 All right folks, it's 1 15 so we're gonna go ahead and get started I appreciate Everybody coming out to the membership seminar. We've got an awful lot To cover so I'm gonna move through some of these slides Fairly quickly Certainly, I'm willing to share the presentation with you. So there's no need to Take pictures of every slide other than maybe the the first one that I'm about to show you here with my Credentials on it for you. So that is my information direct to the desk I'd be more than happy again. If you just shoot me an email. I'll share the presentation with you so you can enjoy the presentation and Absorb all the great information. I'm hoping to pass here that line is my direct line for 4 2 20 60 Please feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email anytime you need anything. I didn't have any Dignitaries sneak into the room on me the national commander anybody today, okay? So we are trying Feverishly to you know continue to update our program make things fun Embrace technology and we're continuing that trend with a couple of different programs that we're gonna talk about today The first thing that I want to remind everybody is About is our March membership madness tournament So what we're trying to do is kind of plant the psychological seed that when you start to hear about the conference turned basketball tournaments and March Madness That you start thinking aha we need to start Checking out where we're at with our membership recruitment totals to ensure we're gonna meet goal Before membership year-end, which is June 30 So that you're not rushing when may rolls around to try to make goals So and this is a nice fun way to get us to embrace technology with respect to Our recruitment efforts as well because the only memberships that count towards the March membership madness tournament or online Applications we will be doing this again next year. So there's a couple of different ways that you can be recognized for your efforts Of course, we would have the department champion And hopefully the department leaderships are out there rallying the two troops at the chapters but the department champion is the the Into the individual department that goes from Bracket to bracket to bracket without losing without being defeated all the way to the end and then we also have a department MVP award for the Department that recruits the most overall members during this period. So if a department had a had a bad matchup During one of the brackets that they're not out of it. They could still get the MVP award We also recognize our top individual recruiter and a runner-up as well And they get a very nice prize the an engraved iPad as you can see from the screen There is a minimum requirement of 25 Members that they would need to recruit online to be eligible for that So we're just trying to figure out fun ways to do a couple of things get our folks to embrace technology when recruiting I was so very pleased I had one of my one of my folks from my Stomping grounds in Michigan came up to me and say hey here. I recruited somebody using your online application So that was good stuff the winning departments also receive $250 gift cards from office depot and again, we really want to You know encourage organic recruiting, you know, how do we Make it possible for folks to recruit on the spot and you know as a young service officer coming up the ranks I always had my senior leadership saying they always have a membership application on you, right? Well with the online application Now you can you should always have one on you The other thing that we've noticed about online recruiting why there's such an emphasis on this for us is that all of the metrics Tell me that if we can recruit them online They're exponentially more likely to convert to full-life membership right because we got that credit card on file and it's fire and forget There's also a higher proclivity for folks to just buy their full-life membership outright if you can convince them to do it with a credit card As opposed to taking a payment of $40 and we may never hear from them again. Okay So again with the March membership madness Tournament any online recruiting platform can be used. So if you go to DAV.org and sign somebody up or The mobile app on your phone or a pad all that stuff counts towards this effort So this year I announced that our commanders in adjuncts Meeting here recently that Missouri has dethroned Nebraska as the as the tournament champion Nebraska has has voiced their strong contention to get back into this next year, but you know, you can see we start off everybody seated and and we give the the higher seedings to The favorite more favorable seedings to our departments that have done the best in the previous membership here So just another fun way to encourage camaraderie and a little bit of competition amongst the departments here So please please participate. I just when you start hearing about the tournaments again start thinking. Hey, we got to be recruiting online Missouri's gonna win again. Okay. Sorry the trash talk trash talking is already started. I love it All right, so Now to really get down to business on some stuff here Just wanted to bring everybody up to speed on a few things And I talked a little bit about this last year for those that weren't here so We really had to take a hard look at our membership file and I wanted to ensure the integrity of our file, so We went about figuring out. How do we Make sure that everybody we have on our file is Someone that we either know as a member or that we can reach out to as a member prospect, right? So the first thing that we did at year-end last year so June 30 July 1 as we purged 37,000 Names from our files that we just didn't know where they came from. We had no valid address on them No point of contact for those individuals. So there was nothing that we could do with them moving forward We also recognized that we had a hundred any hundred eighty eight thousand trial members that were currently on the rolls as of last year We decided that We needed to go back and clean that file up as well So we had to take a hundred eighty five thousand of those are probably hundred eighty three thousand of those folks and move them to our Member prospect files They would no longer be considered trial members because they'd been on that in those in that role for more than three years And that shouldn't have happened. It's just our membership system. We're working on replacing it But it just wasn't nibbled enough to make that happen on an automatic basis We've got some procedures in place now to make sure that that happened We also unfortunately identified as we were looking at file integrity Eighty thousand members that we were counting as part life members who we had never received a dime from so What happened basically was in the membership system that we had Previous to our current platform That we came over from in 2003 that old system did not have a mechanism to identify trial members So they put them on the system as part life with nothing paid Okay, as a way to record it So when we did the data dump from the old system to the new system It wasn't caught and so they kept they were in perpetuity recorded as part life members So we had to remove them as part life members and put them into the member prospect file So we did have good addresses on them and whatnot, but again, it was just another housekeeping mechanism so What does that mean? For our numbers you may have noticed on our literature already. We're using more than 1 million members So for a while we've been saying 1.3 million members, right? It's one it's more than 1 million now. So that's the verbiage. We need to use so this is a good thing We want to have transparency. We want to have integrity with respect to our file count We want to know where people are and where we're counting them and be appropriate with that so So If you look at the current population report from year end all of that stuff has been completed now taken place And we're a little bit over 1 million members now To kind of help alleviate some of this prior to moving the trial members to the To the prospect file we did share those folks with the department leadership And I'm hopeful that they and I know in most cases they shot them out to the chapters To try to reach out to these folks. It was a Herculean effort. We did have some success with it In converting those trial members to paid members a lot of people were receptive a lot of people are like who are you? So, you know, it just depended on on who The individual is that we were contacting We also want to continue Bringing on board new trial members, but we want to ensure that we're bringing on quality prospects so what we're doing is Either at our transition service officer sites We're offering claims assistants there. We cannot directly recruit folks because of our memorandums of understanding with the bases So we have to wait until they're out So we're just recording some basic information from them that does not include their address We just give it like a name rank serial number type stuff And a data discharge so that 30 days after their data discharge We can them all then offer them a trial membership at that point if they re-engage with us and give them give us our give us their Mailing address and whatnot we can shoot them the the few free magazines and keep track of them in an appropriate manner So also our my counterparts in employment are doing a great job of offering trial memberships to our folks that they're engaging at the job fairs We'll also be happy to share that information with with our chapters and departments as well so All of that cleaning up the membership file kind of brought us to where we're at now For quite a while we have heard You know from our membership especially the folks that were really working hard to try to recruit members for the organization that they felt like they were just kind of on the treadmill and never had the opportunity to make goal because Their part-life member situation was out of control So when I first took the reins a few years ago as membership director I I One of the first things I wanted to do was make sure everybody understood how goal was formulated to how how you could attain goal and Just in a nutshell and keeping the math easy Essentially the old goal formula was if you had a thousand full-life members in your chapter and you had 100 part-life members The number we've been using forever is 55 so 55% so 55% of your part-life members Plus your total full-life members would be your goal So in that scenario your goal would end up being 1,055 members at the end of the membership here Is what you would need to attain so if you were in a chapter That had a large number of part-life members You can see how very easily that goal would be very difficult to attain so It was just it was really this arbitrary type number and on the other side of the spectrum we had a lot of chapters and departments that did an outstanding job of You know helping pay down their part-life memberships And keeping that number very very low. Well, what does that mean when we establish goal for those folks? Their goal was very very small and so they weren't required to or asked to recruit that many people And that's not what we want either and in addition to that there was an impediment to recruiting part-life members And I wanted to remove that and so fortunately leadership agreed and We were able to to change goals. So we sent out a memo On January 4th to the departments asking them to give us Some information and what the spreadsheets contained was the zip codes for every single Area in their departments jurisdiction Their task was to designate a chapter or chapters for each zip code We asked for this to come back to us by March. They did a pretty good job of getting it back to us We had a few stragglers, but it was a difficult thing to manage And the idea is we're taking our membership prospect file Folks that we have names addresses to include zip codes on And we're taking at least a portion of that file and running it into this zip code file that we've now created for the departments And distributing those folks to determine what their goals should be based on those prospective numbers So we're establishing a real-world goal We want the emphasis now to be on new members new paid members So no longer will the emphasis be on conversion of part-life to full-life members Because really what we're doing there is eating our own right? We're preaching to the choir We want to get out and you know spread the good word of DAV to To folks that haven't heard it before and again We don't want there to be that impediment with respect to recruiting part-life members not everybody can afford 250 bucks or whatever for a membership So in order to make that happen We want to make sure that we're sharing the member prospect file of which I have two million names Remember there are four and a half million disabled veterans in the country that are likely eligible for membership in DAV We've got about two million of we know where they live Okay, we will share that information down to the chapter level All you got to do is reach out and we'll help manage it for you Well, you'll let us know exactly what you're after and we can get that out to you my my membership specialists at headquarters doing an outstanding job of Making sure that our chapters and departments get what they need so Let's talk about specifically how we're deriving the new goal now I described the old goal for you And that was a fairly straightforward Scientific method, right? It's not a state secret But it was more sciencey right Straightforward math the new goal is kind of more artistic So it's gonna be my job every year to kind of look at the hot list and determine How many of the folks from the prospect list do we need to put on the hot list to overcome our drops? So any members we may lose either due to death or a resignation, whatever it is, okay? So if my analysts tell me hey, we're gonna lose 25,000 members this year to do the drops Then I have to figure out okay. What should our goal be so it's really gonna be kind of a sliding scale There's no percentage of anything necessarily But I just have to look at the prospect files and determine how I can give you the most viable member prospects to reach out to so We've designed the system to engage an algorithm that lets us know Based on the prospect list on what we're calling the hot list If your goal will be better that way or if it'll be better based on your previous recruiting efforts So what we also did was went back and we're analyzing What a chapter has historically been able to recruit and what I'm talking about is new paid members So I don't want you to confuse the current goal that was established July 1 With what your previous goals used to be because the previous goals remember we're based on conversion of part-life the full-life members, right? This new goal is based either on the hot list So if you're in an area that has a wealth of member prospects Your goal is going to be very different than what it was before and under the new goal formulated It'll also be very different because it'll be based on the total number of new part-life And new full-life members that you recruited not the conversions just the raw new folks that you historically recruited, okay? So again some of this is You know based on our limitations with the current membership system My analysts have done a terrific job of kind of shoehorning our old system into this new goal into our old system So we're currently working on a new customer or a customer relations management tool Or what they call a CRM that will replace Our current membership system and I'm hopeful that we can engage some geocoding to make some of this a lot more accurate and It won't be as you know Manually laborious as it is on the department so my staff right now So the key thing that I want you to take back from here is a couple of different things first of all Don't forget that part-life members count towards goal Right part-life members count towards goal no longer should they be an impediment to you recruiting to your recruiting efforts But the the chapters need to contact us to request these lists I would love to just automatically send the lists out to all the all 1300 chapters, okay? Can't do it. They're too big You know we're talking again about two million names right those files would be just too big and unmanageable and I'm sure You know our chapter in Oshkosh is going to send out 10,000 Envelopes to its member prospects right we want to massage the list and and figure out exactly what their purpose is how they're trying to attack it You know we can give you a list of just all the members we have in your jurisdiction that have email addresses or all the ones with phone numbers The most current ones however you want to break it down my membership specialists can break it down that way for you, okay? But they've got to reach out to us now. I Don't want there to be a point of confusion here Your goal Does not have to be satisfied by recruiting members from the prospect lists Remember we only have two million of them. There's another two and a half million of them out there People were making goal without prospect lists before I'm just trying to give you a tool that'll make sure everybody has low hanging fruit to attack Okay, the chapters have got to reach out to my staff and request these files So I think in this is going to be an evolving process When I first was having this conversation Dennis Nixon happened to be in my office and he's been with DAV for 40 plus years, right? And I asked my said Dennis, you know, do you remember? Any time we change goal before because it's been the same way the 23 years that I've been with you said no kid It's you know, it's been the same since I've been around too So this is a kind of a milestone event for us And I'm hopeful that we'll be successful with it because the important part again is to get out To the folks that haven't heard our message yet, right? We still need to have internal strategies that promote conversion of part life to full life membership That's what we want ultimately is full life members, but I don't want there to be the impediment Towards recruiting part life members anymore So another tool that I want to give you besides the the lists We talked about how folks can sign folks up online. The important part is getting that credit card All right, I can't emphasize that enough if we can get the credit card the numbers tell me they're exponentially more likely to become members So I'm sure you're all familiar with our membership application. So what we're doing now is working on modifying it It's actually waiting for me to approve it when I get back to headquarters But we're working on modifying it to allow a credit card to be used for monthly payments to give that an option So that you can sign somebody up for as little as ten dollars a month With a credit card. That's the caveat. You've got to have a credit card All right. Yes, sir. You can ask a question. Go ahead You use the microphone, sir. I want you to understand it too far Of chapter 41 Wichita Falls, Texas We still have to do the $40 down payment. Is that correct? That is not correct That is not correct if you have a credit card number and they choose The $10 monthly recurring payment option You can just do it $10 a month if they will check the $10 option that they will do that correct Yes, sir So it does not work unless you have chosen the $10 recurring payment option and have a credit card number So don't send a check for ten bucks. That doesn't work that way Yes, sir Well, whatever the amount is that they would have to be charged based on their date of birth. Yes So if they're if they were under 40 their amount is 250. So it'd be 25 months. That's when it would stop correct Correct. Yes, sir. Yep So again $10 a month payment credit card is required now We've been able to sign people up with credit cards via the apps right for a long time and I we had We reached out and got the approval from the National Judge Advocate to put this on the form and the idea is that as long as We have the credit card with the recurring payment It satisfies the requirements the Constitution and bylaws for the $40 minimum payment. Okay So again this this form is pending final approval, please don't go home and make up your own forms or anything like that Well, we'll get it turned out to you right away so my analyst always appreciates it when I bring this up because it saves her a bunch of headaches, but Accessing the online application now if you just go to DAV.org the online application is mobile friendly. Okay Where people mess up quite often is they don't understand that our system Uses an email address as the unique identifier for the membership so if you are to Sign somebody up and you use your own email address and Then you sign the next person up using your own email address All of the previous members payments go towards the last payment, you know the last membership that you set up Because it's drawing from that unique identifier, right? That's not so unique anymore So if somebody that you're signing up doesn't have an email address Please, you know set them up a Gmail account or Yahoo account whatever that takes you know two or three minutes probably Once you get comfortable doing it if they don't want to do that. That's fine, too There's a mechanism you can use here and I've got it highlighted in the bottom of the picture First name last name zip code at DAV donor.org. That's our generic Email address that you can use if they don't have their own email address So in my instance, it would be Douglas Wells 41042 at DAV donor.org Okay What's that? Yes, so first name last name zip code at DAV donor.org So like for me it would be Douglas Wells 41042 because that's my zip code at DAV donor.org So just please you know let folks know if they're using the the online application At all whether it's through the mobile app on their pad DAV dot org whatever You know to use a unique email address for every Membership they're signing up and we have seen an ever-increasing Amount of folks signing for people up online especially with the March Madness tournament, so I really appreciate your participation All right, so with respect to the mobile device application It works with both droid phones and Safari Apple phones on the droid side It seems like Google Chrome works the best for this and you don't have any technological issues So launch the web browser whether Safari or Chrome and there's no weird WWW or anything like that just type in DAV dot org slash member app and it'll one of these two screens will pop up and You'll notice the the little lightbox there at the bottom that gives you directions on how to save it to your home screen And really all you're doing is creating an icon from your home screen right to the mobile application Okay, so we've got that form you fill it out The only other little tidbit I would explain to you with respect to the mobile application Again, we're shoehorning a system that wasn't meant to do this into something else and we'll have a better product moving forward I promise to leverage technology on your behalf as much as I can but it's still a great tool to have The only issue is if you have to back up screens sometimes you lose the information So just make sure you have all the information there in front of you to sign somebody up and Advance your screens appropriately and click done at the end. Okay We've also really tried to engage Our folks whether our it's our members or yes, sir. You got a question John Simmons chapter 22 in the great state of Virginia on that Application it's on the the phone we get on there There I can't find a place to put the phone number of the new member. You're trying to recruit on it Yeah, that was identified to me. I didn't realize that that was the case. I'm fixing that you fix it Yep. Yeah, I appreciate that feedback. So and that's a great point You've got my contact information anything that you can that you can you know, think of that can make this process more efficient Easier for you. Whatever I am totally receptive to that So we're trying to engage our members and our member prospects online Look direct mail is not going to go away But direct mail when we send out our annual mailing from headquarters soliciting members It's expensive right and it's kind of like a one-off we shoot the the package to that person and you know, whether they open it up or not we don't know and and You know, it's just paper and postage and all that good stuff. It gets really expensive. So We're shifting some of those resources from our direct mail To online solicitations and we're getting a much bigger bang for our buck that way So whether it's Facebook ads or banner ads on Bing and Google and all the other search engines We're just doing, you know gangbusters with that stuff How many people in here have used the proud to be a member frame in Facebook So yep, quite a few. I really appreciate that share that with other folks Also something that we're really proud to do is we've developed real stories of members that we've helped or members that are going on to help other folks and Sharing those stories with our member prospects. That's really important duty to provide a real-world context For the great work that our members are doing every day and people are responding to it We will be repeating our fall-in campaign I'm going to show you a little video that we created last year here at convention if you haven't seen yet it's pretty terrific our communications team just does such a wonderful job with all that stuff but We you know, September October will start our fall-in campaign. I hope you help us reach out to folks and recruit We're giving you tools to recruit people in the digital world Something else we've really been working at You know when I when I took the reins a couple of years ago I realized very quickly that a lot of our partnerships with what we used to call our member benefits Was they they were just you know defunct and you could maybe get a better deal by just getting a coupon online And none of that stuff, you know honored the service and sacrifice of our members So I was very disappointed in some of that and so with those partner partners You know we sever ties and we said we take we'll circle back around with you and maybe get something that's appropriate For the service and sacrifice that our members have have offered So we've now rebranded Our benefits package to call it member advantages Apparently there was some confusion to whenever we said member benefits people keyed into VA benefits And that's not we wanted so our member advantage partners or a member advantages program Now has you know some oldies, but goodies and a bunch of new partners here So our members will enjoy discounts and special offers from our growing family of partners and in return all of these members All of these partners will give back to DEV for our members using their services So that's kind of a key component of what we're trying to do. It's called an affinity relationship So when they get paid we get paid we can turn around and hire more service officers and buy more vehicles and all the great stuff that we do right so You know Ford has been a legacy partner with us for a long time USA obviously is a stalwart North American is Really the biggest legacy partner that that didn't want to lose us So we kept them on board from you know through the whole process and they've signed a nice deal with us Identity guard, you know, it's threat Identity theft protection 1-800 flowers everybody's familiar with them mobility roadside assistance. They're like tow trucks that can accommodate people With special needs like if they're in a wheelchair or whatnot. So that's pretty terrific and PCS grades is a company that Does like real estate services and whatnot as well Little inside baseball. We're getting ready to close the deal with avis and budget So we'll have a rental car company on board as well. So this these partners will continue to grow and grow and grow until well, not until but We just want to make sure we're Using this and leveraging this as a way to continue to enhance improve DAV's programs and services So I mentioned we filmed a little video last year at convention that we're using as part of our fall-in program Or a campaign we used it last year. We'll use it again this year with some other stuff that we're planning on doing But I just wanted to share this with you. We hadn't had a chance to see it yet What does DAV mean to you? DAV for me means family. You know what they're awesome organization DAV means camaraderie and one word DAV means service. The DAV means inspiration to me DAV to me means the insurance of all future veterans lives To me DAV means commitment commitment to other veterans and helping them through the transition out of service DAV means to me integrity To me DAV means brotherhood. I found that brotherhood after I left service I joined the DAV to be able to have a voice for the veterans so we weren't just left to the wayside DAV to be being life So again, thank you to our communications team for that. They did a great job with that again So I Mentioned I was going to try to fly through these slides because I'm sure I'm gonna have a lot of questions But before I take your questions I just want to do something that I was remiss of not doing in the in the beginning I want to recognize a couple people so first off in the audience if Robin and Heather could stand up Robin Higgins my membership manager and Heather Kohlmeyer my business analyst. I don't think Robbins left Registration more than a half a dozen times all week. So it's doing a great job for us twice. Okay. She's telling me twice. Yes, you'll get a raise Robin But And Heather is one of my business analysts her along with Darlene Purcell back at headquarters Just you know, blow me away with what they do every day And also want to recognize our inner membership committee on the end. We have Penny Johnson from Utah Tank Mizzio from Missouri Mason causey from Louisiana And Warren Tobin from the great state of North Dakota our chairman So in afterwards after we finish up here They stand ready to answer questions, too And if they don't have the answer they can certainly articulate it and give it to me. Okay So with that questions Please use the mics if you could Hey, Tommy. Hey, Doug Tom Wendell chapter 10 Virginia in Reference to the list that you're gonna be sending out to us once we request it Let's just say I asked for the list with people that have emails as Far as a Templated letter. Have you thought about creating a letter that I could use to put into that email? No, that's a great idea though. I can't wait to hear see it from you Tommy Same thing when you with the you know, I got the list of the prospect members and you know I called Robin and said a is there a letter and you know She said no and I was thinking a little way of creating a letter for that purpose actually That's a great job for the you know membership committee. Could you write that down and we'll work on that? That's that's a great idea. Thank you, Tom. All right. Thank you, Doug boy chapter one Raleigh Nightdale, North Carolina a follow-up to his question Why do we have to request the list? Why can't you come up with a system that pushes the list down to each of the chapters? So as I was mentioning the the list the files Would be too unruly they get too big and we just they're too big to email and on top of that I Don't want to send you stuff that you just don't need So if you if you kind of talk to my membership specialist and let them know what you're looking to do whether it's a mail campaign or a Email campaign or a phone campaign whatever it may be they can massage that and get you the best most current hottest leads All right. Thank you. Yep And by the way, it's not just calling us if you want to shoot us an email at the membership public email box You can do that as well Bonnie we're own Colorado commander. Hi, Bonnie. I still carry my book around so I can sign everybody in Because I like the information that is on the carbon So I could follow up with them later because once you put it all on Here or whatever you've lost their information and a lot of times I like to get back with the telephone number email or something like that ask them how they're doing But you don't have the carbon on here. Let me go ahead. Okay now Here's the strategy you can do on that what you do is after you get them Then you go pull that information off on the membership portal once they're a member and then you can contact to say Congratulations, you're now a member of the DAV. We've got your information. You can do the follow up that at that point Rather than off the carbon Okay, maybe do I can do both but I still carry my book around because Preferences, but I mean this together. I'm just pointing out another strategy that you could use Right, and we we did look at something like that again Like I said, we're using technology that just isn't capable of being that robust But the new technology that I'm hopeful employee could also CC the recruiter So this whoever the sponsor of that member was that's what we're gonna try to do. Thank you. Yep Great ideas. Yes, sir. You know Fred Smith senior vice state of the Jersey. I Looked at the last year. I was the chairman of membership and I looked at those spreadsheets They were a horror show They try to put them together Now I understand you say now you have the zip codes to go with them I have two secretaries still working on it to try to the part-time Members to try to find out who they are where they live and the zip code. So can we get that? Try to make life a little easier. So what you're talking about. I think we're the trial member zip code list, right? So all of those folks have been moved we can give you better prospect files now moving forward All that was meant to do was to say hey We're on the clock with these particular people if we can reach out to as many of them as possible And I knew in some cases it was you know 150,000 I get it You know so you don't really need to worry about those anymore They're part of the prospect file and if you get new prospect files and as I mentioned let my team help massage the file for you You'll be in a much better place. Thank you. Yep Yes, sir. Good afternoon Carl Martin chapter 5 Los Angeles, California I have two questions one on the online application for somebody over 80 that there's no payment required You cannot submit it So I think what you're experiencing there there is a box that you check that says over 80 Depending on your internet connection. You have to wait a moment and the form will switch So all you have to do is record their like their name address Birthday their information that way Or when you put in their birth date, it does it automatically now. That's what it does, right? Sorry So we just made that change here recently So yeah, you got to give the form the opportunity to switch based on your internet connection So it'll switch to a different form that will not require a payment Okay, I couldn't get that to do that. The other thing is When we submit membership for our chapter a lot of times our members are going to another chapter And not to our chapter when we're specifying it. Why is that and how can we reverse it other than? Do the routine to submit the transfer? It seems like it's a problem for us well Again, that's been an ongoing battle with this system for us Making sure that folks are being put into the appropriate chapter Unfortunately the way that the system works right now Just to kind of again give folks some inside baseball is whatever chapter So if you put in 41042 for the zip code The system doesn't use true geocoding what it does is it finds the chapter that has the most members that have 41042 as the zip code and that's what it tries to default them into That doesn't always work out based on geography or whatever the case may be So you kind of have to override that and let it know but what you're telling me is that you you select a specific chapter And it's putting them in somewhere else, right? Okay, so we'll have to take a look at that and see what the the what's going on Technologically there and try to address that for you. Could you send me an email? I have my cards Certainly will yeah, send me an email and and the one last quick thing. I got it on the portal getting in there It locked me out I can't figure out how to get in it. Who do you call? Who do you contact? So we had a seminar here. We do a seminar every year. I do two seminars our membership portal seminar and I do that on the Friday and then we do our membership seminar But Heather Kohlmeyer here the person one of the people just hit raise your hand Heather She's got a desk in the registration office in the back corner and she can help you fix that great. Thank you so much. Yep Daniel Floyd Chapter 92 High Desert, California so First question I had when we contact your team to get the list of the prospect file Specifically, how does that how do is that gonna come in a PDF mail? Piece of paper because typically electronics typically they'll send it to you in Excel spreadsheet So you can sort it mail merge it whatever you want. It's gonna be on a disk. No, it'll they'll email it to you They'll email it correct. Okay, so then Once I get possession of it And I start pursuing it and working it, you know like a good recruiter does Our conversion ratio, why don't we incentivize when we get that list for You know those isolated pieces the person that is or the chapter that's working at the best and Then I think that would give us more incentive to convert what you guys have collected To what we actually are gaining, you know, that's that's a great idea Again, I keep I hate to keep leaning on this But you know the the limitations of the technology that we have with our new system Perhaps that's something we could track at that finite of a level but right now we kind of have to keep it to a global standard so that We're not You know being drugged down and in record-keeping, you know what I'm saying understand that be all we do all day every day But if we could automate that process, I'm all for it I love individual accolades like that for chapters and individual recruiters. Okay, great idea. Thank you Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Doug. This is Greg Dunham. I'm first junior vice commander Department Texas chapter 22 commander of Department Texas. I'd like to report that we are re-leaning forward We have already taken the list from you and we have our first open house of chapter 2 residence Texas in our zip code areas In August so we're doing that we're leaning forward on that issue but my issue is That Bob our bylaws That if you are not a paid member within two years or have made payment within two years You're a member in bad standing. What is the? What is the DAV official? wreck Stance on that so when you say our bylaws you mean our DAVs bylaws our chapter bylaws Okay, so that would be not in accordance with DAVs bylaws right you would need to change your bylaws on that Okay, so what it what is the official stance, right? So the official stance is So a couple of things and I we've been talking about this an awful lot later. Yes. I don't know it so Here's the thing as your national membership director It's my responsibility to make sure that if Joe Schmuckatelli Sends in a membership application with 40 bucks right in 2018 right I need to keep a record of that right so After we've made so many distributions based on that payment to the chapters and departments everybody's familiar that we Distribute out for fundraising purposes to the chapters and apartments right After we've exhausted that initial $40 payment They would then eventually after three year ends go to The department at large they'd become what they call what we call an inactive member Right they go to the department at large and then ultimately to our what we call our nomad chapter our national a large chapter, okay? So technically when they pay when they become a part-life member They're really a member forever because I have to keep them on the rolls not towards our active membership Okay, this I'm getting a little into the weeds here But I have to keep a record of that because if in 2025 Joe Schmuckatelli walks back in and pays off the other 210 bucks. I have to apply that credit to him Okay, and make him a full-life member Right, so the to answer your initial question After three years they go to the department at large and then after another three they go to the nomad chapter Okay, I have some that were on there for six years So there's a couple of things that could be happening there But if you identify that when you're looking at your membership roster and you're seeing anomalies Just let us know who the arm will take a look at them for you. Okay. All right. Thank you It says something and I want that to be a an overriding. Go ahead Robin What Robin just explained and pardon me if I wasn't clear on this so once you exo they exhaust their membership Which will take a couple few years then they have to be inactive for three years in order for them to go to the department I understand. Thank you very much. Yep. So and they're inactive unable to distribute. So that's what Robin was saying. Thank you, Robin Yes, ma'am. Hello, Doug. It's Regina Fortner unit 130, Michigan. Yay Yay, just clarification because people Look at things differently. You kept saying with a credit card Okay Is it credit card or credit card debit card? You can use a debit card for that purpose Okay, well when you said just credit card a lot of people would stick to any electronic form of payment. Okay Sidor's chapter 7 Minnesota Doug you may already have said this but because of my hearing I may have missed it When we signed someone up for that ten dollars does that count as part of our goal? Member yep part life members count the count towards if you start a new chapter you have to have 25 members now Well, that's and you have do they have to be fully paid members or can they be part paid to like this ten dollars a month? So first of all the 25 members to start a charter To receive a charter that's a proposed bylaw change that hasn't gone into effect yet. I just want to be very clear on that And yes part life members count towards Establishing a chapter. Yep, so we could have sign up 25 people At ten dollars a month and they could start a chapter correct. Is that correct? Yep. Thank you What's that? Once the bylaws pass Hopefully at the end of this convention, but that won't go until effect until next year. No, it'll be the next membership year July 1st Good afternoon Maddie de Bramileta chapter 4 South Carolina Thanks for answering the question about the inactive members. I did have a question about that and I'm clear on it The unable to distribute was on the list and I didn't understand what that was all about. So thank you so much My other question is about the at-large members when the veteran go into the just at DAV and File their claims and then they ask they become a member if they do not specify what chapter They want to go to is in this at-large did I understand correctly that you look at the that the system look at the zip code as to where Your chapters are signed and that's how they are distributed. Well, no, no, so First of all, I think you had two different questions really kind of in one there if We receive an application at headquarters where there is no chapter assigned my team assigns the most geographically convenient chapter Okay, so there we don't put people in at-large chapters. We assign them to chapters So even if they did not personally elect to be in a chapter if they're a brand new member We're gonna put them in a chapter. Okay, we don't want folks in at-large chapters That doesn't help you with your distributions either Secondly what I was talking about with respect to the system and the way the zip code works What I'm saying is if you put in like for my zip code 41042, okay? The system gives you a list of chapters and The one that's at the very top will be the chapter that has the most members that have the zip code 41042 Thank you. So that it's just The system did not was not able to employ true geocoding back then As a Membership chair would I be able to will I get x can I have access to the at-large for my state or for those zip codes and then You're at the department level. No Yeah, so if you're at the chapter level, we'll give you the at-large for your chapters What's the word I'm looking for yeah, they're a jurisdiction that's the word I was looking for thank you so much yep So last two questions right here Gary Colletti chapter 46 Whittier, California I'm an I'm a department service officer for DAV But I'm also a service officer a national for another organization BFW We recruit a lot of a Lot of young OIF OEF A desert storm everyone that are going to college community college State colleges and that most of them have a veterans club if you're chapter service officers or your department service officers Go to the colleges and introduce themselves and tell them about a 21- 0966 an intent to file a lot of them are struggling to stay in school and Stay in school and finance their way through their life You're offering them an intent to file gives them one year to file a claim which a lot of them are Because they're back from Afghanistan or Iraq or a combat zone Could be PTSD could be any of the Desert storm or whatever things but that intent to file on a business card Saying where their chapter is at and come in and have them help have them come in and visit without obligation and Get help and and starting a claim or something within the first year Works wonders. So what you're saying is DAV is a service first organization And then if we offer service first people are more amenable to becoming members, right, right? That's perfect. There's a whole webinar on DAV org about that very thing That form 21-0966 you can get it off the VA.gov website under forms Write that in print it out Go to the colleges. Let's make sure our certified chapter service officers are engaging in that, right, okay? Thank you. Yes, ma'am last question Okay, I'm Teresa Dula from North Carolina, and I have a question pertaining to The membership when they go inactive and when they go to at large as far as the chapters are we still like per se? Paying taxes on members and do we get money back on them or when we stop get money back that Should get back to us right when they're inactive and at large right the distribution Yeah distribution, right? Yeah, so if they're inactive and unable to distribute the note You don't get anything for them, okay? So the idea is we want to give them a chance to come back in and fulfill Their obligation before they're taken out of your chapter, okay? Because once that happens in order for them to get back into a chapter. We've got to execute a transfer form. Okay, right? Thank you. All right, Robin. Did you have a point of clarification that you wanted to make? I'm gonna repeat it So what she's mentioning it with respect to just a point of clarification department officials request department at large or Rosters of the department of large folks, but also that there are some people that want to be in department at large So we have to be careful about, you know requesting that they come into the chapters. So I had last question, sir Oh Don't know what that was John Simmons Great state of Virginia chapter 22. Could you tell us again what the distribution is? How much do we get per? Full life paid member partial life paid. I'll have to look that up for you I can't remember what it is right now off top of my head, but it's in the Constitution and bylaws So yeah, the minimums are in the Constitution by laws and NEC can go above the minimums, right? So it's in the Constitution bylaws. Yep Okay, one other thing I wanted to point out before I close here Is that something we're trying to do is be a no wrong door? Department at membership. So even if it's a question that I can't or my team can't answer for you We're gonna get to the right place, right? We're here. We're on your side. I want you to remind folks, too that You know, if they get the letters from that are that over my signature Saying hey, you got 30 days to give me your office report or else that sort of stuff They are that all those letters also say please call if you have questions or concerns and I want you to We created a new position called membership report liaisons that do all things for me with respect to officer reports annual financial reports All that stuff they work hard every single day A lot of times they can get you on the phone and get you your question answered in just a couple of minutes So don't hesitate to reach out if you have a question or concern about anything or like I mentioned earlier a good suggestion I'm gonna hang out the Interim Membership Committee will be here with me to answer questions. I do have some cards up here folks I can't tell you how much I appreciate your attendance and attention. Thank you so much