Welcome to the 2021 American Legion year! It seems a little surreal without our Department and National conventions to mark the end of the 2020 membership year, but we are off to a great start to the 2021 year which started July 1.
We received 100% of our Post Data Reports so our renewal notices went out with only a few hiccups for a couple of posts with either typos submitted in their address or the wrong date noting an annual dues increase for the post. We mailed the member cards to each post who turned in the required forms (since they were not distributed at Department Convention) and only 29 out of 424 posts in the department still need to submit their Post Certification of Officers in order to get the member cards sent to them.
The cards are tracked to verify delivery and only one post has had a mix-up, with the box opening in transit and several hundred member cards were lost and had to be re-printed at National Headquarters. We missed getting 100% in submission of our Consolidated Post Reports to National by just 10 posts.
We submitted CPRs on these 10 posts, but since we were unable to get accurate information on these posts because the post leadership did not call Department HQ back, we had to submit the report with too many zeros for National to accept.
With some more help from district leadership next year, I am sure we can make 100%. I am still proud of the 97% we submitted this year as in the past we were lucky to obtain 65% submission of our Consolidated Post Reports.
The coronavirus has put a huge damper on meeting in person and has created challenges at all levels of the organization. On our website, some guidance regarding online meetings is available at caLegion.org/online-meeting-resources.
Over 74% of our posts are processing membership directly to national online now. This is the preferred method as it saves staff time and gets the member payment entered quickly at national to prevent additional renewal notices being sent out. An increased number of individual members are paying their dues directly by going to Legion.org and selecting the gold RENEW bar.
Post leaders need to review the “Members Paid Online” report on mylegion.org and review who has paid directly online so that their membership cards can be sent to them weekly.
Another report on mylegion.org to check weekly is the “Transfer Report” to review the members who have transferred into your post and are waiting to get vetted by your post. Last year, we were able to transfer over 11,000 members into posts. Please make sure you engage them into the post as best you can during this era of COVID-19.
