holding meetings? How are they conducting business, Doug? And what does it look like on the ground for them? So, as we know, not all states are created equal with respect to the pandemic. So, you know, I think you mentioned we want everyone to follow the guidance of the CDC and their state and local authorities and, you know, meet when it's safe to do so. When you do meet, ensure that you are following, you know, those best practices that are being recommended. Disabled veterans as a population are more susceptible to, you know, the coronavirus, COVID-19, that are civilian population counterparts because of all the comorbidity issues with respect to service-related conditions. Plus, our population in DAV tends to be a little bit older and that's really who this thing is after. It's a horrible situation. So, we want to make sure that people understand the safety of our members is of paramount concern to DAV. We are better with them in the fight than not. So, we want them to exercise, you know, vast amounts of caution, you know, from all the way from our department and chapter leaders all the way down to, you know, individual chapter members. So, you know, we encourage them when they can volunteer to look for creative ways to volunteer to meet and organize and do all the things that DAV is famous for doing. Because, you know, the more than one million members of the DAV and its auxiliary need us out there in the fight. We've got to do it safely. We've got to make sure it's appropriate to the area that we're in and, you know, just understand that there's nothing that's worth risking your health unnecessarily. So, you know, as far as chapter operations are concerned, we've fielded a number of calls, you know, when should we be meeting or they're meeting and they shouldn't be that sort of thing. Again, there can't be a cookie cutter approach to this. There's no one size fits all because of the ever changing nature of it, you know, to start, but also because, you know, some areas have been hit harder than other areas. So we just want to ensure that folks are taking care of business as safely as possible, you know, ensuring that they're paying attention to the facts on the ground in their area. We understand that it may, you know, take longer for some chapters to actually hold a formal meeting and to be able to have elections, you know, to fill positions for the upcoming year. We understand that reports might take a little longer to get to us than typical and that's okay. We're not going to beat you up about that. We don't want people sending in rehashed reports or things of that nature when you can safely meet and hold elections, do so, and then just send us the report at that point. We don't want people risking themselves again unnecessarily because they think that we're holding folks to our typical headlines. You know, and it just makes it even more difficult and heartbreaking because of the being in the centennial year was supposed to be a time of celebration, but, you know, and it still can be. We're still looking forward to a lot of great stuff moving forward, but we want to make sure that we're taking care of business and addressing things properly so once folks can safely meet hold elections, do so and then give us the reports in at that time. And, you know, we'll make sure things are entered properly. The other thing I did want to know about that is to remind folks that they can't be holding elections via, you know, phone or email or video conference or anything like that. Elections still have to be held in person. You know, we have unfortunately had a couple of instances where that's occurred and we've had to go back and address that and that's fine. It was the no nefarious intent there is just people didn't understand the requirements there so you can't have, you know, those types of elections electronically. They can't be held in person so again take your time do it safely do it smartly and if anybody has any questions, they can reach out to me at the national headquarters. Now Doug thanks for that and just to stress one more time for anybody watching if you remember or not, please be as safe as you can. Rule one, if you're in combat for example you stay alive. You're no good to anybody if you can't be active or participant or carrying on the fight as Doug mentioned. Now to transition just briefly here to the importance of recruiting. It's obviously a difficult time to do that effectively which is why I encourage everybody again to watch part one, especially the recruiter warrior aspect, but also the hot list as well. I remember as a member that lead is a lead, a prospect is a prospect, but what would be your best advice I guess Doug to DAB recruiters out there in this current situation on how to stay in the fight and stay motivated. I know you guys have done a lot with the membership department and making it more user friendly, more digital, more remote access. What would be some of your quick advice for them while we have some time? So again, there's lots of things that folks can do. I know my counterpart in volunteer services through the LVAP program is exploring a lot of different ways that people can volunteer. So, you know, I would just ask folks, especially our members that are used to volunteering, continue to be vigilant to continue to work with their hospital service coordinators and their van transportation network coordinators. You know, to look for those opportunities to volunteer and serve in safe ways, you know, again, different programs are coming back online every single day. But I want to make sure that people are doing it safely, whether it's volunteering, meeting, recruiting, whatever it is. But, you know, again, just going back to our previous conversation, all of DAV's recruitment platforms are mobile friendly now. So even if you just pull up on your smartphone and go to DAV.org and click the join button, that's all mobile friendly. So, but do it virtually, you know, and while we can't hold elections, you know, virtually or, you know, via electronic, we have seen a lot of chapters in the past few months during these unusual times. Utilize, you know, video conferencing in very effective ways to continue to reach out to their members to be there for that shoulder to lean on. When people are going through tough times, a lot of our members can become very isolated during this time. So we want to make sure that we're reaching out, taking care of each other. And, you know, that's the perfect way to extend camaraderie and be good members and volunteers if someone just needs to have a conversation. We've got more ways to reach out and talk with each other today than we ever have in the history of man. So please, you know, get comfortable with the technology. And this is a great time to do it. No, Doug, I totally agree. I appreciate your time. I think I've taken enough of it. But if you're watching one, thanks for watching. I encourage you again to go back and watch part one is this is part two. Please take some of Doug's advice, check out those websites lean on the nurses department. If you have any questions, thanks for watching. Thanks for everything that you guys do. Stay safe. Stay in the fight and Doug, thank you very much. Thank you. Take care, everybody.