Greeting Comrades,
As we begin this new Legion year, let us re-dedicate ourselves to building a better Detachment. Let’s all get back to the basics, Communication, respect teamwork, and information which should be cornerstone principles for the Sons of The American Legion.
Communication : is one of our biggest assets ,we all have cell phones. When we send out emails or text messages and get no response, let’s pick up those phones and make a call. It amazes me that we all have time to play games on our phones, but not enough time to make a call. A simple, “how are you?”, “how can I help you?”, or “do you need anything?” can go a long way. It helps people feel that they really matter, which they do. We have a lot of methods for communicating, I just want to encourage everyone to utilize all of them. Figure out how your Districts and Squadrons like to be communicated to. Ask them, “hey, what is the best way I can make sure you are getting the Detachment information?” That is a powerful question, that people love to answer.
Respect: we all have a desire to help our Veterans and their families , As I’m sure we all have different ideas on how to do this . no ideas are wrong. Develop those ideas to see if they can make an impact on our organization or improve the lives of our Veterans . It’s important for us have culture of mutual respect . We are all here for the same reason, let’s support each other in every way, come along side with new ideas, develop existing idea’s ,and work our programs to achieve our purpose .
Teamwork – it doesn’t matter who is in charge. It doesn’t matter if they do things a little different. What matters is the end result. If a person steps up and is willing to spearhead a project then we owe it to the program to get behind that person and support them to the fullest. Many hands make light work. None of us is a strong and smart as all of us. Therefore none of us should be alone doing a task or working this program.
Information – We hope to have email accounts set up for all squadrons in our detachment very soon so we can get the information directly to the Squadron’s , we have a website, a Facebook page, and a newsletter. You should be connected with all 3 of these tools. Let’s use these things and get this information to all of our members. This is a great opportunity for us to “brand” our organization and continue to get our name out there in the public to raise awareness and support for our program. Please go to our website at salcalifornia.com. Our Facebook page can be found at SAL Detachment of California, search for our page and please “like” us. Our newsletter is called the Adventure and is a state of the art best in the land type of publication, it can be found at sonsadventure.com. Tip, the flip book newsletter is set to music which is a fantastic feature but in order to shut off the music from your phone viewing you need to close the ap. All 3 of these information tools are at your disposal and should be used to send information, tell us what you have coming in your Squadrons, share pictures, share videos, and develop ideas and content.
As your Commander this year, we are going to get our Commission’s and Committee’s all working to help our Veterans and support the programs of the American Legion ,and to continue the program that our Jr Past Commander has started ,and to add promotional video’s to use in our community to recruit new members of the Sons of the American Legion, to improve the training of our Squadron officer’s with training video’s on membership transmittals and other forms, work on renewals we loose 1200 to 1400 every year which should help our membership grow to a new all time high in California.
I am truly honored to be your new Detachment Commander for 2019-2020 and to work to help support our Veteran’s and the program of the American Legion Family, if you have any question please feel free to contact me we are here to work and support the programs.
For God and Country in Support of the American Legion Family
Sincerely,
Philip ”Tiny” Stuart
Commander 2019-2020
Detachment of California