2026 Conference

Update Nov 11

Good morning John, hope you’re having a good week. I have two proposals from the Rosen hotels, one from Plaza and one from Centre. Attached is Rosen Centre and below is Rosen Plaza. The Rosen group has always been military friendly and we’ve used them before. I’m still trying to get a proposal from Hilton Lake Buena Vista also. Unfortunately Rosen Centre does not have your preferred dates and can only offer dates in the range you said you wanted to avoid. So that may be off the table right away.

Click on image for hotel website

Concessions:

- (1) one-bedroom suite at group rate (4 nights max)

- (1) complimentary welcome amenity (hotel selection)

- 20% Attrition

- 1 per 40 complimentary room nights

- Group rate available 3 days pre/post, based on hotel availability

- Complimentary fitness center access

- Complimentary guestroom internet

- 25% Discounted self-parking for overnight guests

- No Resort Fee

- 20% off AV

- 20% off IT

- Meeting space internet for up to 5 WIFI connections

- Complimentary storage/handling for ten (10) boxes (up to 150lbs total)

- 25% discount on receiving/handling

- Twenty-one (21) day cut-off

- 20% Discounted breakfast buffet for Café Matisse

Here are links of our hotel:

Video of our hotel: Rosen Plaza

Menus: Rosen Plaza Catering Menus

Facilities Guide: Rosen Plaza Facilities Guide

Click to open in Google maps

Timing

• November primary focus

• Bob Doerr suggests: Oct 22-25 or Nov 19-22.

Details/Other

• Galen Peterson is now part of the events team

• Armed Forces Reunions, Inc https://www.armedforcesreunions.com/

  • Charley Dey

Sept 2025 WYS After Action Report

On Sep 24, 2025, MWSA hosted a Write Your Story Class at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, Kansas City, MO. The class ran from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM with an hour set aside for lunch. The instructors were Ruth Crocker, Jack London, Jim Tritten, and Bob Doerr. Only 5 students were present, four being MWSA members who had never attended a WYS class before.

 An attendance list was taken, and an information sheet about MWSA was provided to all the students. Ruth Crocker presented a class on writing memoirs. Jim Tritten's lesson covered story arc. Jack London covered great openings, and Bob Doerr presented a lesson on point of view and dialogue.

The students appeared to have enjoyed the overall class. All but one completed a class critique form, and all the forms gave all categories the highest rating.  I am unaware of any negative feedback. MWSA hosted a pizza lunch in the adjacent food court.

My only negative comment is the lack of attendance by local veterans and family members. We’ll need to get a better jump on this next year.

John Cathcart and Valerie Ormond's presence during the class was appreciated by all.

Overall, other than the lack of attendance, I'd grade this WYS class as a success. The members who attended are now familiar with the class, and if they’re interested, they are better qualified to teach in a future class.

- Bob Doerr

MWSA Leadership Challenges/Changes

Update for Nov Meeting

• Board

  • Pres: John won’t run again

  • VP: Val or move to Pres

  • Treasurer: Rob has volunteered.

  • Secretary: Plan?

    • Jim has stepped down. Should we appoint a temp? Anyone want to be acting sec?

  • At large

    • Who plans to stay on?

    • John will serve if needed and will continue as co-awards director.

    • New Blood: John recruited possible new members to run: Galen Peterson, Rosalie Spielman, and Jim Bultema. Varying levels of interest/commitment.

• Other

  • Membership Secretary: Jim Bultema

  • Chairperson of Volunteers: new position, but I believe it’s vital to our mission

  • Paid temp/part-time helper

Update for May Board Meeting

• Treasurer volunteer (to run at the end of our current terms in office): Rob

• Membership Secretary

  • John’s been “acting” secretary for many months, and I need to stop acting. ;-)

  • Workload:

    • Most work is automated by our membership system (Wild Apricot), but there are typically 3-5 emails to answer each month.

    • Also, each member whose dues expire transitions automatically to associate status. Although the membership status/level is updated automatically, we must manually update their associate member expiration year—the only routine transaction not automatically handled by our system. These updates take about 30 seconds per member and involve about 5-15 individuals monthly.

• Chairperson of Volunteers

  • Why do we need this?

    • Because only a handful of people routinely do the lion’s share of work for MWSA (this is a typical problem for any volunteer organization).

    • We’re burning out the “usual suspects” mentioned above.

    • Frankly, “care and feeding” of volunteers is one of the most important jobs that MWSA should have.

  • No board member has volunteered yet; I’d rather recruit from our board than try to get a volunteer by begging our general membership (which almost never works).

  • Possible Duties (to get us started)

    • Manage existing efforts and suggest systems for:

      • Volunteer jobs. This usually means coordinating with existing chairs (awards, IT, Dispatches, Ambassadors, etc.).

      • Recruitment of new volunteers.

      • Recognition and retention of existing volunteers.

Initial Entry (March 2025)

It’s never too late to start looking for the “next generation” of leadership.

• Hugh has let us know he’s not running for another term as our treasurer.

• I will probably not want to continue as president after my current term.

• As much as I had to beg Val to stay on as VP after taking over as president upon Jim’s resignation, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were ready for a break in the action as well.

I’m mentioning the above so we can all imagine what we’d like to happen going forward.

Chairperson of Volunteers? Any volunteers?