2012 ABIF Caravan Group - Special Military Active Retired Travel Club

R & R Committee Chair -Sherwin StielowThe National has came and went. Had agreat time with all of our old friends and 44new first timers friends we met. Dorothyand I left the National for a 2 day stop atSedalia, Mo. to do our part helping withthe 2013 National. There were a fewproblems that came to our attention from the National, OurNational BOD and staff did a great job of working throughthese items. Most important to everyone is not let thingslike this occur in the future.E-mail letter of Congratulations was sent to Al Haynes#12358 for his 2012 RECRUITER OF THE YEAR AWARD.I see that Al has now recruited 8 more new members fromhis Good Sam Samboree event. More will be said aboutthis in follow up. While at the National I was contacted by amember of SE Region about the possibility of forming anew Chapter at or around THE VILLAGES. Hq. was contactedand received their records of SMART membership inthat area. Letter was sent to this interested person with CCto BOD and the SE Regional Director for follow up. I am ofthe opinion that this will be taken care by SE Director.While at the National, a visit was made at all of theVendor booths. Observed that none of the Venders hadany SMART applications on display. Even though severalwere SMART members. Suggested to all vendors thatwould be would appreciate if they would have an SMARTapplication display at all future events that they were at.SMART or otherwise. One of the vendors was a memberof a Nationwide African American RV club. Two email contactswere made to their National Hq., another contact wasmade via. public service to their Regional type director forcentral US. Attempt was made to have this club considerforwarding to their veteran membership information aboutSMART. As of this date nothing has occurred from thiscontact. This has been placed in my inactive file for thistime. If anyone knows of any African American Veteranswho belong to this org., please make an attempt to pass oninformation about SMART.Received information from Christian Eck about a applicationgiven out that was effecting the Arkansas Diamonds.There were several emails sent by a number of ArkansasDiamonds about this application. They [CLOSED THEDEAL] on this application. Great recruiting by all. Mythanks to all for doing well. This is the type of recruiting andfollow that needs to be done by all Regions. More aboutthis later.New SMART Application was being put together by ourHq. staff. Input and suggestions was given by many tocome up with the best possible application. Several of mysuggestions were accepted on this new application. a. It isalso my suggestion that each SMART member could printapplications from the SMART www site. To save on printingat home you can bring the application up to print, thenkey in SHADES OF GRAY to print the application out.Save a lot on color ink.Many of our SMART membership belong to Good SamClubs. The August/September 2012 issue of their magazinehad several great articles from their CEO about MilitaryVeterans and how Good Sam International could help withVeterans. An article was produced with the help of almostall of our BOD and others to get a positive write up into anupcoming Good Sam Magazine. After hitting one brick wallafter another trying to find the correct person to guide ourSMART/GOOD SAM story to their publication. We foundthe POC. The article is into them. Now, we have to waitand see if it will be published. More will follow on this issue.Nov. 1st the Kansas Big First Tea Party hosted a Veteranappreciation day in Hays, Ks.. Dorothy and I set up aSMART Recruiting table [FREE- $75.00 charge waved forus]. We did not do much if any good at this event. Threeapplications were handed out to interested veterans. Hq.Staff brought to my attention if a Chapter closing. My inputwas given to 2nd VP Christen about this issue. This is aRegional issue, nothing can be done now about the problemthat may have lead to this Chapter closing. The onlything that National can do is through Retention efforts [thereare several] help all Regions with Retention questions andproblems. Please everyone do your part for retention. Addto the list things that each Region can do.DO NOT SWEEP ANY PROBLEM UNDER THE RUG.The following are some of the areas that I am working on atthis time. But first, "LET ME BE CLEAR ON ONE POINT",I will clear everything through the BOD and Hq. Staff beforeputting anything official out to membership. I am not anelected official, I serve at the pleasure of the National Presidentand BOD.[BAD FISHING DAYS]. The hope when FISHING isthat the big trophy will swim by and be attracted to thebait. Just a little side note on fishing. In my fishing boatthere are at least 10 fishing poles, and assume about 500different lures. Over $5.000.00 lures and fishing items,JUST TO ATTRACT THAT ONE BIG FISH.We know that many organizations are having problemswith membership. In fact it seems that the word MANYshould be changed to ALL. I am not a big reader. Look atmagazines of interest to me. Always look at the first fewpages where their CEO and Editors have items of interest.For the most part all of these items have to do with R & R.The American LEGION magazine. Their Commandernotes that there are an estimated 16 million eligible veterans,but the LEGION only has 2.4 million members. Theyhave set a goal of 3.3 million membership. Am starting towork on a program to get SMART articles into the LEGIONmag.. Have talked to HQ., been advised me that nothingwas being done in this area at this time. Hq. suggested thatwe could advertise for them and they for us as a www. spot.More to follow on this.VFW Magazine. Same as the Legion. Will be workingon this are of [free] advertising on the www. page. Am lookingat getting the VFW and LEGION to advertise in theTraveler. More to follow on this item.RV Dealership Possibility of forwarding to local RVdealership our E-News. What benefit would the dealer getfrom our E-News? Or would they just delete this-- as Junkmail? Have talked to a couple of RV Dealers here in Kansas.Being we are non-profit and military veterans, wheysuggested the possibility that they would put SMART ontheir www. page as a link. Talked to Hq. We can do thesame for them on the e-News page. With Hq. only able to