On Sunday, June 27, 2021, Autrey James became the Commander of the Department of California, of The American Legion. He came in with a theme that inspires a philosophy of unity and purpose:
One Team. One Fight.
After the election, the United States of America went through an annual Patriotic Season of Flag Day and then The Fourth of July. Americans celebrate what we veterans have devoted our lives to. Now we Legionnaires of the Department of California can use the momentum of the season to bring some polished shine to the Golden State. Think of it as a….RENEWAL. I think you’ll see that theme pop up in this article.
We all know that everything we do is bolstered by having a strong, healthy membership. There’s a lot that goes into that, so let’s start by building on foundations at every level.
MEMBERS
• Sign up at MyLegion.org. Once you do that, you have access to everything available to you from National. You can sign up for email newsletter, replace a lost ID card and so much more.
• Take the free and really well done, BASIC Training course at www.legion.org/basictraining. The more you learn about the organization, the more you can make it your own and contribute to its long-term growth.
• Ask lots of questions and find ways to get involved. Suggest activities that would interest you and take the LEAD in making it happen.
• Follow your Post, District and Department on social media and tag them when you do something super Legionairre-ily awesome! We need stories to tell and one of those stories might be yours.
• RENEW EARLY! We need that foundation set, so we can get to the work of telling the American Legion story and welcoming new members to our ranks.
POSTS
• We need Posts to be accessible to take advantage of efforts being made at the Department level. The first step in doing that will be to make sure that all Post contact information is correct in MyLegion.
• A presence on social media will be essential to our expanded accessibility plan. I suggest that all Posts start a Facebook page.
TRAINING AND MEDIA/COMMUNICATIONS
• Your Membership Committee should consider ways to make the Post more appealing for recruitment and retention. It could be a fresh coat of paint or creating a team of ambassadors to interface with members and prospective members to make them all feel welcome.
• Establish a calendar for patriotic holidays, community events and other activities where you can make an impression in the community.
• Make a communication plan with all of your members and especially your new members. We want to avoid them hearing from us only when we want their renewal. (Stay tuned for additional training on this)
• Encourage your members to RENEW EARLY!
DISTRICTS
• Bring Post leadership together and make membership regular discussion.
• Consider combining community service projects with all of your Posts for a bigger impact and visibility.
• Double check that your Posts are up to date in MyLegion and that they are encouraging members to register with MyLegion.
• Motivate the Posts to motivate their members to RENEW EARLY!
DEPARTMENT
• We are starting to develop some partnerships that should deliver new members to the organization.
• We are creating content on social media and distributing it in a targeted way, to help members find us! This is why we need your Post contact information to be correct.
• We are ramping up training and communication to get questions answered, information transferred, and positivity flowing. It’s not against the rules to have fun at this!
• We are actively planning Department wide events, for even larger impact and visibility.
• We plan on actively advocating for timely transactions of membership continuation. Sorry, I mean that we’ll be advocating for everyone to…RENEW EARLY! Seriously, don’t make us get on TikTok and do a whole song and dance. Nobody needs to see that.
Like I said, this is just the foundation. To really discover the riches of The Golden State we are going to need an effort from every member. We are going to need to take on the mantra of Commander Autrey James and come together to be: One Team; One Fight!
Author: Jeff Daly
Jeff Daly grew up in Kalamazoo, MI before joining the Marine Corps. After his service he went to the small, private, liberal arts school Kalamazoo College, where he studied Economics and Political Science. Jeff serves The American Legion is several capacities. He is on the Department Training Committee and is an instructor for California Legion College. He is junior/immediate past Commander of Hollywood Post 43. He has been a District officer and served two terms as the Department Membership Director. He is also the immediate past President of the National American Legion College Alumni Associate. Outside of the Legion, Jeff serves on the Military Affairs for Los Angeles Local SAG-AFTRA. You can keep up with Jeff's thoughts on veterans issues by subscribing to his podcast. That is hosted at http://anchor.fm/dalydose. From there you can get links to b subscribe on your favorite music & podcast app.