 Good morning. Thank you for being here so early. Today we're going to be talking about our new platform VolunteerForVeterans.org. Before I get started I'd like to introduce the folks up here on stage. We have the Assistant Voluntary Services Director Ron Minner. Way to go Eddie, I like it. Is that better? All right. And then I also have Tim Hughes up here. Tim is our new CRM manager at DAV. So they just took in that role a week ago Tim. But Tim has been very instrumental in helping us tweak VolunteerForVeterans. Some of you may have been at midwinter when we launched this program. It's been tweaked pretty significantly since then. We now have social media working on it, a lot of other things. So we're going to cover a lot of stuff this morning. We're going to go through all my slides and then we're going to go through an actual sign up a veteran, sign up a volunteer so you can see it in action. It's actually very simple. So next slide Tim. So why volunteer? Well it's important as an organization such as DAV that we capture everything that we do in service to our brothers and sisters in arms. It helps us with our watchdog groups. It helps us when we're in Washington DC doing our testimony before the committees. It helps you when you go and ask for something in your local areas. So a lot of you say well I like doing this stuff. I just don't want to report my hours. That's not the right kind of attitude. You put that stuff into our system. We're able to run your report. That way when you're out in your communities and you're talking to your representatives talking to major donors, maybe major corporations who want to see what you do as a DAV member, we have stuff that we can give to you guys. Next slide. Here's a video on how to enroll for volunteer for veterans. We know there are lots of caring individuals who want to give back and say thanks to the veterans in their community, but it's not always clear how. DAV's new volunteer for veterans website is making it easier than ever to honor the service and sacrifices of our nation's heroes. VolunteerForVeterans.org is a new platform that connects volunteers with local veterans. The site also makes it simple for veterans and caregivers to find assistance from individuals who want to help. The website's easy to use. First, make a quick profile by clicking the login sign up button at the top right of your screen. Next, go to click here to register your account and fill out a short profile. Here, you'll identify yourself as a volunteer, a veteran, or a caregiver. Finally, check your inbox for a confirmation email. If you don't see it, be sure to check your spam folder. Click the link in the confirmation email and you'll be prompted to create an account password. And that's it! You're now officially a part of our amazing volunteer community and you're ready to start searching for opportunities to give back. Click the home button, input your zip code and select how far you'd like to search, then hit the search button. At any time, you can add opportunities to your profile. Click the drop-down arrow next to your name at the top right and select my profile. You can add pictures and information about yourself and even notify DAV if you need claims assistance. Through volunteerforveterans.org, we're making it easy for volunteers and veterans to make the connection. We appreciate every person who takes part in this amazing community, so make sure to share this video and spread the word. It's not easy to build a profile. Ways to volunteer. I get asked all the time, what I'm doing this in my community, is this count? Does this count? There's a huge list up here on the screen. Any talent that you have that you can help somebody in your community and give back by all means, please do so through this platform. All your hours are automatically captured once we partner the opportunity up, so there's no reporting that you need to do. You've just done the opportunity for that individual and it's done. These are just, again, just many examples of what counts as volunteerism. Next slide. When entering at www.volunteerforveterans.org's website, you'll be directed to this homepage. From here, you can do a search inquiry. You can sign up, log in, and if you're already a member of DAV, you still need to register because you've got to build your own account, your own profile. On the homepage, you can also list the volunteer services that are needed, so if there are opportunities there, you can see what's available for you. And you can also type in a zip code and search from anywhere from five to a hundred miles. Next slide. From the homepage, you can also register your account. There are four categories in which a person can register. If you note in that video, you just saw that there were only three. There's a veteran tab, caregiver, volunteer, or on behalf of someone. Maybe you have a World War II veteran who lives next to you and he or she does not have the capability to operate a computer or doesn't have a computer. You can build it on their behalf. We call it an advocate internally. It's the terminology we're using. Next slide. If you try to click log on from either location on the homepage, you'll be directed to this screen below. It is mandatory to have an account before proceeding to the website. From the screen below, you will have the availability to check here to register your account. When you register for volunteer for veterans.org, you will be redirected to the registration page on this screen. It's the online registration. Can everybody see that? I'll gladly share this presentation with each and every one of you. Just give me your card and we'll email that out to you or I'll put it on the members only portal of the DAV.org. Next slide. Once you've filled out the online registration, click submit. You will receive this message stating your account has been successfully registered. After successfully registering your account, you will receive an email from volunteer for veterans. Once you open this email, you will receive a link and a message as the one above. Please note that your username will be the email to which you registered your account. Once you click on the link, it will redirect you to a page to create your own password. Here you can create your own unique password. Please note that there are specific requirements to create your password. Make sure you meet those needs that are started up on this slide. Once you create your account, you can view and change your profile, your account, and your settings. Once you create your password, you will be guided to this screen for the first time. From this screen, you can view several items on the page. You can see from creating your profile it will automatically generate your city and state on the page. It will advise you of how many opportunities are listed on the website and how many available opportunities are within your city and state. From this example, you can see there are currently zero opportunities in Verona, Kentucky. In case you know people in other areas of the country, you can perform a search by zip code and select how many miles of that zip code and view those available opportunities. And lastly, from this page, you can create your own opportunity, whether for yourself or for an individual you know that needs any assistance under the Create an Opportunity tab. If you do not have the ability to register online, do not use a computer, you can fill out this registration form and return it to our office and we'll input the information for you. Now if a person is volunteering is under the age of 18, a parent or legal guardian must execute a parental consent form and return it to DAV. The circled wording on this slide is actually a hyperlink to the parental consent form. The minor will be allowed to complete the registration but will not be able to sign up for any opportunity until we receive that form in headquarters and check that off in our systems of checks and balances. Next slide. This is a blown-up screen of the blown-up image of the home screen. From this drop-down box, you can add a new request or an opportunity on behalf of yourself or veteran. Search for available opportunities where you are or a group of people can volunteer within your area, state, nationwide and you can view all opportunities listed which need volunteers to complete work. Once you click on the My Request, Add New Request, it will redirect you to this page. You will be able to log in from this page and add your opportunity. Once you click on Create an Opportunity, this will pop up to be completed by yourself, whether for yourself or someone else who needs the assistance. You have the opportunity once it's completed to post it or save for later. Once it has been posted, it will be added to all the available opportunities listed on the page. From the Volunteer Opportunities drop-down, if you select and or click the View by Opportunities by State, this screen will appear. On this screen, you can view all available opportunities across all states or you can also filter it by state if needed. You can see at both the top and under the Opportunity detail the details of the specific opportunity and what service they are requesting. Also in the event you click the wrong Volunteer Opportunity, you can again view the city and state from this page as well. Most importantly, without logging in or creating an account, you can still view all Volunteer Opportunities. However, you will not be able to sign up for a Volunteer Opportunity until you log into your account or register for a new account. On the next slide, you will see the difference once you are logged into your account. If you choose to log in to your account from this screen, it will prompt you to go to the log in screen. However, once you are logged into your account, you will be directed back to the Opportunity page. You will not have to run through all the steps to get back to the Opportunity detailed listing. As I just mentioned, once you log into your account, you will be able to be directed back to this screen now with the option to sign up for a Volunteer Opportunity. If you are interested in the Opportunity, hit sign up. Check the dates and see if you are available then secure that time or that opportunity. We have also included a report this posting. Through this we have individuals monitoring all opportunities. If you feel the opportunity is inappropriate, please do not hesitate to report the posting. But I do ask that you bring it to my attention or Ron's attention to remember of our staff. Once you click sign up, this screen will appear showing you have successfully signed up for the opportunity that you choose. While logged in and you are viewing the Opportunity and feel there is an issue with the Opportunity, an example would be of misuse of volunteers, you can report this posting by clicking on the red report this posting box. This posting will be taken down temporarily and reported to our team. We will investigate it and permanently remove it if necessary. Social media is a huge part of this program's success. The next several slides will direct you in being able to share these opportunities with friends. If you are a veteran, you may know a fellow veteran in another area of the country where he or she may need assistance. So inform your old buddies that Volunteer Opportunities existed and tell them about this website. From the Opportunities page, you can share any opportunity on Facebook, Twitter, or even email yourself or someone you know who might be interested in volunteering to assist a veteran in your area. In just two simple clicks, this can be posted on your Facebook page. On the All Opportunities by State page, click Facebook icon and from there, click post to Facebook. We encourage you to post Volunteer Opportunities on your social media page as it will heighten awareness for veterans' needs. Again, in two clicks, this can be posted on your Twitter account. On the All Opportunities by State page, click the Twitter icon and from there, click Tweet. If you click the email icon, you can send an email from your personal email to yourself or to others, which will include the link to the Volunteer Opportunity that you choose. If you click Support, you will find the most frequently asked questions since the program's inception. The next slide will include all the facts from this menu. This page has the most frequently asked questions. As you can see, we take everyone's concerns and issues very seriously. Once you click on one of these answers, well excuse me, once you click on one of these questions, it will drop down to an answer. The DAV links drop down will direct you to DAV.org's website once you click on it. And here's some good tips. If you are a veteran and you're renting a home, we can't do anything to modify that home without the landlord or the homeowner's written consent. If you're needing something for a funeral details, build the opportunity in the system and we'll work to help promote it and get you the people to come actively help and pay proper respects for that person who's being interned. Share this with the youths. Kids nowadays use their smart phones for just about everything. This is a great opportunity. They can sign up from their phone, do everything from the phone without ever turning on a laptop or a desktop. And obviously, they can donate. If you're looking for someone to make a donation to DAV, there's a Donate button on here. They can log on to VolunteerProventers.org and click the Donate button to make a donation. Again, I want to thank everybody for caring, for doing so much, for giving back to the people in their communities. It's important that we help promote this new product. It's not designed to replace what we currently have in our, excuse me, it's not designed to replace what we currently are using through the local Veterans Assistance Program. It's designed to complement it. It's another resource for people to use. All right, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to have Tim, we're going to go through a process, one at a time, building this so you can see it live. He's logged on to the internet here. So, Tim, go ahead and do what you want to do here. Can everybody hear me? Is that all right? Okay. What we're going to do, as John said, is we're going to go actually to... No, I got to get closer. All right. Can you hear me now? All right. So, what we're going to do is we're going to go through the actual website. This is a demo version of the website. So, by creating these profiles, we're not actually in there, but it is an exact duplicate of what you would see if you went out to volunteerforveterans.org today. So, one of the things we wanted to do was kind of do exactly what John did in his presentation. And we're going to log in and register one as a veteran and show you all the things you can do as a veteran. And then we're going to log in and register as a volunteer and show you the differences between what a veteran can do and what a volunteer can do. So, as the presentation indicated, the first thing you have to do is log in. There is some information on the main home page that will give you some idea of what you can do. There are four options, as John indicated. If you click on either one of these options, regardless of which you click on these, or if you click on log in and register, it's going to take you to the exact same spot. So, it doesn't matter. You don't have to come back up to the top if you happen to be reading the page. So, I'm going to click on log in and register. And then because I don't have an account today, I need to go down here to not register it and click here to register your account. It's going to ask you for some basic information. I'm going to register Ron because he needs to sign up. And then we're going to, I don't know how we're going to make him, but we're going to make him pretty old. Okay. And then I'm going to go, I have As soon as it came out, I knew it was Dustin, not the word. So, for that, I apologize. That's why they don't put me up here usually. That's my fault. There's no recovering. Okay. Yeah, yeah. You want anything you want about Ron, I'm going to go ahead and include it. Anything I can do to distract from what I just did. All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and sign up. One of the things we have asked people to do is kind of give us an indication of how they heard about Volunteer4Veterans.org. That way we can start tracking what type of initiatives we have and how successful they are doing, right? So, there's a drop down menu that says how did you hear about Volunteer4Veterans. There's a few options. There's other. There's family and friends, social media, DAV member, DAV department chapter event. So, we're trying to get the idea of what is the most successful initiative. So, we've defaulted to others so that if they don't choose it, they don't have to. But I'm going to go ahead and choose social media. And then we're going to put in Ron's address. And then you have to select which time zone you're in. So, one of the key things about Volunteer4Veterans.org is that what you noticed in John's presentation, everything shows you I want somebody here at 9 a.m. to do to mow my grass or 10 a.m. to mow my grass. Whatever time zone you select, it will offset whatever the time is that the volunteer or the veteran has indicated. So, if they're on the west coast and you indicated you were on the east coast, it would adjust those times accordingly. So, you need to make sure you select the correct time zone that responds to your time zone. There's also, going back to where it is, when you saw John's presentation, there were four options. We've kind of labeled those same four options and duplicated them here. If you are a veteran who needs help or you want to help, one of the things about being a veteran is you have the ability not only to create an opportunity for yourself, but you have the opportunity, you have the ability to volunteer for other opportunities as well. So, if you are a veteran and you want to volunteer, you still would choose the first option that says I'm a veteran. That will give you the full capability of the website to do whatever it is that you want to do. If you are a caregiver and you need assistance with your veteran, you can choose this option, same thing with if I'm just wanting to volunteer and I'm not a veteran, or I want to help a veteran I know get help. So, this is the advocate option that John was referring to in his presentation. We wanted to make sure that anybody could help anybody they wanted to, right? It didn't have to be somebody who was unable to make things happen. We wanted the option that everybody can do what they need to do. So, I'm going to go ahead and choose veteran so that we can go ahead and get this profile created. We've indicated here a way for you to choose what your affiliation is with DAV. So, if I'm in the department of Kentucky, it will it will bring up once I choose Kentucky, it will bring up all the chapters and units that are affiliated with Kentucky. So, then I can go and choose and say, okay, I'm with chapter 19 and then I can also indicate what branch service I was affiliated to. These are all optional fields. They are not required. One of the things you will notice from the very beginning is anything with that red asterisk is the only thing we are requiring. So, you can give us the extra information if you would like, but you're only required to fill out whatever has the red asterisk. So, it's pretty straightforward. You put in your basic information, you put in your address and then you indicate to us how you would like to use the website. At the very end, we have put a disclaimer to the website. You will not be able to proceed if you do not check, I agree to this disclaimer. So, if you try to hit submit and you didn't check the box, it will yell at you and say, hey, you have to go check the box before you can proceed. So, I'm going to check the box and do as I say and then hit submit. So, really, that's all there is to it. Once I hit submit, it will do exactly what John's screen said. Hopefully. Okay. You are registered successfully. Please check your email to activate. So, one of the things we would like you to do is to go ahead and sign up while you're here. That way, you can reach out to John, you can reach out to Ron or you can reach out to myself if you have trouble. Having said that, the key thing is to make sure you have your email as well because you'll need to be able to click on the email to activate your account. When I go check the email, you'll get an email that looks like this. Hopefully, everybody can see it. But it will say, welcome to Volunteer for Veterans. And then you click on the link as John indicated to set your password. Once you click on that link, you will be asked to set a password that follows these rules. It must be eight characters at a minimum. It must have one letter. It must have one number. By clicking that link, it has redirected me to the homepage and it has actually logged Ron in. You'll know that Ron is logged in because up here in the top-hand corner is showing that Ron is currently logged in. You can do things like set a picture there, set a profile, change your settings. We're not going to walk through those today. What I want to make sure is that we use our time wisely and we focus on what we need to do. So, you can see that Ron here is listed in Cold Spring, Kentucky. Currently, in our development area, there's only two opportunities as John showed you. There were 14 to 15 in the production environment. And it shows you that one of them does exist in Cold Spring, Kentucky. So, this is a very quick indicator that immediately I already know before I go searching for opportunities that I have one in my area, but there's also two available to me. As a veteran, you can either search for opportunities, which means you can sign up to help another veteran, or you can create an opportunity for yourself. What we want to make sure is that all of this that we're showing you today is straightforward. If for some reason anything on this screen is confusing or you're having trouble, I believe, as Ron was speaking on behalf of them, they welcome any feedback that you have. So, when you want to create an opportunity, creating an opportunity means you need assistance for yourself, right? So, if you need somebody to help mow your grass, you need somebody to take you to the doctors, you need somebody to, you know, it's just spend time with your veteran. You can post all of those opportunities there. So, I'm going to search for an opportunity first. What I'm going to do, I already know that there's an opportunity in Zip Code and Cold Spring, Kentucky, or 41076, because it's telling me right there on the top of the screen. But when I hit search, it'll come back and it'll give me the results and say, here's the opportunity that I found. And then I'll show you when you log in as a volunteer how to continue that process. But at least you can see that you have the same functionality that a volunteer will have and that you can sign up for these opportunities yourself. If you put in a Zip Code that had no opportunities, it'll come back and tell you, I didn't find one in that area. You can view all the opportunities that are available by clicking this link. So, it kind of basically guides you through, hey, you put in a Zip Code, I didn't have anything, but hey, go here and see what else you can sign up for, right? Or maybe there's one, you know, 30 miles away or 50 miles away, whatever it is. So, I'm going to go ahead and click on Create an Opportunity. When you click on Create an Opportunity, it's going to ask you the information about what it is exactly that you need. So, this brief description is what we use to kind of show in that detail to give an idea to that person as to what you're trying to accomplish. You don't have to get too detailed on this first one. The detail is in the next box. We really just want it short and sweet, just exactly what would catch the eye of anybody who you needed to volunteer for you. So, I'm going to go ahead and call it Yardwork. And then I would go in and create a full description. This description can handle up to, I don't remember the exact amount of characters, but it can handle a lot of characters. So, you feel free to type in everything you want that volunteer to know about what you need. The more information you provide them up front, the better they'll be when they reach out to you. Once you have, once you have given it a brief description, you need to tell us what category it falls in. So, we have created some of the categories that we think are the most popular. This list can be updated, so we encourage you to go out there and try to create these opportunities. And if you find something that's missing, please let us know. This was our best shot at saying, these are the categories we think are the most prominent and what we anticipate using, people using Volunteer for Veterans for. So, because I chose Yardwork, I'm going to go ahead and choose the category that responds to Yardwork. If you are the veteran yourself, you don't have to put anything in here. We will know that you are the one who signed up. This box is here for when you're putting in opportunities on behalf of somebody else. So, because you're going to be the person logged in, we want to make sure we know the name of the person you're trying to get help for. So, I'm going to go ahead and put Ron in there. It's going to ask me what's my relationship to Ron. So, if I am Ron and I'm entering an opportunity for myself, I'm just going to hit self. If I'm entering an opportunity for a friend, or a family member, or a caregiver, or another fellow DAV member who is unable to do the website or under the Perform the Operations himself, I can choose that as well. So, for this particular one, because it's Ron, I'm going to go ahead and set self. This is where you would describe any particular skills that might be needed. So, if it's Yardwork, but it's a certain type of Yardwork that might require a certain skill, you would want to put that here. Again, these are optional. They're not fields that are indicated in red. They're not anything you have to do. We would want to make sure you indicate as much as you could to let the person know who's volunteering, whether or not they're qualified, right, or whether or not you deem them to be qualified. So, are there any special skills you can put anything there? And if there's any special equipment that you're able to provide. So, if it is Yardwork and you're able to provide a lawn mower, you might want to indicate there that you can provide the lawn mower, but they would have to bring any other pruning tools or anything else that you might need. We have given the option here to say that this needs to be a trusted volunteer. All of our volunteers are trusted, but we have certain rules in place that if it's of sensitive nature, and you want to make sure you limit that pool to the ones who have performed several operations on behalf of Volunteer for Veterans, you can indicate that here by saying yes, right? So, if you say yes, it will limit the number of volunteers that you're able to sign up for your job based on whether they've done enough verified work on behalf of Volunteer for Veterans. So, this option here should be used only when you truly want somebody who has gone through the process and been vetted out completely. Otherwise, you can leave it as no. This, I think, is the part that causes the most confusion in terms of what do I put here? So, one of the things you may have is you may say, I need somebody to mow my lawn, but you don't have a particular date and time that you want it to happen. We are accepting any feedback that you have as to how to make this process better. One of the things you have to do in its current state is you have to pick a date and time. You will be able to say this job recurs often. So, if I want somebody to come every Tuesday at 6 o'clock, I can do that. If I want them to come every other Tuesday or Tuesday and Thursday, I can indicate that later. But what I do have to do at this time is I have to pick a start date and a time. I can't just say I need somebody to help me. I need to say exactly when they do that because the entire process is based on time and opportunity. So, we're welcoming any feedback that you think can make it better, but at this time, you have to choose a date and time. So, I'm going to say that on Saturday at 2 o'clock, I need somebody to help me. And I'm anticipating that it's going to last, it's going to take them an hour, right? So, this is your way of letting the volunteer know I need you around 2 o'clock and I anticipated taking an hour, right? So, if you're anticipating it taking 2, 3, 4 hours, you would just indicate that by the time difference, right? So, if you wanted them to start at 2 and you think they're going to finish by 6, you would indicate that here. If the hours exceed what you have done here, the volunteer will have the opportunity to actually say how long it took them. So, you're not going to hurt them by putting anything here, you're just indicating what you think is your initial thought on how long this will take. So, then you all go down to the next part and you'll say how many volunteers do you expect there to be. I expect that it's only going to take one person. And then you can say whether or not you want this job to recur often. So, if I want them to come to my house and do yard work every day, I can certainly indicate that. If I wanted them to come weekly or monthly, I can certainly indicate that as well. So, if I want them to come weekly, then I get to say, okay, I would prefer you to come on Saturday and Wednesday and it will create an opportunity for however long you have indicated for every Wednesday and Saturday for somebody to come out there. It doesn't mean that somebody will, they still have to have somebody who can sign up for it, but it'll create all that opportunity out there and at least give them the option to choose whatever they, whatever they're able to help you with. I can set a stop date, right? So, if I anticipate that I need yard work to recur every Wednesday and Saturday, but I'm not going to need it in December, I can indicate that I wanted to stop sometime in September, sometime in October, whenever I wanted to stop. If you choose a date here, there's no reason to create, put the number of recurrences and try to figure that out. The system is smart enough to know exactly what that is. So, you actually have the option to choose either one of those. You can pick a target date as to when you wanted to stop or you can say how many times you wanted to. Those are interchangeable, you don't have to do both of them. You can either just pick a date or you can put the number of that you want in there. If you note, it will automatically default the address to whatever address is associated with your profile. So, when I created Ron's profile, I put in that he was at headquarters and so it's going to automatically default that address based on what I have in my profile. You can change it, right? So, if I need, if I create a profile for myself, but I'm actually trying to help others, I would want to make sure I put the address of wherever I wanted that to happen, right? So, this is something you can change. We just thought it would be easier just to default it to what you have and then change it if you need to, right? As John showed you, you can save this for later or you can actually post it. By posting it, should there not be any issues, it will immediately post to the website and people can immediately start signing up for it. If for some reason there's an issue with it, it will go to John's team and they will review it and it may take a little time to post it. We haven't had any of that go on to date, but just want to make sure that if it doesn't, if you don't notice that it posted immediately, that's because it's being reviewed by John's team. 99% of them should post immediately. So, when I go ahead and it post it now, it will bring back a thing that says this volunteer job, this volunteer opportunity was created successfully. Do you want me to continue just to go through it? I already want to let them ask questions. Okay. So, that's how you go, that's how you create an opportunity and you sign up as a veteran. Just before we sign up as a volunteer, I wanted to just go ahead and show you. If I go to volunteer opportunities and I click view all opportunities, you'll see now that the one that I added has been added immediately. So, there's no time delay, there's no anything like that unless there's an issue, it should immediately post to the website and immediately I can view the detail and I can start sharing it and it's part of the system. Okay. So, as a volunteer, I can also log in and register to the website. I'm going to go ahead and use the links down here just to show you that they work. So, again as I indicated before, it doesn't matter if I click on these links. If I click on this link, all of them will take me to the same spot. So, I'm going to click on volunteer because that's what I want to do and it actually takes me directly to the registration screen. So, the difference between hitting log in and register is that we know by you clicking on those links, you want to go ahead and register, you're not actually trying to log in. So, we take you immediately to the registration screen. I'm going to go ahead and sign John up as a, oh, I'm going to sign myself up as a volunteer. I'm not making any comments here. I'm very young. Okay. So, I heard from a friend about the website. So, I'm going to go ahead and indicate that I heard from a friend. I can do the same thing. Go ahead and type in my address there. And then I'm going to leave it as eastern time zone as well. Except now, I'm going to choose that I'm not a veteran but I want to help. So, this, the important thing we want to make sure is that people know this website is not just for veterans who want to help other veterans. Anybody can sign up whether they be under the age 18, no matter what the age restriction is. We want everybody, we want to encourage everybody to come to this website and sign up. If you choose that you want to sign up as a volunteer, meaning that you are not a veteran, it will ask you a couple of things about what you can bring to the table. So, as a volunteer, what skills do you have? That way we can make sure that when you're signing up for an opportunity, you're at least signing up for an opportunity that your skills set provides. So, I'm going to say, yeah, not very good at coming up with that jokes. That's all I'm able to do at this time. If you're signing up as a volunteer, what equipment can you bring when you're volunteering? And I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm bringing a lot more. If I'm a volunteer and I am affiliated with the auxiliary, I can indicate that as well. So, I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm of Kentucky and I'm part of Unit 19. And then, volunteers, no matter which option you choose, volunteer, a veteran, a caregiver, or advocate, you still have to agree to the disclaimer. So, the same thing that happened when I was a veteran, it asked me to agree if I didn't. It'll yell at me and tell me that I can't go forward. And so, I have to hit I agree. When I hit submit, it does the same thing and it tells me you successfully registered. Please check your email to activate your account. I must not have typed it right. There it goes. Okay. Then I click on the link the exact same way that I did as a veteran. It's going to do the exact same thing. So, up to this point, it really hasn't looked any difference between what you've done as a veteran and what I've done as a volunteer. Once I hit change password, it'll do the exact same thing that it did before where it logs me in. One of the things that you may notice is that there's a particular button that was available to the prior logged in person that's not available to me. So, as a volunteer, the only thing I can do is sign up for other opportunities. I do not have the ability to create an opportunity for somebody else. If I wanted to create an opportunity for somebody else, I would have needed to go in and choose the advocate option or the on behalf of option. Yes. You talked to me when we're done. We'll look at what happened. It should do exactly what we're showing here. Did you have a username before? No? I don't know. You don't know. Okay. We'll check. Hopefully, that's not the norm that that happens. Yeah. We'll check and see what exactly happened to you. Okay. Okay, good. So, we have one and one, right? So, half free. All right. One of the things that you'll notice as I was indicating before is that the opportunity button is gone. So, the only thing I'm able to do is actually search for opportunities and sign up for them on my on behalf of my just sign up for them. So, if I go to the ad request here, which is the other way of doing it, it'll tell me that I'm a volunteer and the only thing I can do is search for jobs. So, I can search for jobs. I already know again at the top that there's two in my zip code. So, when I search for them, I should see two of them. So, you'll see that as a volunteer when you click when you search for jobs, you can not only sign up for the home cleaning if you wanted to, but you could sign up for the yard work option as well. So, by clicking the little arrow next to either one of these, it'll bring up the detail and then you'll see that all the opportunities that are associated with that will give me the option to sign up. So, it does not matter if you hit sign up from here or if you happen to be looking at the list of available jobs and you look at the detail of that job, signing up through this method or signing up from the home page, they all do exactly the same thing. So, some people are going to be when they share this opportunity on Facebook, they're going to be taking to this particular page. There's no reason for them to leave the page once they're logged in. They can sign up. They do not have to go back to the beginning to search for jobs because they've already found the one that they wanted. So, if you already know this is the one that I want, this is the one that I want to sign up for, you can just go ahead and do all that directly through this detail page. If you don't know a particular one and you want to search, you can return back to the main page and search for opportunities or you can search for them through this view available opportunities. Again, it doesn't matter how you got there. All that matters is that you see a button that says sign up and you do it. The only thing that is required is that you actually are logged in to do so. That's a very good question. On purpose, you don't see phone numbers and you don't see addresses and you don't see those things because we didn't want that to make all of that information available until you have agreed to do the work. Once you have signed up for the job, so if I click here and I click sign up, again, you're still not seeing any contact information at all and then you hit sign up for that job or opportunity, a series of email notifications will start to trigger. So, once I hit sign up, the veteran will be notified that, hey, somebody has signed up, here's their name and then the volunteer will be signed up to say, hey, you've signed up for this job or for this opportunity, here's some information. So, right now, we are finalizing what those email notifications will look like. We're trying to clean them up to see what would best provide that information, but it was very tactically done to remove that information. The other part that I want to show you is that if I have signed up for an opportunity myself, there's this option up here that says volunteer assignments and I can see all the assignments that I've signed up for. That information that will be included in the email is also now available to me by clicking on this link. So, when I click on this link, now I start to see things in terms of who the volunteer is now. There's other things we have to clean up here, but you will be indicated in the emails and also on this particular screen as to what information you need to do, like when you need to be there and who's to contact. You will also be asked to confirm that you're going to come. So, if you sign up for an opportunity a week ahead of time and then something happens, right, between there, you'll be giving a series of notifications that say, please confirm that you're coming and then the veteran will be notified that somebody confirmed it. The veteran himself, him or herself, also has to indicate that they confirm the opportunity. Well, that way you're not just showing up and you didn't want somebody. Yes? I'm sorry. Not necessarily, right? So, I mean, it wouldn't be like I need somebody to walk me down the aisle in like five minutes maybe, but certainly if there were people out there searching and you said I need somebody tomorrow, if there was somebody who was out there at that time, they could sign up for it, right? Yeah. So, there's no, the emails start to happen automatically, right? So, it's not like there are reminder emails that happen 24 hours in advance. So, you wouldn't get any reminder email because you would have gotten the initial email. But so, it's kind of to answer your question is if you do happen to post it a week ahead of time, not only will they get the initial email, but some reminder emails will come out and say hey, this is happening tomorrow. Those will be the only ones that if the window was shrunk, that there might be complications with because you don't need a reminder email at the same time you got it originally. That answer your question? Okay. Would you please come to the microphone so everybody can hear what you're wanting to say? Good morning. I'm Heather McEady from the Great State of South Carolina, Woodrow Wilson chapter number four. My question is can I go on there and do a volunteer opportunity, create a volunteer opportunity for a deceased disabled American veteran spouse because I didn't see an option on there just said for a veteran. So, in keeping with our mission statement, of course, we want to take care of veterans, widows and their children. So, any widows that are out there or wives that the veterans recall active duty and she has a particular need for herself and her children at home. Those are all needs that qualify through this program and they always have and always will. So, John's going to walk around with the microphone so you don't have to come. Did I answer your question? When you created the volunteer opportunity, I only saw create for the veterans. So, do we just put in there and then put in parentheses like the spouse or something like that? I would do it under the caregiver. Now, again, I appreciate the question. We're not going to have a category that meets every specific category necessarily. And as John just mentioned, we have the caregiver tab as well. You can do it veteran and then when you go in to input the data or the information and specify there is for a surviving spouse or a veteran spouse if the veteran is not in town and that spouse needs some type of assistance. Thank you. That's a good question. I had a figure on Louisiana. What are the safety factors in this? Is this built in? I mean, you know, do we have safety factors? You know, I'm trying to say you go to somebody's house and somebody may be waiting. Yeah. I know exactly what you're saying and we had those conversations several times. And one of the things that we attempted to do is through that disclaimer is to make sure that you're aware that we want to make sure through that disclaimer that you are aware that those types of risks are available, right? So in terms of safety measures, we can only do what we can do, right? Like, there's a lot of those things with other websites that are out there that you have to assume some of the risk. Unfortunately, that's the reality. But we did have those conversations and we tried to come up with the best way to do it and the only way we could do it was say, you know, when you sign up for the, here's the risk that we have to assume and that's all we have. But Eddie, I'd like to expand on that. This LBAP has been around since 2007. People have been doing something very similar to this without the technology and everything has been fine. So we just want to make sure that everything that you do in a day can have some sort of associated risk. But we do take that very seriously and we make sure that we've covered every avenue possible. So a little common sense goes a long way with it as well. Dennis Mardin, Chapter 35, Sacramento, California. One is if we need supplies and stuff like that, who's paying for that? And then my second question, does this information get filtered down to the chapter or to the State Department? Or do we have to submit through them too? Okay, I'll address the first part of that. And that's on that fact page that John went over in the presentation on one of the slides. It asked the frequently asked questions is, do we get financial assistance? No, to answer your question. However, departments may have some type of line item budget. The chapters may have the same thing. And then you have your community partners, your Home Depots, your Lowe's. I know a lot of folks in here that I see have, I think Danny over in Oklahoma has dealt with Home Depot quite a bit and some of their relief efforts and assistance programs. But we can't guarantee any level of support from those folks. It's a relationship that you have to foster in your local communities and whatever they're able and willing to do. And there's oftentimes where they will send some of their skilled carpenters, electricians after hours to come out and assist on a project. So we we have to rely on you within your local community to establish that relationship. Go ahead, Steve. No, I was going to answer the second as far as the second question, you don't have to do any reporting. One of the things that we have worked very hard over hard on over the past few months is to make sure that anything that's been done in volunteer for veterans is automatically ported over to our record keeping system. So that is one of that's a very good point that we want to make everything you do through here, you just do through here. There's nothing more for you to do. They will automatically be recorded under the LVAP program and moved over to the recording system. So we have we have something that's tracking that we have something that's making that happen behind the scenes. So that's a very good point that I wanted to make that I didn't. So I'm glad you brought that up. If you had a job that you needed to have done, you'd registered logged in and had everything done is and obviously you're sending an email to the person that's requesting the volunteer to work and you got the people that are volunteering. But say 10 people sign up and say I want to do this. I want to help. I want to help. Is it up to you, the veteran or the person that's asking for the assistance to tell people I've already got that covered? And after all that, does do you have to take that posting down yourself or does it automatically come off once the call has been answered? I love everybody's questions. You're helping me answer all the things I forgot to say. No, they don't. So the first part of your question was, do I need, are you going to be responsible for telling people no? And you will not, right? So I don't know if you I kind of was going through it pretty quick just to get everything out there. But I don't know if you remember before I didn't sign up for this one. But if I sign up for one of these opportunities, so if you see that top one there that says 258, as soon as I hit sign up for it, 258 disappears, right? So if I said I wanted one volunteer and there was only one opportunity there, as soon as somebody took it, it's gone, right? If I said I wanted five volunteers, 10 volunteers and there will be five different options, as soon as somebody signs up for it, it's gone. So there's no chance that you will have to tell somebody I already did it. Somebody already signed up for it. Yeah, yeah. So the only, as Ron was just mentioning, if for some reason you said you only wanted one volunteer but you needed two, you would need to make sure you go out there and adjust it to get a second one. But as far as having too many volunteers, that should not occur because the delisting goes away. And then to answer your second part, there are things, once the job, once the opportunity has been completed, there's surveys that go out at the end that say you get to rank how well you thought the volunteer did. And the volunteer gets to say, here's how many hours I reported and here's what I thought of the veteran. Once all of those things occur, the everything closes automatically. So you should be able to, we did our best to say once you created and everything happens, it all goes, not only does it get reported into the system, but it all should disappear and everything should work smoothly. That's my everything should. I'd like to also elaborate a little bit more on what Steve said. If I'm going to pick on Danny all over here because they have a 5k in Oklahoma, we have them all over the country. Eventually the intent would be to utilize this type of platform to put down all your volunteers' needs that exist at that 5k. You can sign up for those opportunities. And once those people show up for the event and they sign up for that, it goes away. So if you need 10 water people, you need 10 people on the finish line, 10 people handing out bagels. Once those are all filled up, those opportunities are done. All those hours are captured. Danny Oliver doesn't have to send me anything. I have it all right through here. So that's the intent. And what we're wanting to see in the future with this product is if you have a homeless stand down, you can do the same thing. Any type of chapter events, if you're having a chapter picnic and you want to sign up for people to come volunteer at the chapter picnic, you can do something like that with this. Mike heard from the great state of Wisconsin. I have a quick question. Somewhat of a different slice to what was asked before. But how do you vet out the predators if there's any potential issues? Because you're maybe asking for people to actually go into homes, that type of thing. And all you need is just one or two of these events to happen. And if it breaks nationally, it won't be good. So well, obviously, you saw the disclaimer. It covers just about anything and everything that could take place. And I want to piggyback on what I just told Eddie. This system or this type of service has been around since 2007. Okay, LVAP has been taking place. People have been going to veterans homes. People have been going to the grocery store, picking stuff up, bringing them to people's house, sitting as caregivers, doing all these things. And I don't know of anything like that that has occurred. Okay. We've thought of every type of scenario possible and tried to ensure that we've protected you as a veteran. When you build a profile, you read the disclaimer. You as a volunteer, you read the disclaimer. The youth is a disclaimer. We will closely monitor all these things that are taking place, the best of our ability. I'd like to think that we don't have anything to worry about, but I do watch the news every day and I see that there's stuff like that that occur. There's the opportunity for something that gets posted for it to come down and gets investigated. I talked about the leading and posting, reporting and posting. Those are things that we monitor closely with Tim and our staff. Everybody at headquarters is checking it out. I can't predict everything. We can't be prepared for everything, although we try extremely well. I know that it's not a definitive answer, but we're doing everything that we can to ensure that we protect everybody's best interest, especially DAV and our veterans and our volunteers. Yeah. And to add a little more to that, one of the things that will happen is the volunteer will get an option to say, like they'll get that survey to be able to say whether or not they had an issue, or they want to be contacted or something. So they have the opportunity at the end of it all to say, I didn't get very good feels about this guy. Whatever they will be able to capture that feedback through that mechanism as well. Yes, ma'am. Hi, guys. So you just kind of touched on what my question was. I'm Castle Benson from Hampton, Chapter 6. As a chapter, if you have volunteer needs for things around the chapter, it seems to me that I just wanted to ask, could you use this product now, signing up as the veteran and then reaching out to the community? Absolutely. Cleaning up, you know, assisting with inside? Absolutely. There was a chapter in Fremont, Nebraska who used this as soon as we rolled it out at midwinter and they had great success. They set up some opportunities for cleaning up the chapter home. They had a storage shed that they cleaned up and the news caught wind of it. They ran an article, Jamie Jacobs around her somewhere, I believe. Where's he at, Jamie? He left. Well, Chris, she can talk a little bit about it as well. Chris, will you raise your hand? But they did use it for this and it was a great success. So they answer your question. Yes, yes, and yes. Okay, awesome. Thank you. Gary Coletti, Chapter 46, Whittier, California. A couple of questions. Number one, volunteer services, when you sign up at the VA, you go through actually like a security check. What's to prevent somebody from the outside signing up and creating a liability for the DAV? Because somebody from the outside signs up and they're not cleared and they go perform and they get into a libelous situation with the person requesting help. And wouldn't the DAV be libel for a lawsuit or something under that program? John just explained this on this question up front. The very same microphone. John just addressed that question from the front row here. The disclaimer is on both sides of this program. The veteran seeking assistance and for the volunteer signing up to perform that activity that disclaimers are saying, but we again, we cannot prevent every possible scenario from ever happening. We hope that in good faith, any volunteer that signs up, they're providing their information. They're signing that disclaimer because as Tim stated, if you don't check that disclaimer box, you're not going to be able to access any opportunities anyway. But again, that's kind of a wide kind of a situation. We can't possibly sit here create a situation and tell you it's going to happen or not going to happen. Right. I'm a volunteer service rep for another organization and all my people have to sign up at the VA. They go through security. They get fingerprinted background check and so forth. I mean, before they can work at the VA or do outside volunteer services. Second question is these hours are they reported? Did they're given to DAV for the national tally? The answer question. Yes. It automatically first goes to the department. If so, if you're a volunteer in California, like you are, and you were to sign up and do an opportunity, the department of California would get credit for those hours, which then would tally up to the national organization. So it's another one less reporting thing that you'd have to do other than doing the profile and meeting the need, but the department does receive credit for these hours. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dave Ash, chapter 19, Indiana. When you get a request from a certain person needing help out of a certain zip code, why can't this base just look to see what chapter is in that area closest to that zip code and send an email to that chapter requesting that chapter, see if they can help out this person if the chapter can't. They just reply back and say, yes, we can help this person out. That way we're making sure there's people from that chapter that are veterans and stuff that are actually helping out and the persons, you know, have some safe people coming to help them out. Well, glad you brought that up. That's something we're doing every day right now. I have a we have staff on our team that monitor this every day. They call the chapters. They send an email to the chapter asking them to do this opportunity. I know we've talked with John Donovan about stuff for the department asking them to knock things out for us. So we are doing that we have a person we have people with a pulse that are actually going through monitoring these things contacting chapters officers and getting them involved. But it goes two ways we get some chapters don't check their email. So imagine it's don't answer their phone. Some I mean not the point fingers but we were we're trying and Chapters says yes, we'll do it and then they don't ever answer our phone calls. So it's a resource. We are reaching out to people asking for them to help us accomplish this because of the very thing that you just said. We have dedicated members at chapters that do everything to make that chapter a success. So we're doing that now and I want to expand on that. If the chapter is registered or the individuals within the chapter registered through this program that connection is going to be made automatically and you answer your own question or not your own question but you're able to fulfill that need. If they're not registered then you'll never have that that link or connection between the volunteer opportunity and the unmet need. So that's a good reason to encourage everyone to sign up and get registered family and friends in another state. They say hey dad I met a veteran the other day it was really neat. I love to help them do something and they need some stuff done. Well you get to tell them about that. They don't have to be a DAV member. It could be a corporate group. It could be a son, nephew, niece, grandkid. Get them get them to sign up and and help them meet that need in another state somewhere possibly. I'm Jerry Arnold from Chapter 11 from the Department of California. We ran a situation and I can take my answer offline where a family member signed up at in a different city you know to try to help their very elderly parents you know to do some very minor things around the house you know painting maybe changing you know some fermica in the kitchen you know make it more habitable change the linoleum flooring and whatever. Home Depot Foundation quote wanted to help and they had a local contact but one of the first things that actually stymied the whole process was they required a certificate of insurance and for you know a chapter that has limited resources buying an insurance policy at a thousand dollars you know was a showstopper habitat for humanity. They do have these releases every what I've been told is every time they step you know on a website whether they're you know an adult volunteer or even you know you know a younger teenager volunteer they always sign every day every time you know a release whether that works I'm not a lawyer I don't even play one on television but we really you know maybe we can find you know a better way of addressing this problem of insurance you know at a more national level you know because somehow we do want to help and I personally would like you know to see this project and in this program go forward but when they put their foot in the aisle you know about insurance that you know that can really stymie the situation. Thank you for that Jerry Ron just made a note of that. They're you know everywhere you go with any type of product projects or products programs things that you put out there there's always some kind of obstacle I've worked with the Home Depot on a project in Kentucky where I built a wheelchair ramp for a veteran who needed to get in and out of his house and the Home Depot I talked to the store supervisor walked in told him what I was going to do he said what do you need we ran through the store picked up what we want I signed a piece of paper took a pic before an extra picture they didn't ask me for any insurance or anything of that nature so it's going to vary from location to location again I know I said that we've said it a few times we can't prepare for every scenario and I I I still believe and I say a lot about common sense is a common virtue but I know it's not right you know you're trying to do the good you try to get out and help somebody but that's just very similar story right but I didn't have any problems I went in and got it so we'll take that back and take a look at it and see what needs to be done maybe we can talk to Home Depot corporate and fair out maybe it's a state thing I don't know so but thank you for your comment yes ma'am hello my name is Dr. Joanne Fisher I'm the adjutant for the Department of Washington DC the commander and I went up to the Washington DC VA hospital to talk about the VA VS program and it's under the American Legion they gave us the American Legion guidelines when I was the department commander and I went up there they gave me the DAV guidelines but I believe I don't know if you have it online or what or if I can print it off I can get some books but we need to let them know that the DAV is there and that we're not falling under the American correct well there are multiple thank you for branch my attention there are multiple organizations recognized in VAs for VAVS DAV is the largest in the country we do have a VAVS handbook that we've prepared I'm very active in that I sit on a committee at VA I'm actually the co-chair of that committee right now um and I can say without a shadow of a doubt when I get the reports from that chair that DAV is the largest volunteer entity inside VA medical facilities I believe you so but I'll be glad to talk to that program manager in DC if you'll give me your name and information and we'll make that what else what else I need is because we'll be setting up training programs I would like the the VAVS book from the DAV because at one time I did get a book but I don't have it over these years so who would I contact to get a DAV a me Ron uh you could send me an email to stop by give him your card and we'll get your card come on give me a card I know I know you got a hundred of them there you go see that little thing come on baby come on I'll be okay I'm coming up to get the card but but I do need a card because I do need books we are training people thank you thank you yes sir Mike Mckearden chapter 30's report in Louisiana uh simple question is this program available to the chapters on a memory stick so we can go out and train these chapters that aren't here or aren't represented well this program is available to anybody and everybody who has access to the internet uh well there's part of the problem because a lot of these people don't have internet a lot of these people don't have wi-fi if I go to a chapter and I've got my computer and I don't have wi-fi what good is it well we have that manual form that I talked about you can fill out the piece of paper send it to me we'll build the profile and do everything that we need for you why can't you just put on the memory stick and send it to me put it on a memory stick yeah but you don't have a computer if I've got a computer with me I'll see you plug it in give me your information I'll send it to you on a on a flash drive I'll get it to you thank you all right thank you just just to note that this website the website is also mobile friendly so if you do have a phone you may not have wi-fi but if you have a phone that you're using um it's available all smart phones as well now I know that's the same question but um it it is all mobile friendly as well yes sir Gil Alice Wasatch one in Utah all through this convention I've heard over and over we mailed it out you should know we mailed it out you should know it doesn't get mailed to me it get mailed to the commander the adjutant whatever and we suggested in one meeting that instead we get emails out to people because if my adjutant gets it and or it doesn't get it and disappears or the commander gets it and disappears it the more people we notify the easier it is for things to get done the better it is everybody here registered and gave you their email every last one of them gave you their email every last one of them is committed to the DAV and the actions that we are we try to do it might be helpful and I'm not speaking for everybody but I know for me that if something's going on I'd like to know about it and you can send me an email it's free you don't have to mail me a letter you mail letters to whoever you want but if at least you send it to the officers of the chapters they would have some clue if the letter got lost or the commander was sick and wasn't there the more people we notify about things going on the more likely it is the chapters are going to be acting on those things so I just suggest that look at email you know send the the entire you get an annual or some or whenever something changes command you know officers report everybody's got an email everybody's got a phone we have computers you can send emails you can send a million people a message on a text on a phone I do I agree with you however I just want to say that with being involved with this technology and understanding here in DAV as an organization I saw the IT director a minute ago he's Brian don't go anywhere we are we are limited at the number of emails that we can send out as an organization in mass groups before we get blocked to spam and it cost a lot of money to that we pay to be able to do that I agree with you I'd love to be able to send out an email to everybody and I do the best that I can with getting emails out this was in the DAV magazine this has been on DAV's Facebook page this has been on Twitter we're sharing it in any in every way possible that we can we're talking about trying to do some PSAs with it we're all kinds of ways I agree with you emails are free until you start sending them in bulk like that okay and I appreciate that but you anyway there's ways to stagger it and do this that and the other thing but there's so many times that I've been here this week where well somebody should have told you well and that's that's a fair devil's advocate here you know when when commanders and adjuncts come to headquarters for their orientation and they get to meet with all of the directors all of the people involved the stakeholders of the organization and we come share this information with them and they get a book that has all this stuff in it and they should be going back and sharing that with everybody in their department I agree with you duly noted and we'll work and try to find ways to improve that okay devil's a department of massachusetts um a couple things is everyone in this room is a leader and you're supposed to take the initiative yourself so you're going back and saying national needs to do this national needs this now you need to take initiative yourself and that means get online get on the DAV website and you reach out to your members that's why you're a leader within your own chapter and if you're not doing that or if you're a commander an adjuncts not doing that why did you elect a major commander an adjunct if they're not reaching out to the membership thank you dev okay so this and if you're the leaders in here that's your responsibility to do so I mean I need to give national the kudos for everything that they do and they have that they have made the tools available for us to do the job that we need to do and that's fulfilled the missions of keeping the promises to our brothers and sisters thank you dev okay I guess I go to these meetings and I hear this like one gentleman said send it to us in another email and the other settlement says we don't have access to internet well if you don't have access to internet you can't get email so you know it's a catch 22 and they're doing the best that they can to get the information out to all of us so so please everyone take the initiative upon yourself to do this work the reports that we have that you get out of here those are available they trickle down to the departments and the departments can actually get those reports of LVAP hours yeah when you contact our office say I want a report of all of our LVAP hours we'll send it to you it does trickle out so it's a it's a way behind the scenes we take a was it an SSRS or a CLA it's a sync it's a sync system that bumps into what we're currently using but yes I keep the answer your question yes I'll get you the information because big thing is especially if like they'd have volunteer awards on the national level on the state level if you don't have them you should that friendly competition amongst each other on how many volunteer hours I'm doing and what we're doing actually initiates more volunteers yes it does you get up there so having that is is great and available to be able to pass out like when we have our DEC meetings department executive committee meetings that we could pass that out to our members and let them know hey this is what you guys are doing just like we do with membership absolutely but we don't want to remember so we do do a report for that so when you contact me and I send your report for all your LVAP opportunities all your VAV hours we can give you all that just call me you know that okay now this is a question if we go into a home to help a veteran uh-huh and we notice that there is not just what they asked us to do but there is so much more that to help this veteran um and I've been into homes um as a service officer and try to help them and when you come back is there a way that we can put in and say hey this veteran needs help house cleaning or cleaning his yard absolutely on behalf on behalf absolutely right oh I just want to make sure that if you've got the permission but if you could put it and say hey this veteran needs help and maybe it's beyond then you could be the conduit to making that a reality for that individual so yes you can thank you thank you Deb Rich Tolfa Orlando Florida or most past national commanders come to retire there's one of them right there no we have a couple of them over there uh but raw first of all I want to thank you all volunteer service is doing one hell of a job thank you you're creating programs they're going to actually work and I thank you for that thank you out here in the field we need all the help we get and you give it to us on a daily basis we understand that the program with the LVAP in this program where the ours are going to count I'm going to give the guy LVAP credit on his LVAP hours so they don't have to report this individually when they report their LVAP hours for the month correct that is absolutely correct okay great and I think this is program but one other thing I want to ask you real quick because we're only discussing this program today at past national conventions we've had a discussed opportunity to discuss other problems we're having in the field in the volunteer area are we going to have that opportunity this morning or is this the only thing that's going to be covered today because we normally have people from VA up here and I know you can't answer the VA questions and we need them here because year after year we bring up the same problems here and they're not resolved not your fault I understand that but we need VA to respond to some of our problems we're having in the field and it has to be done and that's all I'm saying because I have some problems we need to discuss and I know we can discuss it personally but my problems are problems are other people are having in the same states in the same problems and I just want to have an opportunity to do that I'll be glad to take it once we get closer to the end of this I want to make sure answer all the questions pertaining to this but I just want to say the reason I don't have VA here today is because this is a big initiative for us as an organization that can help be a conduit and I chose not to invite VA because I wanted to spend my time talking about this DAV product for DAV volunteer opportunities through the local veterans assistance program I will be inviting Sabrina Clark again to the national midwinter conference in Washington DC and as this year goes on and I determine what we're going to talk about at the next seminar more than likely an invite will be sent to her then but this is the this is the time that I just chose not to invite her because I wanted to focus on a DAV product for a DAV program and I did include Sabrina in this conversation at our midwinter and we did have the opportunity to talk about some of those problems well we talked about midwinter but again we're having a problem with vehicles returning the vehicles from VA when they're done with them waiting a year and a half or two years to get a vehicle back is ridiculous I would agree to that we're still having a problem getting our drivers physicals four or five six months is crazy we're losing volunteers because I got three drivers left in Orlando volunteer drivers and it's because VA's not doing their job and that's why I wanted to have the opportunity to speak to VA right thank you all right thank you hello class on there's a chapter 15 Nevada hopefully this is a kind of general question and it have to do with the scholarship program and and our high school students and college students what hours are really are really used to qualify them for for the scholarship is it just volunteer at the hospital or can they do any other things for instance like I mean it's all of them so anytime at anytime a youth is volunteering their time in the name of DAV whether that's through this platform volunteer for veterans which rolls up to the local veterans assistance program or the traditional local veterans assistance program at your chapter or they're volunteering in a VA VA facility through the VAVS hours credited to DAV once they accumulate a hundred hours they're eligible for that scholarship okay do we have a tracking form or anything like that no well VAVS has a system that they use if they're creating their time to DAV when we get the form and it says they're doing their time in the facility the medical facility we get a statement from the chief or the program manager that says they've got these hours through the VSS product through the local veterans assistance program if they do the form and send me the form we track those in our DAV 360 product that we're using internally at headquarters we can run a report and determine how many hours that person has through their lifetime so that would count towards that so and then of course obviously this if they're doing that doing through volunteerforveterans.org they build their profile get the parental consent if they're under the age of 18 they do those hours and they're meeting those needs those hours are automatically credited into the DAV 360 product again totaling the hundred hours well you know I ain't gonna remember all that but but anyway I'm trying to figure out how to get it started do we just send hours in for you can do a form 60 if they're doing LVAP hours and form 60 yeah okay thank you good morning John Ron Wanda Janice Department of Oregon back to the volunteer for veterans program and if these questions are on the fax page just say they're on the fax page I'll look them up but I have to reset my password first how many miles calculator are they driving miles or are they as the crow flies miles because when rural areas that can make a big difference all right so you're talking about driving somebody in your personal vehicle through this yeah when somebody says you know search 15 miles or 25 miles or whatever for available so you're talking about when you're on the first page and you're searching for the jobs if I'm searching for a job so for instance it takes 10 miles to get from my house to to anywhere so but if the crow flies it's like two miles to get to the other side of the river yeah so it is there's behind the scenes there's it does do use the latitude and longitude it's a very like literally taking the physical difference not a not a driving distance but a physical difference so it's I can counsel our members in the rural areas to yeah so it's using latitude it's using okay those kinds of things in the background now let's say somebody puts in a volunteer opportunity and before one of us can sign up his neighbor comes over and plays his gutters form can the violent can the person requesting it go in and delete that make sure that neighbor that went over there and did that job get him signed up as a volunteer well yeah yeah absolutely but I'm just saying can the person can go can the person go in and delete it yes or they could contact us and let us know that their neighbor did it then we could try to walk the neighbor through the process and get them signed up after you get him registered yeah I'm with you Ron I'm with you yeah so yeah to piggyback on that there's a my request up here if you have an open request you have the ability to actually cancel it okay in the event it was cancelled or you could reach out to John's team as I indicated okay and then my computer will flip is there a flyer we can download for the website so we can pass these things out at the root beer float day uh we actually have these three by five index cards that should be in your convention backpack okay it's black says volunteer for veterans dot orgs got stuff on the other side okay and then we can in contact me and I can see you however many you want okay great thank you have some registration as well okay and then don't forget that other question I have when you're ready to change subjects yeah Laura arms chapter 11 from Waterloo Iowa good morning um I am brand new to DAV uh in fact the first time I got a letter from DAV uh offering me the opportunity to join I threw it away thinking it was uh you know one of these organizations that um you know spam you um I volunteer for an organization called Americans for Independent Living and uh through that organization I found out DAV Israel and uh they gave us a donation um and just kind of a shameless plug if there's anybody looking for an organization that um has excess money that they have to get rid of and they don't know uh look me up okay um but my uh I have a couple statements my the uh in regards to um technology uh chapter 11 shows that we have 344 members from what I've been told on average they maybe have three or four members at their meeting the I believe he's the adjutant of the chapter I've only been to one meeting and they voted me as delegates are coming anyways uh because I wanted to learn about the DAV but I don't think any of them are computer literate so you know um sending out all this information that comes through to you uh is there a possibility of um as one gentleman said you know you have all of our emails um you have the information when I signed up as a member to send it out to members in general and I know you said that you had you know the limitation of how many have you looked into um organizations like MailChimp that um will let you send out as much as you want let you answer that man that you used to be yeah so we do have we do have tools and um I don't want to speak out of turn and have and he's in here somewhere um but we do have tools that we use for mass emailing um what we have to do what we have to be mindful of is how many of those email addresses are good have they been cleansed when we get them um any of any of those marks where things emails aren't open people aren't engaged are our mark against us but we do already have a mass mailing tool that we use for fundraising things um and also for the newsletter I don't know if you signed up for the newsletter but the newsletter runs through one of those tools so we do have a lot of tools available to us um we just have to be mindful of what type of information we don't want to overload you either oh right um so but those are things that we'll consider when we when we go back I know I've uh we've used MailChimp and they you know they send back anybody who doesn't open it so you can delete them from your files yeah and things like that yeah so we do have a tool that functions in that exact same mechanism we don't particularly use it for general notifications we use it for newsletters and things that we're doing in mass but but we can certainly review how we're using it okay awesome thank you thank you welcome to DAV oh thank you I'm learning a lot here yes sir yeah my name is Bradley Colling from the Rapid City chapter three it's from the great state of South Dakota the Mount Rushmore state and um we have uh several different projects that we do throughout the year one is a clothing drive hygienic supplies where we have go around to different stores to collect uh you know items and also we go and visit veterans around Christmas time and there's like 60 veterans that we go actually go visit so we need a lot of volunteers for that and also chaplain uh chapter service officers you know they come in and do four hours a day and I I'm already registered but I cannot get into the uh area where you can create an opportunity how do you do that from there we're still tweaking that part of it out we're gonna do a big trial of it uh that I'm working on specifically for a special event uh once I get that ready I'm going to do what I do webinars throughout the year and I'll probably do a webinar specifically focus on creating an event so in the meantime I can just send you the information about the different okay yes sir yeah and um one of the things I will add is I don't know if you signed up a long time ago or recently um but if you signed up and you were insured you signed up as a volunteer or happened to choose one of those options because that's what you want to do at the time if you didn't sign up as a veteran you don't have that button so we can change you over to be a veteran then you will get that button you would just what John is referring to is kind of a mass event if you still wanted to create individual opportunities you just need to be changed to a veteran okay so I we can take a look at your profile and fix that yeah yeah I'm a profile as an individual and uh we do have a chapter email address and I was wondering if we could put the chapter it says name could I put down there chapter three I'd prefer not to because I'd want each individual who volunteers for your chapter to build this is for the opportunity oh yeah that would be fine okay yeah you can set that up as a as a veteran's profile and then be ready to go great thank you thank you wanted he brought in some of those cards you can have one no please help yourself any other questions for about this yes ma'am he's coming he's coming to you hi my name is Jackie Abdulazim and I'm with chapter five in south of Virginia um my question is if you have volunteers that are not members how do they log into this I mean how do we get them on board again you do not have to be a member of DAV to build a profile they can log in just like you did today if you signed up right build a profile you do not have to be a member of DAV to use this you don't have to be a veteran to volunteer okay all right then thank you thank you're welcome thank you was there anything else about this before I let Mr. Tulfil come back up and talk about the VAVS and then Wanda has something to come up and talk about VAVS I guess so come on up Mr. Tulfil John Donovan's got the microphone right there behind you sir thank you John I also want to thank you for when I email you I always get an answer back right away and I appreciate that my pleasure John when VA is done with a van they say or you want the van back VA says do you want the van back we say yes at that point in time why does it take VA a year and a half to two years I have one van one chapter in Orlando her bluest belongs to it they've had a van for 10 years and have not received the title they use it as a billboard outside their chapter because they can't drive it and get a plate for it so it just sits out outside their chapter and they still haven't received a title I've got two vans back last year both those vans sat for more than 18 months I had them sold for $2,000 a piece when I finally received the titles both vehicles would not run okay they ended up going to salvage for $200 a piece and that's just wrong that's correct VA should be able to get us these titles within 30 days and I think that's a I think that's a fair request and I'm glad to I've with certain states certain chapter I've been able to get salvaged or redone titles to two people in a more timely manner your problem that does exist across the country so thank you for bringing it to the attention here Connie Kenny on my team and bronze team she obviously she's very instrumental on getting these titles done we work with somebody at CEO and trying to get them done in a timely manner if I could get more specifics ie the VIN number you're making model where that vehicle was located to me or Connie or to both of us I will do everything in my power to get you those things reissued it's very unfortunate that those two vehicles were sold for $200 I can't fix that but I could work on fixing that I understand that John so in the future if we have a problem let you know right away please absolutely I will definitely do that and you can send it directly to my email or it or VA vs at dav.org and say John or Ron specifically tell me as much information as possible and when it comes to vehicles being returned I need the year make model in VIN number in which hospital they're assigned to it so I can make it happen because he's shaking his head right there and I've done it for him specifically at midwinter I mean it we did in 15 days didn't we okay I use you all right please okay was there anything else yes uh physicals for drivers John okay I had a navy nurse from my lodge in the alks and I got him to sign up last December to drive the vehicle and this is not the first person's has happened to this happens multiple times last month he notified me that he no longer wants to stay on the list to drive because they still have not scheduled him for a physical can you imagine that since last December when he applied they have not scheduled him for a physical and I understand this is just isn't happening in Orlando this is happening nationwide it's taken us months and months and months to get drivers certified and there has to be something that's going to stop because we're losing good people I'm down like I said I'm down to three drivers in Orlando and I don't know how much lower we can go because we need these drivers out there and we just can't wait six months to get one certified I understand and I totally agree with you that is definitely unsatisfactory to take that long to get a physical done for a driver and if I was that person I would probably have said the same thing but I do know that we were I have made some headway uh with the National Advisory Committee and of course obviously things are shaken up in Washington DC I'll refrain from making any other comments than it's shaken up in Washington DC right now but the former secretary Dr. Shulkin uh signed off on an agreement that DAV spearheaded and put together about the timely onboarding of volunteer and drivers and timely being 30 days all right so he agreed to the recommendation not only did I identify the problem but made a recommendation and a solution to rectify that problem and that solution was to include using community partners that VA has Walgreens is a community partner utilizing the volunteer or the veteran's primary care physician at the VA facility who knows that person's health record better than anybody in occupational health could possibly know to make a form very similar to a DBQ the disability benefits questionnaire so driver physicals are consistent across the country because to piggyback off of stuff that we talked about before that what works for Orlando won't work for St. Pete or what works for St. Pete won't work for Rapid City South Dakota again consistency um that recommended recommendation was submitted to the secretary he agreed to it signed it and then stepped down however it is a signed letter from the secretary and I'm continuing to work with them on that and I'm assuming waiting until we get a new secretary and I have the opportunity to talk before them and work with our executive staff in DC Gary Augustine and Randy Reese reinforcing that comment and trying to make it where it's as simple as a directive from them indicating that it should be made a priority because it provides access to care it helps improve the quality of lives of the veterans who are receiving the care and it makes sense if you have somebody willing to donate their most precious commodity and that's their time let's get them into the system is getting used thank you John I'm fairly new to DAV but I'm also a chapter commander and an attorney and used to hire drivers for the military why in the world can they not go to a DOT certified physician to get physicals that's a good question for right now they're not recognized uh under the federal charter so I it's a good point that's a that could be a solution to our to our problem and I'm making it over that right now because DOD uses any physician who is DOT certified to do physicals I know it because I had 10 civilian drivers that had uh CDL with p endorsement no I just made a note of that um if the DOD can do it the VA should be able to fair enough was there anything else I want to try to conclude get everybody out here because there is another presentation right after me so this will be I'll give the last two questions right here okay in response to the last question for VTS employees VA will accept the DOT doctor's note but the employee has to pay for that if they want the VA to pay for it you got to go to whoever the VA says yep so my other issue is is I have been in contact with four or five other facilities and I have found that everyone seems to be interpreting the 1620 instruction differently for instance at my facility in Portland if it's helping a vet DAV transportation can transport them and other facilities if they don't have a very specific appointment that can be verified investor or cprs they can't get a ride in another state they have they have said that they can only transport to a VA hospital not a seabock not a veteran's choice not a comp and pen that's been outsourced could you please provide us some clarification on that it states in 1620 and I don't have a saying sitting in front of me here but I believe it says examination which could include or an appointment which could include a ride to the benefits administration a cemetery for for benefits that they're entitled to as a veteran I can highlight that for you want to and send that over to you so which facility was that at where it's being interpreted the wrong way again okay I got it down thank you yes sir last question chapter three Nashville Tennessee sir we have a they say we have a van at the hospital and we have a transportation problem with some of our veterans but we cannot get access to the vans to help our veterans out how do we get a hold of to the vans I went to the hospital you have a hospital service coordinator there yes that's who would have access to that vehicle that's the avenue I took okay who'd you see I don't know the name well if you could get me that information I'd be glad to look into that fair what's going on can I come and get a card yeah absolutely all right can you take one more that's it after you all right wilson miller past department commander Idaho we took the the 1920 booklet we shared that with the VA who did not have it and the results were that's a recommendation we aren't going to do a damn thing so that's kind of the feedback we got are you about 1620 that's a VA director I'm sorry I'm sorry huh go ahead no the the letter from salkin that came out oh I got your office I got you in your office they are not uh Boise you said it's just a recommendation was it was it was Boise yeah thank you you're welcome all right I want to thank everybody for coming in today go ahead real real quick before we actually conclude I'm going to put Tim on the spot for his lack of understanding for age whatever this morning is there anybody that would be interested in trying to register as a volunteer while you're here okay so there's going to be a lot of people mad at me but over here at membership uh I'm sorry registration where you registered can we have them go there stand up so everybody can see what Tim is Tim stand up so everybody can see what you look like yeah no right no kidding right so so y'all y'all don't embarrass Tim he embarrasses easy um uh he'll be over there please stop by if there's a big liner he's pulled aside please understand he's also helping with other things but go see him he'll help you walk through the process uh we're here to try to make this as easy as possible I truly appreciate everything you all do I'll let Tim elaborate on then I'll make my closing remarks and we'll be out of here okay I think he kind of said it if you if just when you go over to registration um you'll have to see me um so if if uh if you're waiting in line I mean I'll do the best I can I do have the ability to get behind the scenes as well so any issues like the the young lady who um who is having trouble with her account I can certainly help with that as well so I have access to all of that so whatever by the end of this we should be able to get you full on registered and using the site so again okay okay there you go again I want to thank everybody for coming in today I want to thank you for your interest in volunteering in your communities I ask you please take this information back share it we're all veterans here we're good at spreading the rumors right spread this rumor it's a good rumor get people to sign up encourage them we are available to you you can reach us at with email if you have it at va vs at dav dot org or you can call us on our toll free number ask for voluntary services I do pick up the phone I do answer emails and I do I'm glad to entertain any questions that you have if you see me floating around all right thank you have a great day thank you for being here have a good one