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AIR FORCE SERVICES SOCIETY
The President Speaks to Recruiting, Memberships, Dues, Awards, Scholarships &
More (25 Aug 2008)
Greetings,
Contacting our members is a challenging event for the Executive Board officers,
weather it is by email or telephone. This includes sending out AFSS Membership
Introduction & Welcome Letters, AFSS Brochures or Membership Renewal
Notifications and even informing members of new programs coming on line for the
membership. The prime ingredient to making contact is having a valid members
email address, phone number, a snail mail address and the spouses first name is
important. Many Air Force - Force Support Squadron personnel have indicated
interest in becoming members. Some speak of their heritage in the new Air Force
- Force Support Squadrons worldwide. Others talk with their co-workers,
supervisors and some even to their Chief Enlisted Manager’s (CEM's) and
Commanders about issues that effect their lives and families such as health
benefits, pay, benefits in using the Army Air Force Exchange Services (AAFES)
and the Defense Commissary Agency. Some airman and even civilians frequently
asked questions concerning new issues affecting their career fields. Issues such
as the new airman evaluation system, special training requirements, new
technical or specialized courses available, training into other career fields
that are open for cross training, off duty higher education, financial support
available to assist them in some of these concerns. How can we do this or what
do I need to accomplish in order to meet the criteria of some other career
function? These are issues many of today's airmen and civilians ask those who
are in a leadership capacity to give them guidance on. Some of you when asked if
you have heard about AFSS, you will say, “I have never heard of AFSS, or you
have heard something about it but never checked further into what it is all
about”. AFSS is all about you, the men and women who make up the Air Forces -
Force Support Squadron Teams worldwide.
Recruiting has only been fair, and keeping the honorary memberships current is
another issue after their free one-year membership expires. I think some of the
misunderstandings the people wonder about before they make their decision to
join, not join or not renew their membership is they don’t know enough about
AFSS and what we do. The EB officers and I feel the problems can be contributed
to a lack of knowledge about AFSS and what our primary mission is. This issue
was recently addressed to us by one of our top senior enlisted managers and we
have tasked ourselves to do everything within our means to respond positively to
fixing the issue. One such task will be to prepare a position paper or a point
paper some may say for our senior enlisted, officer and civilian leadership to
use to address and answer questions about AFSS. Fixing the issue of telling our
story which I should add was not addressed well enough in the very beginning,
considering we started this organization back on 12 January 2005 and had very
little expertise in developing such an important document to tell our story. We
knew what we desired to do for the people and that is where we began. Today we
have no excuse for not addressing all the facts and answering the questions from
the field on What, Who, Where, When, Why, and How; questions that are on the
minds of potential members. We shall work this hard and fix it in hopes of
answering all your questions.
A few non-members have had a direct involvement in our recognition programs and
we truly appreciate their support. Some of the neat things we do are recognizing
as many of the superb accomplishments of our Air Forces - Force Support Squadron
Team members by providing AFSS free memberships. Keep in mind we want to do more
but need to know of the other programs in our two new career fields, Manpower
and Personnel. Today we provide one-year free memberships to the winners of the
Air Force’s Hennessy Travelers Awards (HTA's), Innkeeper Travelers Awards (ITA's),
and the Air Force Individual award winners. AFSS takes great pleasure in the
recognition of outstanding squadron accomplishments for the Squadron winners of
the LeMay and Eubank annual awards by presenting the organizations our AFSS
Trophies. Every Distinguished Graduate from the Lackland AFB Schoolhouse also
receives a free one-year membership in AFSS, and the right to wear their
Services Organizational Badge upon graduation. All winners receive our special
individual AFSS Certificate of Achievement along with their membership. Every
award appears to be appreciated by the recipients, and it is our honor to
support such outstanding accomplishments. Individual and group pictures of the
winners are highly encouraged and may be sent to our webmaster for posting on
the AFSS Website. Everyone enjoys being recognized for his or her outstanding
performance and also being a part of the greatest Air Force Team ever. This also
includes AFSS members retiring.
As a retired Chief Master Sergeant, I still feel a part of our responsibility is
to mentor young airmen and provide them their history and heritage of a proud
profession. No matter where you work in the Force Support Squadrons, Manpower,
Personnel or Services, teamwork is a key element to success. Food Service, Air
Force Inns, Sports & Fitness Centers, Mortuary Affairs, Readiness, Laundry,
Honor Guard, Protocol functions, Morale, Welfare and Recreational Services,
Manpower and or Personnel, commitment is our first and foremost priority in
customer service. As a Nonprofit and Public Charity corporation formed in the
great State of Texas, the Air Force Services Society Team continues to strive
for perfection and total customer services support for all our AFSS members.
As an organization we provided the much-needed support to the Air Force Museum
at WPAFB in Ohio by providing the museum staff a check for $2744. This purchased
the much-needed State-Of-The-Art multi-media presentation video equipment that
informs visitors of our services heritage and mission in support of the troops
in the AOE and at home. We were proud to donate the necessary funds for this
project that many airmen and civilians have got to appreciate and enjoy knowing
how well we support the Airmen & Civilians in today's Air Force.
There are many other issues we are working on for improving our AFSS corporation
and membership to include website updates. Our Webmasters installed new software
that has minimized non-members from inputting spam and undesired comments into
our Website, a great achievement in and of itself. I think the programs and new
capabilities Milton Hobdy and Jim Krueger continue to develop and use are
improvements building our organization and improving communication capabilities.
In the communications world of today, the sky is the limit.
Our new final updated AFSS Bylaws are available on our website as of 23 July
2008. We proposed several revisions and increased some of the amounts we may
receive as donations and pay for cost of services rendered. The document was
reviewed and approved by the Executive Board officers, and then approved by 97
of our members voting yes, not one No vote, and 45 members not voting due to
deployments, or unavailable at the time for voting.
The 2009 Fall Semester/Quarter college book scholarship program will be
available on our website link titled "Scholarship Info" for review and
application next year, 5 January 2009. There will be 5 scholarships valued at
$300.00 each available for award. Specific application procedures and the rules
of engagement will be identified for your review and submission via our AFSS
website link Scholarship Info.
Winners of the 2009 HTA, ITA and AF Individual Awards will continue to receive a
free one-year membership in AFSS for their outstanding performances. Other
individual award winners receiving free one-year memberships are the top
Distinguished Graduates from the Schoolhouse at Lackland AFB. All of this became
a reality thanks to the support of the Air Force Services Agency respective
POCs. Mrs. Cathy Edmonds, Chief, Commander's Action Group, POC responsible for
the AF Individual awards including the LeMay & Eubank awards. Mr. George Miller,
Chief Air Force Food Services POC for the AF Hennessy awards. Ms. Alison Reid,
Operations Branch Chief POC for AF Innkeeper awards. We also wish to recognize
CMS Jeremiah Simon, Superintendent of the 344 TRS/CCC, Lackland AFB, Texas and
his staff, who have assisted AFSS in continuing our awards program for the Air
Force’s Services Distinguished Graduates.
We have received some individual favorite recipes and will also be using some of
the historical photos we have to build our new AFSS Historical Recipe Cookbook.
We wish to complete this project by September 2009 in time for the next Reunion.
Your favorite recipes and any historical photographs you wish to share with us
will be appreciated and is needed. Of all the members we have, I am sure we have
some with exciting recipes to share! We have a link on our website titled
“Cookbook” that is under revision due to some spammers invading our link. You
may still send your recipes and photos to or webmaster Milton Hobdy at his email
address afsswebmaster@airforceservicessociety.org. We hope to have the link back
up and available sometime this fall with access limited to AFSS members only.
Add as many recipes as you wish and soon we will have our cookbook complete and
available for members donating funds to our organization and others who may wish
to obtain a copy. We want to have copies available at the Reunion/Meeting
scheduled for 2-5 Oct 2009 at Tyndall AFB FL. We have lots of great history in
our career fields and this is just one more means of sharing it with our members
of yesterday, today, and tomorrow!
We continue needing your involvement and support in recruiting new membership,
and request your support helping us build AFSS into the best customer services
corporation possible. All you need to do is talk to your friends and associates
and inform them about AFSS and our website URL, http://www.airforceservicessociety.org/.
We have the finest Force Support Professionals in the world and getting them
interested in joining our organization is one of our highest priorities. You may
contact anyone of the Executive Board members (see our website link for their
email addresses at “Board Members” and let us know what else we can do to
effectively move forward with our projects and get on with updating our
Marketing Strategy. Tell us what we can do to help you decide to become an AFSS
member and join the AFSS Team. Your support is appreciated and if there are any
questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Last of all, on 1 January 2007 we increased our annual dues from $24.00 to
$25.00, a $1.00 increase while keeping the lifetime membership dues the same.
$25.00 a year for those desiring to pay by the year. Depending upon one's age,
lifetime memberships are $250.00 under age 65; age 65 to 70 $200.00; age 71 to
75 $150.00, and 76 and beyond, $100.00. This is not expensive when we think of
the cost to belong to other professional organizations requiring membership fees
like private Golf clubs, or other organizations providing services desired like
season passes to professional sports activities, football, baseball, basketball,
tennis clubs etc. We do not foresee increasing our annual dues this year or in
2009. At such time in the future we may have to increase them but that will be
another decision the EB will have to make and the membership approve. Donations
are now acceptable up to $500.00 and are tax deductable. Unfortunately, AFSS
dues are not tax deductable. Information is available concerning how to take the
deduction by contacting our AFSS Treasurer and her contact information is also
available on the “Board Members” link.
For those
who decided to become members, please make your checks payable to "AFSS" and email D. M. Knebel our
AFSS Treasurer (afsstreasurer@airforceservicessociety.org)
for a mailing address.
OR
Go direct to this website URL, http://www.airforceservicessociety.org/join_now.htm
if you prefer to pay by credit card, and use our PayPal Link by visiting our
AFSS website link above and follow the prompts. Make sure you select the correct
number of years you wish to pay for such as 1 @ $25.00 and if there are more
indicated, just select the number (1) and also select "Update Cart", follow the
rest of the prompts and fill out all the required data, home address, credit
card # and the CSC on the back of your card, etc. You do not have to be a PayPal
Card member, any major credit card works fine and you will get a receipt back.
The system is very safe and secure, that we assure you.
Look for future updates and messages from the AFSS President on our new link,
“President Speaks”. For those of you having news worthy of sharing with the
membership or you wish to offer some recommendations for improving our
organization, send your comments to me for review and I will do my best to have
them placed on our website after considering them. You will receive a reply back
of that I assure you!
V/R
\\Signed//
EDWARD G. OLIVER, CMSgt, USAF, (Ret)
President, Air Force Services Society
olies57chevy@comcast.net
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