August 21, 2017

To Riders and Supporters Nationwide,

It’s an honor and privilege to have been elected as your Rider’s National President!

I have some large shoes to fill, but I have had some great leaders to show me the way.

And I will continue to strive to do my best to represent our great nation of riders.

I'd like to take this time to highlight those individual’s that excelled this year in helping the riders make a difference. Dept. of the Year, Kentucky with programs award with $3,721.28 per member reporting, Chapter of the Year, Florida 86 with $12,221.66 per member program reporting, Dept. Rider of the Year Natalie Cummings form Iowa, Chapter Rider of the Year Richard Dean from Missouri. President’s Prestige’s award for outstanding achievements go out to Kristin Orem from Kentucky. President's Award for most improved chapter goes out to Kentucky 125. Membership award for largest chapter went out to Florida Chapter 2 total of 89 members. Membership award for revalidation and over whelming aspect of LRB and LRS went to Dept. Of Missouri.

As past Presidents before me, I too have an open door policy as long as you follow your chain of command. We here at National strive on the fact that all of our officers do their jobs and do them well.

If you haven’t already please go to our web site www.amvetsridersnational.org. Sometimes the information you are looking for is there. Kelly Webber, our Publications officer does a great job making sure everything is there. It’s a shame if we don’t use it.

Communication: Just a reminder. our national face book page is there for you to use. Please just remember this is not where we air out our issues. Please remember to be courteous and professional. Our communications officer Kathy Campbell has the right to remove anything deemed to be offensive, advertisement or just not appropriate to our cause.

National Secretary Karen Cox has agreed to continue do the great work she does. With saying that, please make sure when sending our Membership spreadsheet back to us that you do not add any boxes or changes to the format of this document that our beloved K ladies have worked really hard making.

Quarter Master: please continue to use the National Amvets Quarter Master for all your riders apparel. A link is on our national page and Lara Stenson will help you in any way. All she asks is that if she doesn’t answer, that means she’s on the other line working on other people’s stuff. Leave her a message and she will get back to you.

Midyear Rally 2018 will be in Florida as well as National Convention 2018. So start planning now. Hope to see a lot more new faces in the seats.

In closing, please all be safe riding this year. Keep up all the great work helping all our veterans nationwide. I would love to see the riders storm the hill with the sons in Washington this year. We do make a difference when we are there.

See you all soon.

National Amvets Riders President
​
George Cummings 

March 7, 2017
 
Riders and Supporters Nationwide,
 
I hope this finds everyone doing well!
 
Since August 2016, we’ve opened 7 new chapters and 1 new department. Welcome to all of you! We are very pleased to have you join our Riders family! If you have any questions, concerns or need help, please don’t hesitate to contact us. If you have a Department, please refer your questions to them first. If you don’t have a Department, please contact National.
 
NATIONAL RIDERS WEBSITE: Be sure and check out our National Riders Website. It has a lot of good useful info. It has all our forms, our National Quartermaster, Laura Stenson’s info; the new Unified Constitution and By-Laws (CBL’s) and much more. amvetsridersnational.org.
 
NATIONAL LOTTERY TICKETS: You can order them online or contact Tom McNamara, National 2nd Vice and he’ll make sure you get them. If you already have some, please try to sell them; that’s what helps keep us from raising the Riders dues. Remember, you can sell them to anyone: family, friends and neighbors.
 
DRFs: Nice job to the Departments and individual chapters who have sent them in! If you haven’t yet, please do so as soon as possible.
 
QUALITY CHAPTERS CRITERIA: The 5 areas that need to be met for Quality Chapter patch are: DRF in on time, REVAL in on time, recruit new member(s), participate in at least 1 National fund raiser and report your programs.
 
MID-YEAR RALLY: This is a very informative convention. If you can possibly come, you will enjoy it. This is the place where new ideas are formed, new friendships are formed, and old ones reunite. It will take place at Post 48 in Desoto, MO from May 5-7. Pre-registration forms are on the website. Print the form, fill it out and mail them, with your registration fee, to the National Riders Secretary. The cost is $10 if you pre-register by April 15th. Registration after the 15th and at the Rally is $20. T-shirts are also available for $15 each. Those must be paid for by April 15th so they can be ordered. Information about the rally is on the website.
Also remember: This year the hosting Chapter/Department for Mid-Year 2019 will be chosen. If your Chapter/Department would like to be considered to host the 2019 Mid-Year, the requirements and bidding guidelines can be found on the website under the events tab. Bids need to be postmarked  by April 1st.
 
SCHOLARSHIP AND DEATH BENEFIT FORMS: These forms are on our website now. Please take advantage of the Scholarship Program; the application has been revised. Also, if a Rider or Supporter has passed, please fill out that form. It doesn’t matter what caused their death. This program was implemented last fall, so you can fill out a form if someone has died since that time.
Thank you Riders and Supporters for all you do for our communities and veterans out there! Everyone stay safe! Hope to see you all in Missouri in May!
 
Don Cox,
Riders National President

​September 22, 2016
To Riders and Supporters Nationwide,
 
     I am extremely pleased and humbled to be re-elected as your Riders National President! 
I appreciate your confidence in me.  I’d like to congratulation all newly elected Department and Chapter Officers and those who were re-elected; and to my National Officers on their re-elections and reappointments!
 
     Congratulations also to our Rider of the Year, Mike Bush GA-12; Department Rider of the Year, John Reando MO-48; Programs Reporting Chapter IA-49 & the Department of IA; Membership Award went to the Department of FL. Keep up the good work!
 
       If you haven’t been on the Riders National Website recently, please do so.  There is a lot of useful information:  amvetsridersnational.org.
 
     I still have an “open door” policy; I will gladly speak to anyone who calls me.  However, please use your chain of command when necessary as outlined in the Unified CBL’s.      
 
    On the website, under the Publications tab, you’ll find the new Unified Constitution and the Unified By-Laws 2016-2017.  Please look them over as time permits.  The Long Range Plan (LRP), discussed at Convention, outlines short and long term goals of the organization.  It will be available on the website soon, and be updated and added to as necessary.  Another thing we have initiated is a Scholarship Program, as well as a Death Benefit Plan for our Riders and Supporters.  They are not on our website yet but will be soon.
 
     As most of you have heard, we must use the AMVETS National Quartermaster when ordering anything to do with Riders and Supporters.  A link has been placed on our home page for the AMVETS National Quartermaster, Laura Stenson.  As time goes on, she will be building onto her website to include a lot of the Riders/Supporters items.
 
     Our Mid-Year Rally for 2017 will be held in Missouri in May.  More information on that will be sent out in the beginning of 2017.  The 73rd National Convention will be held in Virginia in August. 
 
     On closing, I am asking everyone to be safe in your travels.  Everyone keep up the great work you are doing.  We are moving forward and I expect to have an excellent year in front of us!  Thank you, take care and God Bless!
 
Don Cox,
Riders National President
(419) 304-8292
d.cox1313@yahoo.com
​

To All Riders,     
 
For those who don’t know me yet, I’m Don Cox, Riders National President.  My apologies to everyone for not getting a blast out sooner.
 
1st of all, I want to thank the Departments and all the Chapters for the great job you did getting your DRF’s and checks in by the deadline!  That was awesome!  It makes our Communications Officer’s (Kathy Campbell) and our Secretary’s (Karen Cox) jobs easier.  Just a reminder:  after you have your Department and Chapter elections, please email them to the secretary (ridersns3.kcox@yahoo.com) as soon as possible to meet the deadline.  You can find the forms you need on the Riders National Website (amvetsridersnational.org).
 
Riders National Website:  If you haven’t had the chance to look at our website, please check it out.  If has all our forms, all our department and chapters listed.  All Chapter, Department and National officers are also listed.     
 
Quartermaster:  I’d like to touch on this since there seems to be a few issues.  Vince Stretar was appointed in August 2015 as our new National Riders Quartermaster.  He had almost no product to begin with.  He’s had to use his own finances to pay for everything that he’s trying to order and have made.  He has had problems with the patch-maker and is currently looking for another who can fill the orders in a timely manner.  When he requests that you pay for the product before he can ship, it is no different than ordering anything on-line, you must pay for it before they will ship.  So, I am asking all of you that you pay the bill for your product so Vince can ship it out right away.  If you have a problem you’d like to discuss with me, please don’t hesitate to call me and I’ll see what we can do to resolve it.  But please be patient since he started with almost no product, started with only his own finances, had many back orders to fill and had little or no cooperation from the patch maker.
 
Raffles:  The National Riders holds 2 raffles a year.  One is the Lottery Calendar, and the other is a Gun Raffle.  It is important that everyone try to participate.  By your participation, we are able to keep our dues the same for several years now.  Without participation, we will be forced to raise the dues and we prefer not to, so please continue helping us.  One thing I do want to mention is we have 1000 calendars to sell each year.  They sell for $20 each and the department or chapter selling them are allowed to keep $5 for each sold.  We are now 3000+ members large.  If you could sell just 10 calendars per chapter, we could sell all 1000 of them.    
 
 
Riders & Supporter Stickers:  There are a few chapters out there that have misplaced or lost their stickers for 2016.  If you are one of the Departments or Chapters that has quite a few extra, please put them in the mail to the National Headquarters (14 Reid Pl., Palm Coast, FL 32164).   If you need stickers please email me (d.cox1313@yahoo.com) or George Cummings, RN1V (reserver1146@gmail.com) so we can try to locate some for you.
 
Mid-Year Rally:  Thank you to all who pre-registered before the 2 early registration dates.  It looks like we’re going to have a good turnout in IA 12-14 May.  We have several important issues to discuss; one being the Unified CBL’s that Jim Whitcraft (RNJA) and his committee have been working on.  It will be ready for review during mid-year.  Also, there are 2 bids for the 2018 Mid-Year Rally location.  One is FL-113 and LA-7.  It will be voted on in IA.  If you’d like to review them before mid-year, they are posted on our website.  Mid-Year is important because it is where ideas and issues can be brought to the table, etc.  Not to mention all the comradery, friendships formed, and great food!  I am anxious to meet you there if I haven’t met you already; if I already know you, it will be great seeing you again.
 
72nd National Convention:  The National Convention will be held in Reno, NV 12-14 August.  I realize it may be difficult to get a lot of participation since it is so far away but I do hope to see many of you there.
 
I want to remind everyone that if you have an issue and need to speak to a National Officer but you aren’t sure who, give me a call.  I have an open door policy and I am more than happy to help you, or get you in touch with the officer most able to help.          
 
Lastly, I want to thank my staff of National & Department Officers!  You are ALL doing an awesome job which in turn makes my job much easier.  Keep up the great work ladies and gentlemen!
 
Everyone stay safe out there.  There have been far too many accidents.  Watch out for the 4-wheelers; they don’t always see us on our bikes.  Thank you, take care and God Bless!
 
Don Cox
Riders National President
d.cox1313@yahoo.com
(319) 382-2484,  Ext 1
(419) 304-8292