Metro West – Agenda and Meeting Notes

Meeting Notes – November 13th, Grandview Lodge – 10:30am

District Veterans Committee Meeting

Attending the meeting:

• Kansas City Lodge 26 Charlie Cantrell, Alan Hanigan,  Beth Cannafax, Jan Anson, Stuart Anson
• Blue Springs Lodge 2509  Debby Aliff
• Grandview Lodge 2088 Otto Sayles, Darrell Quinley, Jim Dougan
• Northland Lodge 2376 Billy Thompson, Kim Murch, Larry King
• Cass County2791 John Reinhart 

1. Financial Report – New Secretary/Treasurer  Maria Stiles Blue Springs will be our new treasurer. 
2. Meeting location for next two months – Charlie the January meeting will be at Lexington after the DD/VP meeting. The meeting is on January 8 and we usually start around 11am. Lexington is having a chill cookoff on that day. The February meeting will be at the Blue Springs Lodge and I will have the dater by the December meeting.
3. State Committee Update – Darrell said the state will take over the cost of the website. He is going to get a check and it will be deposited in the veteran’s account. He will get $500 for the maintenance cost.
4. Update on the Web site -Darrell Steve has been maintaining the site and making updates. Send you writeups and pictures on veteran activities to Steve. He will make sure the writeups get on the site. Currently the only person that can do updates is Steve. This way all the information is veteran related. Charlie will send out to the ERS and SEC on how to get on the website. There is a contest for Web site from the Grand Lodge. He has sent information on our Web Site to Grand Lodge.
5. Comments from John Rinehart the November 10 pull pork sandwiches at the hospital went on as best as possible. We were limited on how many people we could have inside served. This reduced our numbers of meals served. At St Michael’s we were able to go inside and serve the meal.  
   John said on another subject we have great candidates for the state officers.
6. Comments from Otto Sayles  Otto told about the raffle and maybe a way to get the people in the lodge helping more on projects. We held the raffle for gift corticates at Conroy’s restaurant. The raffle generated $515 for Grandview and $515 for Cass County to use for charity. Don’t forget to report your charity hours. When Cass County does a collection, they put the items just inside the door for all to see. Maybe all Lodges should do sometime like that for impact.
7. Volunteers for DEPVAVS to help at the veteran’s sites – Charlie/Darrell explain to the people what is required of the position. Please look around your lodge and see if we can find a person to be a DEPVAVS. If you find someone let Darrell know so he can start the paper work to get approval from the state. Darrell said he can see the reports from other lodges on what they are doing to help the Veterans. Maybe we can come up with new ideas on charity activities.
8. Meals for St. Michaels this fall/ winter – Cass County is doing a Christmas party. If your lodge wants to do a meal let the committee know so they can help
9. Bowling party for St Michael’s – Blue Springs hosted the bowling party and we had 16 bowlers. Again, Logan gave each bowler a $20 bill. Blue Springs purchased the food. Everyone had a good time and we had 4 ELKS at the bowling. It is important we show up to talk to the residents
10. Update on the pork sandwiches at the VA, Fisher House and St Michael’s. See number 5 above.
11. Request from St Michael’s for shelves for dignity panty – Group -They called and said they could use 6 more shelves to store food. The shelves need to be able to fit through a door and have wheels. Their need is 2 to 3 months in the future.      Charlie said the shelves are 77inches tall 4ft long and 18inches wide. The need to be able to hold up to 4000 lbs on a shelve. An estimate of the cost will be around $150 per shelve. A motion was made and approved to spent up to $1000 from the district money to purchase the shelves. This motion will need to be approved by the other committee chairs. Debby will contact the ERs and the committee chairs for approval.
12. Suggestions for new activities at the veteran sites. It was suggested we have a movie night at St Michael’s when it gets warm on the lawn. Also, a suggestion was made to have a craft fair at St Michael’s. We need to look at what we can do that is different.
13. Fundraiser/Christmas party at the home – Darrell/Charlie the home is selling banners and dog tags to raise money for the veterans at Christmas. They make sure every veteran has $50 to spent at Christmas. Darrell is on the Veterans Assistance League at the home. The VAL handles donations and makes sure all the veterans have needed items that the state does not purchase.
14. Around the Table – News by lodge
    • John Cass County talked about the possibility of the IRS looking at the way we handle our money. John told us the way we established a budget at the last district meeting has been changed. We now need to establish a budget outlining what we are going to use the veteran’s money for during the year. Charlie and Steve were tasked with coming up with a draft budget for the committee to review and agree on for the year. This will be presented to the district officers for their review and approval. The review by the IRS may not happen but we need to prepare for their review. We need to discuss this at the next meeting. Charlie handed out a draft budget for review by the group. John said we need to present the budget at the summary line item at the VP meeting. John/Debby said they would tell everyone if you more details see Charlie or Steve.
    • Darrell Grandview told about getting pcs for St Michael’s and the books on how to use them. St Michael’s is setting up a group to provide training on the pcs. The funds come from a grant.
    • Billy Northland told about a project at Northland to help the Veterans better understand their benefits. They are working with experts on Veteran benefits. They will be using their grant money for this project.
    • Larry King Northland handed out Honor and Remember flags to each lodge. Get online and see what the flags and colors mean.
    • Jim D said he and his wife had made small Christmas trees covered with candy for Fisher House.
    • Beth Kansas City is working with St Michael’s to get something for the lady Veterans at St Michael’s. She is having a hard time getting a contact from St Michaels to work with her on the project.
15. Draft budget for District Veterans committee -Steve/Charlie see number 14 above. Two changes were made to the budget and approved by the committee.