- The monthly VVA chapter 1069 meeting was held in the big banquet room at Mikeska's BBQ (located on Hwy 59), in El Campo, Tx.
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VVA Chapter 1069 President, Leonard Sternadel, declared the meeting open at 1900 hours and the
following business was transacted.
- The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag was recited and a prayer was said. The meeting was then recessed for the meal and reconvened at 1945.
- The following Board members were present: Sternadel, Steelman, F. Kulcak, Neumann, Mahlmann, Woods, and Supak.
- There were 46 total attendees (39 members and 7 guests)! A very nice turnout - A BIG Thanks to all those who attended!
- The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag was recited and a prayer was said.
- Sternadel recognized Joe Janda as a potential member for the chapter. WELCOME HOME JOE!
- The meeting was then recessed for the meal and reconvened at 1945.
- Sternadel informed the chapter that Calvin Mahlmann's grandson had been awarded a VVA scholarship in the amount of $1,000.00. Congratulations to Calvin's grandson!
- The minutes of the last meeting were approved as presented.
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The Agent Orange Town Hall meeting that was held back in March, was a huge success. There were
numerous donations that amounted to $6,900.00. After all the expenses were paid there was an excess of almost $1,960.00. This
excess monies was divided equally and distributed to those Victoria-area VVA Chapters that contributed to the event. Click on
the link below to read the full report (with photos) regarding the Town Hall meeting. Again, the chapter officers and BOD would
like to thank all those members who attended and helped with the event.
CLICK HERE to read the full report on the Agent Orange Town Hall event
- Sternadel then informed the chapter that Everyday Heroes (a local Veterans Help organization founded by Mike Ryan) was having a fundraising raffle to help defray the expenses to purchase a new Everyday Heroes Veteran's transportation van. This van is used daily to take veterans to and from Houston. It was recently involved in a wreck and totaled. Clayton Ryan has taken it upon himself to donate three commemorative guns for the raffle. Tickets and ticket books are available from Leonard Sternadel. Note that Mike Ryan has donated 5 very nice pocket knives (specially engraved for Veterans) to the chapter. They will be given to the top 5 ticket sellers in the chapter at the end of the raffle. Again, you may contact Leonard Sternadel to purchase tickets or get ticket booklets to sell. Click on the link below to learn more about the Everyday Heroes, Inc. organization and all they do for local Veterans.
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Dwight Winkler then gave his monthly benefits presentation with handout.
Dwight Winkler's handout contained the contact information for various persons involved with veteran's benefits.
He also presented the chapter with a very informative over view of the recently received property tax notice.
He explained what each of the categories meant and how the appraisals were arrived at.
Thanks Dwight, we all now have a warm fuzzy feeling ...
Death & Taxes, There's NO Escape!
(However, Taxes can be appealed!)
This month's handout from Dwight included all the topics shown below. Use the link below to View or Print the handout.
Pages 1,2
View or Print the May 2017 Handout
(1) BENEFITS CONTACT INFORMATION
(2) EXEMPTIONS INFORMATION REGARDING EVERYONE'S 2017 APPRAISAL NOTICE
Page 3
(3) DWIGHT'S 2017 APPRAISAL NOTICE DATA (with markups)
Page 4
(4) EXEMPTIONS CHART for VARIOUS WHARTON COUNTY TAX JURISDICTIONS (with markups). PAGE ALSO INCLUDES LINKS TO VARIOUS WHARTON COUNTY CENTRAL APPRAISAL DISTRICT (CAD) WEBPAGES.CLICK HERE to visit Dwight's Veterans Benefits page on our website
The links below will take you to various Wharton County Central Appraisal District (CAD) webpages.
Wharton CAD (Central Appraisal District) Homepage
Wharton CAD Online Protests page
The chapter would like to again take this opportunity to thank Dwight for volunteering to be our Chapter's Service Officer. We are
very fortunate to have Dwight present at every meeting to help our members with any Veteran related problems they may be having, as
the above photo shows.
- Sternadel then announced that the chapter had just received a $500 grant award for winning FIRST PLACE in the 2016-2017 Operation ED-U-CATE project, sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Assistance Foundation of Texas" (VVAFT) organization. Our Chapter's Bio & Photo Album/Booklet project had been nominated and submitted as an entry into this contest. This is a contest between Texas VVA Chapters, to achieve excellence in their overall general operation. Every year the VVAFT takes nominations from all Texas VVA Chapters for some particular Community or Veteran related project that the chapter may be involved with. There are certain criteria that must be met and a 500 word essay with photos must accompany the nomination entry. All entries are judged by the VVAFT Board of Directors. The Grant Awards are as follows: 1st place - $500, 2nd place - $300, 3rd place - $200, 4th place - $100. Much thanks to all those members who have participated in the project thus far and helped make it a success. We currently have 21 members in the Bio & Photo Album - be sure to take a look at the Album at the next meeting and learn a bit about your fellow Veterans. Click on the link below to learn more about the Bio & Photo Album/Booklet project and how to participate. Click here to learn more about the Bio & Photo Album/Booklet Project
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Sternadel then handed out a simple survey sheet, requesting that each member select/check 1 of the 3 choices shown below.
1. [ ] I want the VVA organization to remain as it is.
2. [ ] I would be ok if the VVA organization changed the membership to include all veterans.
3. [ ] I don't care what happens. The reason for the survey is related to the recent discussions involving the "Future of the VVA" and the possible outcome of the VVA organizational transition planning that is currently in progress. The result of the survey was an overwhelming 97.4% for choice #1, for the VVA oranization to remain as is. The actual count was 37 for the organization to remain as is and 1 for allowing the inclusion of all veterans. Sternadel felt it was important to have some factual information on how our membership felt about this issue. He will take this survey information to the upcoming VVA National Convention being held in New Orleans in August. Just to remind everyone about this issue, in October of 2016, VVA President John Rowan made a motion, adopted by the National Board of Directors, to establish two Panels that would examine two very different visions of a future VVA. Since then, VVA National has established two independent "Working Groups" to formulate two different "Transition Plans" for the VVA in the future. Each Working Group consists of 9 VVA members. Working Group 1 will assume VVA is moving toward a "Last Member Standing" type organization and will review all aspects of VVA in order to plan for our eventual dissolution. Working Group 2 will determine the feasibility of forming, chartering, funding, or empowering a new Veterans organization to "perpetuate our legacy and to continue the fight for all veterans". The VVA Board specified that these two Working Groups will act independently and all final decisions will be made by Convention delegates (delegates attending from each VVA Chapter) voting at some future VVA National Convention. An initial presentation of each Working Group's function is planned to be on the agenda of this year's 2017 National Convention being held in New Orleans. Note: Above information above was taken from the VVA National Treasurer's Report by Wayne Reynolds that was posted in the 2017 March/April issue of The VVA Veteran publication. Wayne Reynolds is also one of two Special Advisors assigned to Working Group 1. -
June 15th is being recognized with a Veteran's Appreciation Day in Garwood Texas, and the special event is being sponsored by the
"Garwood/Nada Gadabouts Extension Education Club". Our chapter membership is invited and we will be showing the video of the "Rose"
ceremony our chapter put on when the Vietnam Memorial Traveling wall was in El Campo in 2015. We're not sure what all the Garwood/Nada
Gadabouts do, but we did find a 2004 newspaper article about a WWII Veterans celebration held in Garwood that was sponsored by this local
club. See the link below. More information will be presented at the next chapter meeting regarding the Veterans Appreciation Day event in Garwood.
Newspaper Article - Nada/Garwood WWII Vets Honored (2004)
- Saturday, July 15th has been approved as "Vietnam Veteran's Family Day" at Ryan's Lake for our chapter membership. Mike Ryan has invited all VVA chapter 1069 members and their family members to come out for the day. Last year's event was a great success - everyone had a great time. Please mark your calendars and plan to attend. If you were not able to attend last year's event, Click on the link below to read/view the full report. This will be a great opportunity to bring those grandkids out for some fun fishing, or for you to do some fishing yourself. Mike's lake is full of fish! Vietnam Veterans Family Day 2016 at Ryan Lake
- The membership voted to change the meeting day in August to the 16th (3rd Wednesday in August) due to the VVA National Convention being held during the week of the regular meeting date. This will allow Sternadel to update the chapter on any important matters discussed at the Convention that might affect the membership which also includes the VVA National officer election results.
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And finally, a big thanks goes out to Dana & Brenda for running the PX during the meeting.
- There being no further business, President Sternadel declared the meeting adjourned at 2045. Much thanks to our chapter Secretary, John Steelman for providing the minutes for this report.