Maine Elks Association

Public Relations Committee Newsbriefs -07/31/2008

Maine Elks Association Newsbriefs

Taste of Maine

At the Grand Lodge Convention in Anaheim, the Maine Elks Hospitality room hosted its annual Taste of Maine celebration for dignitaries and guests of Grand Lodge. The annual event was coordinated by Joyce Richard, who has run the event for the past 12 years.

In reviewing the guest register, the “Taste of Maine” entertained approximately 200 visitors including the Grand Exalted Ruler and many Past Grand Exalted Ruler’s, Grand Lodge Committeemen and Grand Lodge Officers. The overall registered visitations to the Maine Hospitality Room were in excess of 700. This does not include those that did not register and repeat visitations by those that had previously registered, as well as the Exalted Rulers and DD,s that showed up each morning for coffee and snacks before the Grand Lodge sessions.

The State received many positive comments from those who attended the event, and State President Drisko thanks everyone who helped with the event.  

Attention "ELMS" Users

From the Grand Lodge Website to Lodge Secretaries

Our team recognizes that your sector represents a sizable portion of Lodges that will be required to participate in the CLMS based reporting by 10/31/2008. Upload of data may be required on a daily basis in some cases. We are listening to your concerns and we think responding, favorably. Note that we will soon be offering a one-time “ELMS” to CLMS conversion option to migrate your Active members, widows and candidates to the CLMS database format. Additionally, we are continuing work on enhancements within CLMS that address the needs many “ELMS” users and others have expressed over the past months. When this conversion opportunity becomes available, we urge you to take advantage of the time limited offer and make the move, leaving behind costly annual fees and support charges you are now paying unnecessarily since there is no cost to you for using CLMS, for updates or for use of support services through coordinators or the central helpdesk.

To all CLMS users, briefly outlining what we expect to accomplish in the next few months; we already have the ability to produce an automated interface between CLMS and the Annual Report page 1; we are releasing the same functionality for the November membership report with software release 1.101.306; in August we will have the capability to produce the monthly membership reports required by the DDGERs, Sponsors and other officials so you will not need to produce such reports in most cases as long as you are performing your offsite backups on a regular basis and keeping up your CLMS database with all changes – these officials will be able to get the reports they need from the elks.org website using the data you send to the offsite server; following this milestone in the early fall we plan to be synchronizing your uploaded database with the headquarters database eliminating the need to submit changes to the Circulation Department – this will also negate the need to perform annual mailing list reconciliations. We will simply ask you to check a box on the April 1 and Nov 1 membership reports attesting that you have backed up your latest membership database to the offsite server at Grand Lodge and that the backup contains your most current membership records bringing you into complete compliance with the annual audit requirements. Sounds too simple? We are working diligently to make your jobs easier and less demanding. If your Lodge has not made the move to CLMS yet, we urge you to take that step now so you are ready to participate in these time saving benefits.

Remember that every Lodge will be required to report their November 1, 2008 membership reports via CLMS, so make sure you have CLMS installed and your data is ready to go prior to 10/31/2008.

Current-Year Lodge Per-Capita Donations

Lodge year through: 07/23/2008

(Per-capita based on 4/1/2008 membership totals.)

State: ME

Adopt-A-Vet gaining popularity
By Roger R. True, PGER

In 1983 the Elks National Veterans Service Commission implemented the Adopt-A-Veteran program. With more than 124,000 veterans adopted last year, it has become one of our most popular programs. Every lodge should be participating in the program today. The question often arises, which veterans are adoptable?

1. Veterans in state or federal veterans hospitals.

2. Veterans in assisted-care facilities, nursing homes, convalescent homes and retirement and senior-living centers.

3. Any veteran with limited or no family contact who is lonely or shut in.

4. Veterans in homeless shelters.

More than one lodge can adopt veterans. Feel free to adopt from afar.

How does the program work?

1. The VAVS representative at a state facility secures the names of veterans without family or friends nearby from the hospital or facility and forwards the list to the state National Veterans Service chairman. Nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and some senior facilities have activities or social directors who can give you a list of veterans who reside there. It is often helpful to contact local churches, veteran groups, the American Legion, VFW posts or even your lodge secretary to get a list of veterans nearby who are lonely and unable to get around on their own.

IMPORTANT: Due to privacy laws, it is highly recommended that written permission is granted by the veteran, stating that he or she would like to receive cards, invitations and visits. Under no circumstances are names and birth dates of veterans to be published in lodge bulletins or Web sites. This information must be held in confidence and only given to those who will actually make contact with the veterans.

2. The state chairperson will divide the list among the lodges in close proximity to the facility and forward the names to the appropriate district chairperson.

3. The district chairman will determine how many veterans each lodge wishes to adopt and provide the lodge with their names. In addition to visits and greeting cards, gifts of personal-care items, reading material, games and similar items should be considered. Luncheons and dinners at a restaurant or the lodge are highly recommended.

Now is the time to make a difference. Now is the time to get active in your lodge’s program or help your lodge start an Adopt-A-Veteran program if it doesn’t already have one.

Hugs for Haley 5k Road Race to be Held

The Biddeford-Saco Elks Lodge #1597 will be holding the “Hugs for Haley” 5k Road Race & Fun Walk on October 4, 2008. The race is scheduled to start at 10 AM, and the fun walk is scheduled to begin at 10:15 AM. There will be hamburgers, hot dogs, soda, chips, water, pizza, and even a 50/50 raffle. The event is to benefit Hayley Desjardins, the granddaughter of Past District Deputy Harry Desjardins of the Biddeford-Saco Elks Lodge. Haley, a first grader, has been diagnosed with Aplastic Anemia; a rare bone marrow disease in which the body does not make enough blood cells to help deliver oxygen to the body and fight infection. The disease strikes only 4 in 1 Million people. Come help Haley by participating in this fundraiser.

Pledge Sheets and Registration information can be found at http://www.hugsforhayley5k.org/

More information on Aplastic Anemia can be found here: http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/hematology/aplsanem.html

If you have news or information of interest to the members of the Maine Elks Association, please send your articles to Public Relations Director Wayne Cotterly at meapr@fairpoint.net for inclusion in the MEA Calendar, Newsbriefs, and/or Website. Also, if you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please send an e-mail to Public Relations Director Wayne Cotterly at meapr@fairpoint.net. In addition, if you know of someone who would like to be added to this list, please have them forward their e-mail address to the same address. All information provided has been read and approved by the MEA State President