the vet connection - weebly
TRANSCRIPT
and thanks to her, Col-leen Tucker, and Nancy Duke, those notes were prepared and mailed out to you. I know when I recommended the club have a health and Well-Being mission leader, some scoffed at the idea. I think the work that Jim Reavis did as our first mission leader, and the expansion of the mission under the leadership of Jan, has made this a very important part of our club culture, and I sure am proud of her. Check our her article on page 6. By now, everyone
knows we have pushed our annual Bocce Tour-nament until November 8th. I selected the new date based on Veterans Day (Nov 11th) and we will still name the tour-nament after our past president, who passed away last year, Hank Lewis. I will be working with our Co-Tournament Director, Bill Hohman on seeding, brackets, and the double-elimination tournament. I look for-ward to a fun time come
(Continued on page 2)
Dates for monthly meetings (Meetings start at 4:30 pm)
ARTICLE Page
From the President 1
Meet a Vet 3
Walmart Grant 4
Who am I? 4
VOC2 Mission 5
Adopt -A-Street Mis-sion
5
Health and Well Being Message
6
Fry’s/Amazon Dona-tions to Club
6
Membership Update 7
April Events 9
Board of Directors 10
Gift Shop Merchandise 11
In this Issue...
The Vet Connection
April 2020 Volume 4 Issue 4
From the President Scott Duke
January 28, 2020 June 30, 2020 November 24, 2020
February 25, 2020 July 28, 2020 December 15, 2020
March 31, 2020 August 25, 2020
April 28, 2020 September 29, 2020
May 26, 2020 October 27, 2020
A s of this post, I can honestly say I am
as bored as a person can be, and I spent a year, on top of a mountain in Greenland! I was doing social distancing before it had a name! I hope you all remain safe and healthy and my personal thanks to our Health and Well-Being mission leader, Jan Guzik for her leadership and en-suring club members are being looked after and always available. I want to also thank her for sending out notes to all club members in the past weeks. It was her idea
“The Vet Connection” is a monthly newsletter for the mem-bers of the Trilogy at Vistancia Veterans Club. If you would like to submit an article for publica-tion, please send it to Scott
Duke at:
this November, and hopefully we won’t have to bundle up too much to get the matches in. We are still planning to have the Charity Golf Tournament on May 12th, and good news is that Falcon Dunes Golf Course re-opened yesterday! I can tell you, Tournament Director and my better-half, Nancy Duke has spent endless hours keeping all the sponsors on-board and providing updates to all the golfers. She is posi-tive, we will have a sold-out event in May. Also, thanks to Les Kessler, our club treasurer, who has been quick to get refund checks out to those golfers that for various reasons, will not be able to play on May 12th. We have also worked with Falcon Dunes to ensure we have a tournament this year, so September 15th is our back-up date for May 12th, which was our back-up date for March 27th. This tournament is important to the Veter-ans organizations we support with the funds raised from the tournament. We will see how it all goes, but rest assured the Nancy and the Golf Committee (Marv Shadman, Chris Salzer, Gloria Vormestrand, and Jim Reavis) continue to work hard to make this tournament happens. My thanks to those that continue to volunteer for our Adopt-A-Street missions. Bruce Strand and Paul Bernard have done a stellar job in keeping these missions going, despite the issues with the Coronavirus. Of course without your help, no trash gets picked up and the mission dies a slow death. The same is true for our Totes for Troops mission with MANA House and mission leader, Ron Gabaldon. We are in good shape with donated items and we will deliver them to MANA House. Remember, drop your items off on April 22nd, 10:00-11:00, parking lot (lower) at Kiva Club. You can also drop them off early at my house (28700 N. 127th Lane) and just place them in the courtyard. Finally, as everyone knows by now, our April Meeting is cancelled. Like last month, I will send out the monthly meeting slides for you to decipher on what I was going to say. LOL! Stay healthy everyone!
(Continued from page 1)
The Vet Connection Page 2
Our “Meet a Vet” this month is Teresa Spinelli.
Teresa has been AF since the day she was born at Offutt AFB, NB. Her Dad retired after 20+ years of service in the Air Force at McChord AFB WA which is where she calls home. Through her Dad’s career in Civil Engineering (CES) they were stationed in Nebraska, New York, Puerto Rico, Germany and Washington. Her Mom and Dad were really good about exposing her to local culture and traveling extensively through areas they lived. She loved it!!!! When her Dad retired she couldn’t believe they were going to stay in one place….forever….So both her brother and her joined the AF within 2 years of each other. Teresa joined the Air Force Reserves as an Aeromedical Evacuation Technician (flight medic
or AE Tech) in 1982. She wanted to travel and was also interested in the medical field so “Aerovac” was the best of both worlds. She did basic training at Shephard AFB TX like all good Airman and her technical training was in Wichita Falls TX. After training, she was stationed at Fairchild AFB WA in the Regional Hospital. She then reported to McChord AFB, WA to start her flight training and once qualified for flight the travel began. The Aerovac mission is for the medical transport of military members and/or their dependents in peace and war times. The medical team usually consists of 2 flight nurses and 3 medical technicians (AE Tech). In non-war time their flight mission could be for training or for actual “live” patient transport. Teresa’s job included medi-cal equipment and litter configuration on opportune aircraft which included the C-141, C-130, C-5 and KC-135. Once patients were boarded she would check vital signs and patient care needs including medical equipment as required. Medical care in a military aircraft is much different than in a hospital. The inside of these planes are metal (careful with that defibrillator), dirty and loud. Emergencies can be quite challenging but that is what she trained for. Upon arrival at their destination, their job didn’t end until patients were offloaded into waiting ambulances or “ambuses” and all equipment that was put up in the beginning was taken down, cleaned as necessary and the aircraft returned to its “normal” non-medical configuration. In 1984, Teresa transferred to Norton AFB CA and upon its closure moved to March AFB CA. The mission in California was to medically support the Pacific Her requirements were to “drill” 1 weekend a month, fly at a minimum of every 60 days and 2 weeks a year of active duty. Drill included medical and flight training and completion of normal military requirements (same as Active duty). During her annual 2 weeks, she was stationed in Alaska, Hawaii and Japan flying alert missions all over the Pacific includ-ing Guam, Korea, Okinawa, Australia, New Zealand, and tiny Islands including Johnston, Kwajalein and American Samoa. Her patients included military members in accidents, drug and alcohol abuse, aids, heart attacks or psychiatric issues to name a few. She also transported many children who had urgent medical needs that could only be provided in specific locations like a Children’s Hospital. During her career with the Reserves, Teresa also had a full time job as an Account Executive in the Mortgage Banking Industry. Her original plans for full time nursing were forgotten as the Mortgage industry boomed. During one of the many booms she expe-rienced in lending, a storm broke out. Specifically Desert Storm. By order of the President Aerovac Squadrons were activated in support of the Gulf War since they were a critical field. Her banking career was put on hold while she deployed to Mildenhall Eng-land for 4 months. The plan was for Aerovac crews to fly the wounded from “the desert” to Germany or England and then crew change to continue across “the pond” to the US. Luckily during this initial waive, they flew very few missions which were mostly recreational injuries or pregnancies. After Kuwait was freed, they were sent home and released from active duty. Due to the con-stant activity in the Middle East their training changed. They became more focused on war type injuries including chemical weap-ons. 9/11 – Lest we forget! Teresa was a single mom to a 9 year old and woke up at 6 am to see planes flying into the World Trade Centers. Within hours she was under orders and told to report to March AFB in preparation for deployment wherever they were needed for assistance of the wounded on the ground or through air transport. She was released from Active Duty after 1 week with only 1 minor Aeromedical transport from Alaska. The devastation was so complete in New York and the Pentagon that their medi-cal services were not needed. After 9/11, they started really amping up again for deployments to the “sand box.” Teresa had 20 years in and had a successful civilian career and her daughter to think about so she put in her papers and retired on Oct 19th 2002 with 20 yrs, 6 months of ser-vice. It was a sad decision for her because she wasn’t ready to leave the military yet, but it was 100% the right decision. How did Teresa wind up in AZ after 35 years in beautiful San Diego, CA? Lower….taxes, gas prices, home prices, food prices, etc and the possibility of retiring sooner than she ever could in California. Besides, as she notes, “who wouldn’t want to live in Tril-ogy Vistancia!!!!!” 100% the right decision!
The Vet Connection Page 3
Do you know who I am?
I am a member of the Trilogy Veterans Club and served in the United States Army.
Answer can be found on Page 12
O n February 18th, our Veter-ans Club applied for a
$5,000.00 grant through the Walmart Community Grant Program. The application pro-cess through the Walmart and the Walmart Foundation is ex-tremely competitive – they re-ceive over 150,000 grant appli-cations a year.
Once our grant application was received by the Walmart Com-
The Vet Connection Page 4
Jim Reavis
munity Grant Program, they in turn forwarded it to our closest Walmart, located at 21655 N. Lake Pleasant Parkway (Deer Valley) for review and approval by the Stores General Manager, Matt Carter. On March 6th, we received notification from the Walmart Community Grant Senior Direc-tor, that we had been approved for a grant in the amount of $2,000.00 – the great news is that check has already been received and deposited in our bank account by our Treasurer, Les Kessler.
These monies will be used to purchase operating equipment (new printer, computers, etc.) from our local Walmart for Veterans First, the Veterans Outreach Center and the U.S. Vets of Phoenix. We will also use some funds to purchase garbage bags needed to support our Adopt-A-Street Program.
This was a huge successful win for our club. So please, when you are shopping at the N. Lake Pleasant Parkway/Deer Valley Walmart and if you happen to see the Store Manager, Matt Carter, please take a moment to thank him for his and Walmart’s generosity.
Editor’s Note: This was the first Grant the club has ever received and we congratulate Jim for his tenacity and writing skills to get the job done!
The Vet Connection Page 5
W e fed 16 great veterans and 3 staff members. Corn beef and cabbage
was a hit. They ate all four crockpots. We also had some new members and 2 Airmen. Gave them all strict orders to lather up with antibacterial lotion on a continual basis all day. The veterans also ate all of the home-made cookies that were so generously donated by Judy and Bob Morse. I on-ly got one. Dang
Editor’s Note: We have been in-formed by Catholic Charities, the VOC is closed until further notice.
Chris Salzer
S ocial distancing associated with the Coronavirus is employed dur-
ing our Adopt-A-Street missions. Teams were deployed in pairs to en-sure the mission continued and one of the mission leaders, Bruce Strand noted that the trash is getting less and less in the four directions from the Circle K gas station.
T he Health & Well Being mission is a mechanism to keep an eye on the wellbeing of the club membership and their spouses to include
health issues, injury or even the inability to perform basic household functions. Its primary purpose is to aid and assist any club member that is undergoing any medical issues or needs a bit of help.
If you or someone you know that is a member of the club is going through medical issues, please do not hesitate to contact me and we will
at our monthly meeting show your name, condition and offer up our thoughts and prayers to you. If you need assistance of any kind, please let me know and through our Club President, Scott Duke, we will do our best to “make it happen.” If you want me to know about your medical issue or condition, but do not want to make it publicized, I will keep the contact between you and myself confidential. To say that this is a “sensitive position” cannot be overemphasized – we do not and will not invade on the privacy of the club member.
In addition to working with you individually, I hope to provide health/wellness briefings and information to the group at large. Please let me know if there is something particular you want to hear about. Lastly, as we pre-pare to enter the “hot” months, many of our club members will be leaving for the summer – even though you are leaving us for a short time, you are still a very important part of our club and we still want to know if you are experiencing medical issues so that we can keep you in our thoughts and prayers. Please feel free to contact me by email at [email protected] or either texting or calling me at 858 205-5785.
A s your Manager of Chari-ties, I’m now receiving the
quarterly reports from Fry’s and Amazon Smile regarding the amounts donated to our club from each of those businesses.
From Fry’s for the period, December 1st, 2019 through Feb-ruary 29th, 2020, their records show that only 40 households did shopping at their stores dur-ing this time frame gaining the club $63.92. With 250 members in our club, the amount of shop-pers at Fry’s should be much higher. You can go online and register your Fry’s V.I.P. card by
The Vet Connection Page 6
Jim Reavis
going to www.frysfood.com. Select Fry’s Community Rewards and the Savings and Rewards Tab. Enroll Trilogy at Vistancia As-sociation Veterans Club (PJ433) as the charitable organization to receive rewards. If you don’t want to do it online, you can stop by their customer service counter and fill out the paperwork. Which-ever way you choose to sign up, once you are in their system, Fry’s will automatically track your shopping and 0.05% of your purchase will go to the Veterans Club.
For Amazon Smile, the club did not do much better. For the period October 1st through December 31st, we only received $50.72. As you can see, this period covered Black Friday and all of your holiday shopping. If you are not already signed up with Amazon Smile, go to smile.Amazon.com, and select Trilogy Veter-ans Club as the charitable organization to receive donations from eligible purchases before you begin shopping. The AmazonSmile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase price from your eligi-ble AmazonSmile purchases to our Veterans Club.
Club Members – Please tell your spouses and loved ones….the good news is that you do not have to be a member of our veterans club to receive these rewards. Tell your friends, your neighbors, your families across the country or across town. This money helps the club operate, but more importantly, financially supports our missions within the club.
Thanks so much for your continued support.
T he Trilogy Vets Club continues to add new members in 2020. As of April 2, 2020 the club has added 17 new members. However,
we have deleted 4 members from the membership list because they have moved from the community. The total membership now stands at 248.
Per the club by-laws, annual dues must be paid by January 31st of the current year. As of April 1, 2020 only 181 members have paid their 2020 dues. Due to the COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, our
club president, with Board approval, extended the deadline for paying dues to April 30, 2020.
Since the April meeting has also been cancelled and if you are one of the 47 that still needs to renew
their membership, please send a check payable to “TVA Veterans Club” to Les Kessler, 12726 W. Crestvale
Dr., Peoria, AZ 85383.
Russell Brown
The Vet Connection Page 7
April 1 - Royal Canadian AF Birthday
June 14 - Army Birthday
August 4 - Coast Guard Birthday
September 18 - Air Force Birthday
October 13 - Navy Birthday
October 13 - Royal Navy Birthday
November 10 - Marines Birthday
The Vet Connection Page 8
D ue to the Coronavirus, we have had to cancel two
months of meetings; therefore, for April, we will not have a monthly raffle.
We are hoping to start both club meetings and our monthly raffle in May, but as of the writing of this article, we just don’t know.
Save those dollar bills, so you can buy LOTS of raffles when we start getting back to normal with club meetings and our all important raffles!
D espite the quarantine, our Brick mission with mission leader, Bill
Hohman continues. A few days ago, along with Bob Prow (Asst. Mission Leader) they helped installed a brick for club member, Matt Novak’s family. Several family members were present as they placed the brick in the memori-al. The rose was such a nice touch. For the record, physical distancing was practiced and rubber gloves were of-fered to all that attended.
The Vet Connection Page 12
Date Name of Event/Time
Point of Contact
April 1st Adopt-A-Street 1 Bruce Strand
April 18th Adopt--A-Street 3 Paul Bernard
April 22nd Totes for Troops (MANA House) Ron Gabaldon
April 27th Anniversary of the passing of Hank Lewis (former club president)
All Members
April 28th Club Meeting Membership
Editor’s Note: Many of our normal monthly missions have been suspended due to the Coronavirus. We are praying and hoping we can all get back to normal ops very soon.
T his month’s big winner is Richard Brown! Richard was able to snag
30 rolls of toilet paper!
Richard and Patricia were able to find, not only toilet paper, but they hit the mother load with the good stuff - Charmin Ultra Soft!!
Congrats to the Brown’s for being this month’s BIG winners!!
The Vet Connection Page 13
PRESIDENT
Scott Duke
SECRETARY Russell Brown
VICE-PRESIDENT
Bob Meizinger
Member-at-Large Eddie Blas
TREASURER Les Kessler
Manager of Charities
Jim Reavis
Member-At-Large
Colleen Tucker
B elow is our price list for Veterans Club merchandise. Show off your membership in the club by purchasing one of these items. All proceeds go to help operate the Veterans Club.
The Vet Connection Page 15
Item Cost
Club Polo Shirt (red) Branch of Service Logo $45
Club Tee-Shirt (red) Branch of Service Logo $35
Club Hat - (blue) with Club name and American Flag $15
Club Memorial Brick $40
Club Coin $10
Vietnam Veteran Necklace $10
W e hope to see you at our May 26th meeting at 4:30 PM (Kiva Club)
Meeting has been Cancelled due to Quarantine
Pledge of Allegiance
Guest Speaker:
President’s Comments
Secretary's Report
Health and Well Being Update
Good of the Club
Raffle Drawing
Meeting Adjourn
The Vet Connection Page 16
If you thought it was John Nawrocki you would be correct!