Chapter Meeting Notes - 16 May 2015

USASMA: Derek passed out invitations for the Class 65 graduation at 0900 on 12 June and mentioned the VFW 812 USASMA party later that evening. SFA 9 is invited to attend and we donated $300 toward the cost. He is going to the 3rd SFG(A) upon graduation.

Jerry Rainey Scholarship – 9th year: Committee Chuy, Gus, Steve, Don and Sam Morgan as Committee Chair. Chapter will select and present 3 x $1000 scholarships at our August meeting. Open to current College students with 3.5 GPA with 24 credit hours or more, including Post Grad students.

1st Special Forces Group Reunion: 1st Group wants to hold their 2017 Reunion in El Paso again. Ike is making the early coordination and will attend the 2015 reunion from 5-9 June in Alexandria, VA.

Memorial Day and  Moose’s Birthday: 23 May, VFW hosted a Pig Roast Luau and numerous SFA 9 members attended.  The picture above of USASMA members and family performing in costume.

VFW Post 812 News: Commander Al Hobbs. Meeting is held the 1st Saturday’s 1000 hrs. 1st Sunday of every month is a fish fry from 1100-1400. Bar is open every evening. Fun Food Friday is held every Friday evening.

82nd News: Benavidez-Patterson All Airborne Chapter: Chairman Lee Walker. Chapter meets the 4th Saturday’s, lunch at 1300 and meeting at 1400. Chapter bar is open every Friday and Saturday from 1500 until whenever. The Chapter is gearing up for Fiesta 7, July 1-4, 2015, El Paso Wyndham.

Chapter President's Message: Welcome to June 2015 in beautiful El Paso. The weather is getting warmer and folks are getting out more which leads me to the 10th annual John McLaughlin golf tournament. 10 years is a long time to do anything year after year and being the “decade” event we need to do this right. Before we are in the constant 100 degree weather get out and visit those places that you patronize and ask for a sponsorship. Monetary, gift certificates, goody bag items (100 ea) and any other new items that can be given as a door prize or auction.

We are pushing forward on the land acquisition for the VFW Post 812 and Chapter 9. If the final decision is to build a “Team House” then we’ll be positioned to do that. If not at least we’ll have helped the VFW secure the land for future use.

I want to thank the chapter members who helped and attended the Luau hosted by the VFW and supported by the students of the USASMA class 65. Great food, entertainment, and comradeship. I’ll be attending the 2015 SFA Conference so hopefully I’ll have some good news for our next meeting. God bless and happy trails.

The SFA National convention in Portland was good, the next one will be in Jacksonville Florida from 12-19 June 2016. Some notes of interest from the meetings: It cost National around $30k per quarter to develop and mail the Drop. If you don’t collect them and just want a softcopy from the website let Cliff at National know and he’ll take you off the mailing list. Election due date for National will be 31 October 2015.

We as a chapter will do a mass mailing of the election forms once it comes out but if you want to mail in your ballot separately the name on the envelope (return address) must be the members name and address. Cliff’s assistant will pre-screen ballets by the members name and address as it shows on the National roster. If the return address does not match the info on the National roster the ballet will have to be opened separately by the election committee hence the need to have the return address match. If you’re not sure what the National roster has for your address call or e-mail Snider. If you would like to run for a National officer position you will need a SF Chapters backing OR a petition signed by 3 % of all SFA members.

One last thing, the SFA has a store where 20% of the profits go to national and 2% comes back to the chapter. You can find the store at SFOutdoors.com. There were more info but it was mainly for the treasurer so I won’t bore you with those.

De Oppresso Liber!

Pete Peral, President, SFA Chapter IX