Serving Those Who Served
Oklahoma ALA Department Fall Conference 2022
American Legion Auxiliary
Department of Oklahoma
September 29, 2022
To All American Legion Auxiliary Members:
This is the Official Call for the American Legion Auxiliary Department of Oklahoma Fall Conference to be held on Saturday, October 29, 2022 at Post #73 in Del City located at 5000 SE 24th Street, Del City, OK, 73115. I hope to see everyone there!
The registration fee is $10.00 payable at the door. Registration will begin at 9:00 am and the meeting will start at 10:00 am. A light lunch will be served.
There will be a DEC Meeting at this conference to review and approve the budget.
National President Vickie Koutz’s focus this year is to “Honor our Veterans Every Day”. With this in mind I believe that “Strength Thru Unity” will carry us forward this year into a new post-pandemic beginning. We must increase our membership and work the ALA programs as best we can for our veterans. We are also working diligently to get Department Headquarters back on track providing as much information to units as possible. There are several forms included in this package that need to be completed and returned to Department.
Mandatory Unit Contributions - Our Department donates $80.00 every month to each of the seven VA Centers and both VA Hospitals located in Oklahoma for a total of $720.00 per month. At Christmas time Department donates $100.00 to each facility. Additionally Department donates $1,500 yearly to the Buddy Fund for the annual Christmas VA&R Tour. This brings the total yearly Department donation to $10,320 of which only $2,850 comes from mandatory unit donations. Enclosed is the 2023 MANDATORY UNIT CONTRIBUTIONS FORM showing the Unit Bond ($5.50) and the VA&R donation ($25.00). Any other donations made by the units to the VA&R General Fund will be used to help offset these costs and will be greatly appreciated.
ALAMIS is also changing for next year. It is now possible for units to have “Full” access to the ALAMIS system for their Unit or District. Full access will allow the user to not only be able to view and print reports, and make changes to member information, but to also pay their dues online (retaining the Unit portion of the dues). Enclosed are Unit and District ALAMIS ACCESS FORMS for 2023. If your unit would like to have an ALAMIS user, please complete and return the form with your payment.
Membership dues have increased on a National and Department level. Beginning in 2024, National senior membership dues will increase to $18.00 and Department senior dues will increase to $14.00. National junior dues will remain at $2.50 and Department junior dues will be $3.00. These dues increases were passed at Department Convention in July 2022 and National Convention in August 2022.
What this means is that effective for calendar year 2024, units must send $32.00 for each senior member and $5.50 for each junior member to cover the cost of dues. These costs do not include any unit or district dues. Enclosed is a 2024 UNIT DATA FORM. This must be completed and returned to Department no later than April 15, 2023 so that we can notify National of your unit’s new dues rate.
National has changed the way they are presenting the Plan of Action Programs this year. There will no longer be a consolidated National Plan of Action Report. Members should go to the National Website Committee, our Department website, and/or contact the Department Chairman for the programs they are interested in working this year.
In order to make your program selections easier, we have compiled a report of all of the Department of Oklahoma’s Program Plans of Action giving you an overview of each program, along with reporting due dates and award due dates and included it with this call. Please take the time to review the enclosed report.
My first fundraising event is a Poker Run to be held on November 5, 2022. The run will start at 9:30 am at the American Legion in Chandler (707 Legion Avenue). From there riders will go to Stroud, Drumright, Yale, Stillwater, and finally back to Chandler. Registration is between 8:30 am and 9:30 am – the donation is $20.00 per rider and $10.00 for passengers. You do not have to be a Legion or Auxiliary member to have fun on this Poker Run. In fact, you don’t even have to ride a motorcycle – a car or truck can join in on the fun also.
Christmas is rapidly approaching, and I will be making the VA&R Tour of hospitals and centers during the first two weeks of December. We are looking for donations of Christmas Cards for the Tour - if you have any extra Christmas cards please bring them to the meeting, or drop them off at Department Headquarters. Each card will be stuffed with a crisp $1.00 bill and given to every veteran in both of our VA Hospitals and all seven (7) VA Centers throughout the State. I am hopeful that this year we will be able to personally deliver them to each veteran.
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Strength Thru Unity
Gayle Keene, President
*** Forms discussed above will be listed in the Forms and Publications page.