Wednesday, May 23, 2012

May Meeting Notes

We started the May meeting with the reading the Tolling of the Boats for May, followed by birthday wishes for our members, introductions, and officer reports.

Old and New Business 
Base Float – Jim Harper gave us an update on the float refurbishment. The basics will be ready for the Bremerton Armed Forces parade, but there are plans to add more features to the float and trailer over the summer. Jim showed a few pictures of the work during the break.

Bremerton Armed Forces Day Parade – Seattle Base joined Bremerton Base and the Silent Service Motorcycle Club at the parade. We’ll have pictures for the blog soon.

Silent Service Motorcycle Club – Bob Opple gave us an update on the SSMC, letting us know that they have expanded to 20 chapters with members in 41 states. They are also planning on a national convention for the group in 2013. Bob also presented WWII veteran Fred Ensslin with an honorary membership in the SSMC and a jacket. Fred earned this distinction when he hitched a ride with Bob during the 2011 Independence Day parade in Kirkland.
Bob Opple presents Fred Ensslin with his SSMC jacket
Fred's wild ride during the Kirkland 4th of July Parade

Holiday Luncheon Survey Follow-up – We got a short report on the results of the Holiday Luncheon Survey. Basically about half the people that responded wanted to return to the Seattle Yacht Club and the other half suggested going somewhere else. Due to the time needed to find a new location, it looks like we will return to the Seattle Yacht Club for 2012 while researching a new location for following years.

Upcoming Events
Memorial Day – Currently, the Seattle Base is planning to have members at the Memorial Day Ceremony at Tahoma National Cemetery, which starts a 1:00 PM, and at the Cruzin to Colby Car Show in Everett.

Smokey Point Rest Stop Event - This year the Base drew July 9 and 11, a mid-week timeslot, for manning the coffee booth at the Smokey Point rest stop. We will be manning the coffee booth starting around 1:00 pm on the 9th and go until mid-day on the 11th. Once again, Steve Shelton will be heading up the effort to man the booth. He will have more information and a sign-up sheet at future meetings.

Lockwood Chapter Picnic - The Submarine Veterans of World War II Lockwood Chapter is having a picnic at VFW Post 2995 on Wednesday August 8 from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Everyone is invited to attend.

Tolling of the Boats – The Tolling of the Boats ceremony is set for Saturday, August 18. We have requested the Navy Band for the event, but probably won’t hear from them for a couple more months. We will be adding more information as we get closer to the event.

Navy Birthday at VFW Post - VFW Post 2995 is planning to have a dinner to celebrate the Navy's Birthday on October 13 and they have invited us to join them. We will have more information about event as it gets closer.

May Presentation 
Base COB Ralph Sterley provided a presentation on “Buying American and why we should do it.” During the presentation he talked about U.S. overseas trade and what makes a company “American.” He also provided some copies of the book “How Americans Can Buy American” to the base to sell as a bit of a fundraiser. The books will cost $15, with $5 going directly to the base.

Binnacle List 
Chris Opple, Bob Opple's wife, is still undergoing chemotherapy.

Don Ulmer is still recovering from his fall and expects to be back home shortly.

Art Thompson was unable to attend the meeting due to a gout attack.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Bremerton Armed Forces Day Parade Reminder

The Bremerton Armed Forces Day Parade is this Saturday, May 19th.
SubVets at the 2011 Armed Forces Day Parade

Our newly refurbished float is ready and will have seating aboard (but bring a folding chair if you want to sit on it).

The parade starts at 10 AM and the float will be on the scene around 8:45. We will meet at the float, which has slot C-17 in the parade, on 4th Street, near the intersection with Veneta Ave in Bremerton.
We have ordered good weather for the parade and, so far, the forecast looks pretty good.

Hope to see you there.

Friday, May 11, 2012

May Meeting Reminder and National News

Shipmates and Associates,

We will be having the next Seattle Base meeting this coming Wednesday, May 16, at VFW Post #2995 (4330 148th Ave N.E., Redmond WA 98052). Social hour starts at 6 PM with business meeting at 7PM. Don't forget to review the previous meeting minutes, you can find them here on the blog or on the Seattle Base website, just click the Minutes button on the left.

The COB Ralph Sterley will be giving a short speech about “How to Buy American.” We will also have a DVD on DBF as presented on the Alaska Cruise Convention. This DVD was given to us by John Clear EMC(SS) Ret. for our base.

Base Member Earl Greening, who lives up in Anacortes, would like to find someone to car pool with to attend our meetings. If you can provide a ride, let us know and we can put you in touch with Earl. Please share this around and hopefully we can find someone to join with him.

National USSVI Election and Award Nominations are now closed 

Thank you to all our shipmates who have submitted candidates for the various awards. We received over seventy nominations for the various awards, showing that there are many shipmates doing good work throughout this great organization of ours.

Thanks to the good men who stepped up to place themselves in nomination for USSVI National and Region Officer positions. Here is the list of the candidates:
  • National Commander: T. Michael Bircumshaw, unopposed 
  • Senior Vice Commander: William Andrea and Carl Schmidt 
  • Junior Vice Commander: Al Singleman, unopposed 
  • National Secretary: John Clear, Tom Conlon, and Len Heiselt 
  • National Treasurer: Richard McPherson and James Van Vranken 
  • NE Region Director: Michael Naughton, unopposed 
  • SE Region Director: Dick Kanning, unopposed 
  • Central Region Director: Ken Recoy and Wayne Standerfer 
  • Western Region Director: John Mansfield and Robert Miller 
The candidate statements will appear in the next issue of American Submariner magazine.

2012 Convention Website:
There was an accessibility problem with the Norfolk convention website earlier this week, but Base Cdr John Pearl reported that it is back in commission soon. Be sure to check out the 2012 Convention website at: http://ussvi-2012convention.com/

I hope to see you all at the meeting.
Doug Abramson
Seattle Base Commander

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

May - June Dolphin Brotherhood Posted

The May - June issues of the Dolphin Brotherhood has been posted to the Seattle Base website.

This issue has photos from our Holland Club induction, a reunion report from Don Sass, news about Yakima Base’s float, and candidate statements from the USSVI Western Region Director candidates, along with the usual base news, upcoming events, and other submarine related articles.

Hardcopies of the newsletter should be going out later this week. I hope you all enjoy it.

As always, don't forget to check back here for base updates and other articles of interest. You can find old issues of the newsletter at: Dolphin Brotherhood Archives, which is also a link on the right side of the blog.

Dave Schueler
Seattle Base Newsletter Editor