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Happy New Fiscal Year!January 08, 2013 The end of the calendar year brings the end of VFP’s fiscal year and therefore a variety of year-end financial activities for me. Now that I’ve been through them several times I don’t find them stressful and I enjoy working with professional accountants to accomplish them. At the end of each month, Angela, a local accountant reviews our accounts looking for any errors I have made during the month and reconciling our accounts to the banks’. Monthly financial reports are reviewed by the Executive Director and Board Treasurer. Monthly income and expense reports are also provided to the 5 or 6 VFP national projects whose funds are handled through our office. Angela is a true accountant. She loves finding a puzzle to unravel! In January she also identifies any money spent in the old year for services that will actually be received in the new year and books them accordingly. These are the kinds of things accountants think about. Sometime in January, a CPA from a different firm will come in for a day to do an annual review of our books and provide a statement that serves in lieu of a full audit – which would be very expensive indeed. Larry is also a pleasure to work with. Along with looking at the numbers he counsels on financial policy, making sure we have appropriate policies in place for handling projects, endowments, etc. and that we are following them in our practices. We will use the Financial Review numbers to provide a summary annual report for members and supporters. They also go back to the monthly accountant to prepare our 990 filing with the IRS. However, this report is not due until May and needs less of my participation. This how VFP makes sure the resources you provide are accounted for and used as you intended. Thank you for making it all possible! Category: Virginia
Winter War StoriesDecember 28, 2012 Over the Holiday period, I am reminded by VFP Members I speak to of two major military events that took place during the cold of Winter. One was the Battle of the Bulge (16 Dec 1944-25 Jan 1945); I never neglect to call one Texas vet in particular whose twin brother died in that struggle. The other event that always comes to mind is the Battle around the Chosen Reservoir in Korea. This year, a "Frozen Chosen" veteran recommended A Little Pond, a 1999 Korean movie available on Netflix. A Little Pond is as true a story as can be told about the deliberate murder of Korean civilians by United States military. We get to know the children, the pre-pubescent boy who constantly teases the girls, the girl who resists and insists on being treated with dignity, the young Lovers, the Mothers and Grandmothers, Fathers and Sons, the beautiful choir made up of mostly young girls, the architecture of their homes, fields and pathways. We are not let off the hook by the usual anonymity, when we hear that "some" civilians might have died "unnecessarily" . This movie, this story ...wounds .. Blessed Be. It is way past time. Everyone's suffering, everybody's children, everybody's village must be(come) our own if we are to one day move away from War. Category: Doug
A Look Back at KoreaDecember 21, 2012 As I make these Membership Renewal calls to Members of Veterans For Peace, I hear from many of you about the books and films you have seen. One such film is "The Front Line" a 2011 movie out of "South" Korea. Hear the voice of the Korean grunt at the brunt of the Chinese Army’s overwhelming attack and experience that war from the perspective of a "North Korean" sniper. Merciless film, as is war. It is good to see this war from a perspective other than North American. I have heard nothing but trash talk about the Korean soldiers ... they killed and they by-God suffered. This is a heart-breaking movie and I apologize for pretending that it has led me to any understanding. I could not sleep after this movie; it prompted me to pick up Halberstam's posthumous "The Coldest War" again and to greet the morning sun with a broken heart, a wondering mind and a restless soul. My Step-Dad Jose Del Real was there. It helps me to understand his silence and his love of life. That's right - IT WAS A WAR!) "Police action" describes the war of Occupation in Oakland, South Dallas, and South-Central. Thanks to my VFP Elder, a Korean War veteran for this gift. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxFbRg9HS8Y Category: Doug
Moving Forward With International ChaptersDecember 10, 2012 There has a lot of talk throughout VFP about the expansion of international chapters since the board's approval of the United Kingdom chapter last month. In the past couple of weeks we have had inquiries from veterans in a number of countries, including the Philippines, Australia, and most recently, Ireland. Veterans in Ireland are actively recruiting and working with members from the UK chapter to develop a chapter in Northern Ireland. Expanding internationally will help us increase the efforts of pro-peace veterans and build this worldwide movement. We are excited to see VFP going in this direction, and hope to welcome more international chapters in 2013! Category: Casey
A Texas ChristmasDecember 04, 2012 Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. It is all but unbelievable for me that industrial capitalism would celebrate a Holiday signifying the birth of a baby whose parents could provide no better place than an animal's stable for a delivery room. I love this Holiday because I go about talking about this myth in a way that Texans have not heard. “Really, I ask? Are we really expecting that the most important person born on this planet on Dec 31, 2012 will be born to a hungry single Mother on the streets of East St Louis, Detroit or West Oakland?” Hmmm. It is one of those teaching moment. The compassionate vision of an Important Child born into such circumstances opens hearts and makes the work I do for VFP all the more enjoyable. So, Beloveds, over the next few weeks - between now and mid-February - I will be making hundreds if not thousand of phone calls to Veterans For Peace Members. I will be asking some of you to renew their Memberships, others to convert your Annual Memberships to a Recurring Donor schedule (Monthly or Quarterly). In this way we wrap up our loose ends and prepare for another year at the barricades. I will also take the opportunity, when you are willing, to hear about your personal miltary histories and the Stories that brought you to VFP and made you a Peace Veteran. Category: Doug
Leading Up To ThanksgivingNovember 21, 2012 This week Mike, Casey and I were able to re-initiate the webinars on Building Member Involvement. We are excited to be bringing the tool of a focused one on one conversation to our chapters. Many organizations have used this process successfully and we feel it will help us be more intentional in building and sustaining commitment to VFP. We will continue to reach out to members to encourage them to participate. The Fall VFP Newsletter should be reaching you soon and our last letter of the year to request your financial support is on its way. Shelly is posting news to the web page daily and produces the weekly news blast. I hope you’re checking it out each Friday. The variety of information about VFP activities always encourages me. Chrissie sends out merchandise almost every day and keeps the various acknowledgement letters getting out to you on schedule. Casey is working with a number of chapters that are forming or re-forming and significantly increasing VFP’s presence on Facebook. More behind the scenes, Mike is working to bring an AmeriCorps volunteer into the office, Shelly is researching ways to unite the functions of our two databases into one, and Chrissie and I will be constructing new shelves in our storage area. Adding the new sweatshirts to our stock pushed us beyond our current shelf limits. Such are the less visible activities that help hold VFP together. Most of all, Happy Thanksgiving! Working with you each day via phone, mail and email provides the support, nudges, wit and commitment we need. Category: Virginia
Let the Gratitude BeginOctober 30, 2012 The Holidays are upon us! The end of year holds special relevance to every nonprofit organization, as it is the time to evaluate the progress of the work undertaken and to wrap up loose ends, preparing for yet another year. The Holidays are the time of the year that we are especially encouraged to think about generosity and belonging. For me the Season begins on Halloween, when I get down to Sixth Street in Austin at Midnight on October 31 with my freaky allies, the tens of thousands of ghouls, goblins, witches, warlocks and Zombies to celebrate outrageousness and marginalized imaginations. It appears that there is nothing more outrageous in our society than to suggest that we can and should end the institution of War - nothing more marginalized than groups like VFP organized around the concept of Oneness and Mercy. Then comes Thanksgiving, a Holiday replete with racist implications and self-serving myth but simultaneously, an opportunity for families (of all kinds) to convene and do a spiritual practice together, that of celebrating Gratitude. I am awakened each morning by an email from gratitude.org and emails or social media contacts from a dozen or more of you. Color me grateful for the outrageous Spirits I encounter in Veterans For Peace and for the end of the year work. I am gateful for the chance to speak to more of you than at any other time of the year and to serve VFP and the cause of World Peace. Category: Doug
The Daily is BlessedOctober 23, 2012 Fall has arrived. Great color in St. Louis this year. Bird migrations casting off the old and bringing on the new. Completed ballots returning to the office in great number. Members of Chapter 61 faithfully volunteering to do the counting on November 1. Technology issues continue to dog us a bit. The phones are still not always clear. Shelly is still not networked to the printer or to the rest of us. As always, the solution seems to be just on the horizon. Casey is creatively building support around the country for Bells for Peace events on Armistice Day (Veterans Day). This campaign was initiated by Chapter 27 as a call to return to the original intent of the holiday. Mike, Casey and I enjoy working on design projects together when we have them. Lately we created a new holiday card for this year (now available at the web store) and a graphic for the back of hoodie sweatshirts that will be available soon. We hope you will like them as much as we do. The daily is blessed. Category: Virginia
Tantalizing TechnologyOctober 02, 2012 In July, staff at the office here led two webinars/trainings on Building Member Involvement. They got good response from participants and we planned to continue offering two sessions each month, trying to reach members in as many chapters as possible. In our view this is a very high priority since the only way for VFP to grow is through our chapters’ growth. So here it is the first days of October and you may wonder why you have not heard of more sessions being scheduled. It is a sad tale of technology trumping human intention. In evaluations of the trainings we received complaints of poor sound quality. When we listened to recordings of the sessions it was clear that we needed to find a fix. The convention intervened and then Mike and Shelly began a couple of weeks of researching and testing various webinar services. We tested various kinds of microphones and headsets in combination with the various services. It finally seemed that we found a good service and simply did not have adequate bandwidth available in the office to provide good sound. Any of you who have called the office in recent months know that the quality of our voice over internet phone service has deteriorated significantly, too. So began a two week process of troubleshooting with AT&T and with the internet phone provider. As my mother says, I became ‘educated beyond my intelligence’ in reconfiguring the ports on our router, upload & download speeds, AT&T’s tedious call and line testing process, bridging modems and routers. This last process resulted in our losing all phone and internet connection and a full day of scrambling to get back to where we started! When a technician came out he found that the router we were told to buy cannot be ‘bridged completely’ and was convinced that bridging would not make a difference anyway. By the time he left the new router was back in its box, apparently useless. Luckily, Shelly has worked at AT&T and knows that another company in the area offers internet service on a different kind of cable that provides significantly more bandwidth. So this Thursday that company will install internet service in the office. Hopefully all our devices will connect smoothly, we’ll have better phone service, can test the new webinar service and by next week can finally announce a schedule of trainings. As is often the case, for these weeks technology has been a tease, offering the vision of bringing people together from around the country for a simultaneous interchange and learning – but leaving the vision just out of reach. At least at this point hope remains strong and we eagerly anticipate success! Category: Virginia
Re-entering & RememberingSeptember 18, 2012 I am still experiencing re-entry after another week spent with many of you at the annual VFP Convention in Miami where we were honored to hear and to be lifted by the prophetic voices of Alice Walker and Roy Bourgeois. Now, it is time for me to come back to Earth, to get back to my responsibilities at my VFP desk … dialing phone numbers, leaving messages and when the timing is good, hearing your stories. At the VFP banquet Ms. Walker wondered aloud about those veterans who had been compelled to commit and/or witness horrible acts against other humans and as a consequence are now comitting suicide at unprecedented rates. “What if I remained human having done unhuman things … what if I still had a conscience?” She reminded us that only after learning about the horror suffered at Nagasaki and Hiroshima was revolutionary Peace Veteran Howard Zinn prompted to see clearly the inhumane acts in which he had participated. Ms. Walker concluded, addressing the troubled veteran, “Stay with us … wait till dawn, and read Howard Zinn.” I would add … read Howard Zinn's life as well as his books. Be a Peace Veteran. VFP Member Kris Kristoferson asks “Why me Lord? What have I ever done, to deserve even one, of the treasures I've known?” Near the top of my list of Blessings, I place my professional association with Veterans For Peace and my personal relationships with so many of you. I will be calling on YOU, soon. In the meantime, “Stay with us.” Call me … I can be reached at 512-629-3812. Category: Doug
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