American Legion Riders

Waukee American Legion Post 737

IntroductionOrganization History

ResearchField Research

• Interview 1- Jai Wessel• Interview 2- Curt Kallesen

QuestionnaireChallenges/Goals/Objectives Proposals

• Proposal 1• Proposal 2• Proposal 3• Budget Proposal

Data AnalysisAmerican Legion TrendsSocial Media Use

• Facebook• Website• Twitter

Auxillary Items• Press Release• Promotional Flyer• Monthly Newsletter

Conclusion

Table of Contents

History & Background Waukee American Legion Post 737

The American Legion began in 1919 when Congress chartered it as a patriotic Wartime veteran’s organization. It is a non-profit organization dedicated to community service with nearly 3 million members and 15,000 posts worldwide. After the creation of the Legion another group started in 1993. The American Legion Riders began after Chuck Dare asked Post Commander of the Ameri-can Legion Post 396 Bill Kaledas, about starting a motorcycle association that would operate within the American Legion.

This would provide an opportunity for members of the Post, Auxiliary, S.A.L. who shared an inter-est in motorcycles to come together in a family orientated group. After writing to the Department Adjutant Hubert Hess, permission was granted to create the group. Hess gave instructions on how to manage this group and how get approval to use the American Legion Emblem. Since then the American Legion Riders has branched out with chapters in every state. The objective of the riders follows that of the American Legion participating in local charity fw, ceremonies, parades, and motorcycle runs to raise money.

The Waukee American Legion Post 737 started in 2006 and has over 80 members. The post is located in community center on 6th street and main goals are to raise funds to support local Vet-erans and help support the community. Post 737 has helped several local veterans by providing grant awards and helping them with day-to-day needs. Recently the post assisted a Veteran’s wife when a fire destroyed their home.

Also, the Legion Riders joined together to help transport the remains of seven deceased veterans, who were left unclaimed by friends and family. The Legion Riders help escort the bodies from Knoxville to the Iowa Veteran’s Cemetery in Van Meter. The event drew 700 motorcyclists to help give the men the honor they deserved.

In addition, the post attends Waukee Festivals, and presents flags for Memorial Day, Veterans Days, and the Relay-Walk of Life to Fight Cancer. As well as sponsoring a 5th grade US Flag Essay Contest for the Waukee Elementary Schools. The American Legion Riders Post 737 is dedicated to serving the community of Veterans and the local community by hosting fund raisers, rides, and other activities.

Field ResearchInterview 1 & Interview 2

During an interview with two Iowa Rider volunteers, our team discovered more of the challenges the Waukee post faces and also what the post could do better within the organization.

Jai Wessel is the sister of Cindy Barnes, the president of the post. She said that a goal for the post would be to give members personal recognition for helping out at events and volunteering. These members would then be encouraged to participate more often and also other members would acknowledge their hard work.

Also she suggested rotating the responsibilities of the events, so members do not feel overworked and are not constantly doing the same thing at every event. In addi-tion, Wessel felt that the post should incorporate more family oriented events to al-low members to bring their children. As well as getting bigger venues for the post’s bowling events so more people would be able to attend.

Curt Kallesen volunteers with the post as well and agrees with Wessel that group and member recognition would be highly beneficial. He suggested selecting certain members each month and recognizing them as “Member of the Month” too.

Kallesen said the promotion of events could be increased and flyers could be dis-tributed at a variety of places around the community. He also suggested rewarding currents member when they recruit new members to give an incentive to recruit. He said it would be a good idea also, to ask for members input about each event to see what they want to improve as well.

Public RelationsChallenges The American Legion Rider’s Post 737 faces the main problem of public perception when trying to attract new members and donors for their fund raisers. Because they are a motorcycle group, many people immediately presume that they are socially undesirable. The location of the club may also add to the problem as it is perceived to be in a “bad area” of Waukee.

Cindy Barnes, post president, feels that the post also faces problems with public awareness and raising money through the public. Usually, promotion of events oc-curs with fliers via bars, restaurants and motorcycle shops as well as an active Face-book page. The media only covers events after they have occurred and the post does not have the budge for repetitive newspaper advertising. The post did produce a television commercial but could not afford frequent or prime air play.

When gaining the assistance of volunteers, the Rider’s have problems recruiting more than a few members. According to Jai Wessel, a regular volunteer, many people are lacking in time and desire to participate in the working end of events.

Goals/ObjectivesThe main goal of post is to increase membership. By having more members, the post will have more available outreach to gather donations and assistance with their fund raising.

It is also the goal of the post to create better community relations, again to help them raise funds and gather donations for their charity organizations.

A final goal is to increase the participation in events from the community as well as the number of members that work the events.

Proposal 1Family Events

After interview two participants in the post, we felt that adding a family orientated event once a month or at least once a year would help increase member participa-tion. This way members would be able to spend the day with their entire family.

We suggest renting a bounce house to provide entertainment for the children and then having a pot luck so the cost of food would not be overly expensive for any one person. A bounce house depending on where it was rented from would cost ap-proximately $215 for four hours. However, advertising this event to the public would open up the opportunity to charge a small fee in order to use the bounce house. This would defer the cost of renting it and also could possibly raise money for the post. Money raised could be used to sponsor other community events or a toy ride.

Also, we suggest starting the event off with a motorcycle ride or ending it to bring it back to the post. Inviting the public and having a ride would also help with how the post is perceived. Showing the public that the post is also family orientated and not a motorcycle game would be beneficial.

In addition, a silent auction could be held at the event. Local businesses could do-nate items to be auctioned off, and proceeds to go back to the post for other activi-ties. This would also increase awareness of the post within local businesses which could help in activities later on.

Advertising for Family Events

An event this big will need a month or more of planning and one day to execute. The most important issue of an event such as this, is to advertise as much as possible in order to have a great turn out. As well as receive extra funding in order to make the event a success financially.

To advertise a family a event, contact local schools to notify parents of the event. Also, it may be possible to host the event at the school. This would help increase awareness of the event within the community/

Contact radio stations to put plug INS for the event. Along with broadcasting advertisements the station could also broadcast live from the event. However, this could be expensive and not efficient. Contact local newspapers about advertising and running weekly ads about the event a few weeks in ad-vance. In addition, create flyers to post in the businesses that are sponsoring the event and silent auction as well as local bars and motorcycle shops. However, it is important to branch out from motorcycle shops and bars in order to get away from the motorcycle gang image the public tends to have.

Promote the event through social media to reach members that may not live in the Des Moines/Waukee area. Add the even to the Facebook calendar and update about what will all the event will entail on a regular basis. This was members will see the event advertised constantly and will not be able to easily forget about it.

Be sure to recognition donors or volunteers at the event. Members and volunteers can be recognized with gift certificates and donors could receive discounts at another legion event.

An event of this nature would cost an estimated $350 due to the bounce house rental and advertising costs. The majority of the money would be put towards renting the bounce house and the rest of the funds could be put towards advertising in newspaper, radio, and printing flyers off. However, the post could use this event to make money by charging $5 to go into the bounce house for the whole day.

The funds made from charging for the bounce house could be used to help buy gift cards to recognize members and volunteers who helped out with the event.

Supporting Datafor Family Events

Cindy Barnes, post president would like to create better community relations to gain more support in raising funds for their charity orga-nizations. So having a family event would not only create better com-munity relations but it would also help fund raise for their charity or-ganizations.

This event would also increase member participation because they would be able to bring their entire family to the event. Barnes said she would like to see more member participation as well as the commu-nity. By opening up the event to the community it would help create better relations and increase community participation.

Also, Jai Wessel suggested having family events for the post and using bigger venues in order to allow for higher participation. Curt Kallesen said that he would like to see more advertising done in order to spread the word about the event and the post itself.

Proposal 2 Member Recognition

We believe that with any organization especially non-profit ones member expansion is a key to the success of it. But another aspect to gaining members is also maintain-ing them. In order to get more members the Iowa Riders Post 737 needs to put a positive image of it out there. Meaning that the group members should talk to friends and family to spread that word that this organization is not all about just about riding motorcycles. By repositioning the organization as family friendly and open we see this Post expanding membership.

In order to maintain high membership and participation we believe that member recognition would be the easiest way to show someone the group cares. By doing more than just thanking a member it would be beneficial to give “Member of the Month” awards to help boost moral among members in the organization. Also, be-sides giving out an award also give out gift cards or discounts to local restaurants to give an incentive to regularly participate.

Another thing to do is get everyone involved in group discussions or activities. If a group creates inner groups, tension can cause it to fall apart. Make sure everyone is involved even if they don’t seem interested or show up at a meeting. This way when it comes to the events or charity that Post 737 raises for the group is able to enjoy the decision more.

Supporting DataMember Recognition

Barnes said that “Along with companies and other non-profits they support, the main goal of post is to increase membership.”

During our interviews both people stated that recognizing members on a regu-lar basis would help the moral of the group. Also on questionnaires people stated that there should be better member recognition. It was said that when the general public is invited the sometimes 200 riders come to an event but when its just a group event it can be as little as 34 riders and that needs to be improved by acknowledging members who participate frequently.

Quotes about the leadership team (questionnaires) Anonymous “When you have members who would like to participate in the events, it’s difficult for them to become active when meetings are focused around a chosen few and it seems that it becomes the final decisions based on those few.”

Anonymous “As much as we try we cant get all members to help with the work side of events we put on, only a handful are always there.”

Anonymous “Trying to do too much and to please too many.”

Proposal 3Increasing Advertising

Based on the current funds and potential other fund raisers the max amount that the post could spend on a fund raiser would be $500 dollars.

Without the knowledge of an event or information about it member participation and community awareness decreases. As of now most of the advertising is just flyers or sometimes-another medium placing them in bars and motorcycle shops. The flyers are effective for the post but are not reaching the maximum amount of people. In order to reach a larger audience and expand membership advertising needs to be done in news papers, radio ads or cheap public mediums.

Newspaper and radio ads are not being utilized by the post and need to be in order to spread knowledge of the post. Having weekly or monthly ads about events in the paper and broadcast on the radio expands the demographics of people it is reaching versus just members.

The web site is currently being re-done by another outside source. This will help keep members up to date in the post activities and will provide the public with in-formation about the group. Today technology and Internet are primary sources for advertising mediums. Keeping your web site updated not only helps the public but your members as well.

Supporting DataAdvertising

Cindy Barnes, president, says public awareness is key to Iowa Riders suc-cess. And this is an aspect that could use a lot of improvement. Which is why we suggest an increase of mediums for advertising.

Curt Kallesen knows that advertising is expensive but still believes that the organization could use more to promote events. He also suggested using newspapers and radio advertising for events.

Currently the post has 17 sponsors, however most are bars/beer compa-nies/ and Harley shops. While this helps members know of events that the post is holding, it does not increase public awareness. Most people in the community do not visit these shops, so it is important to expand advertis-ing venues that reach larger demographics of people.

Why Members Participate

Conflicts on Attendance

Gender

Event Attendance

Ages

Member Attendance

Leadership Rating

Social Media Recommendations

The Waukee post could increase awareness of their organization, events, and fund-raising by utilizing social media outlets more. This would help the communication of the members within the group as well as expand the knowledge of the group to the general public.

FacebookCurrently the post has a Facebook, however, updating the site every day would be beneficial. Using the events tab to share information about every event that the post will be hosting would allow members to be constantly reminded of events they should attend. Also, posting photos from each event would help show members and the community the success of each event and fund raiser.

Web siteThe Waukee post has recently redesigned their web site but encouraging people to visit it from their Facebook would increase traffic. Regularly updating the web site would be beneficial as well. However, with the new redesign the web site makes it easy for members and non members to see what events the post is hosting, view photos from events, and learn about the organization in general.

TwitterCreating a Twitter page for the post would also increase awareness of the group. Designated members could tweet from events to provide live coverage for those un-able to attend and the general public. It would be a simple way to update members on meetings, dinners, events, and other activities. This social media outlet is quick, simple, and easy to use and could benefit the post greatly.

Waukee American Legion Post 737

Memorial Weekend: “The Freedom Rock” and The Mohawk

May 29: Banquet at Des Moines Airport Holiday Inn Guest speaker Larry H. Spencer, the last IA POW re-leased from Hanoi Hilton.

Come Join Us

Contact: Cindy Barnes Tel. (515) 868-0200E-mail: alrpost737@yahoo.comWeb site: www.alrpost737.com

JUNE 11TH IOWA VETERANS HOME RIDE

The American Legion Iowa Riders Post 737 will be participating along with Post 166 is teaming up for the 1st annual Iowa Veterans Home Ride (IVH). ALL PROCEEDS WILL GO TO THE IVH CANTEEN FUND. This fund will allow the residents to purchase their personal items such as toothpaste, combs, stationary, greeting cards and more.

Barnes says, “Sometimes there is as little as 34 riders at an event but sometimes as many as 200 show up. “It doesn’t matter who shows up as long as it is for a good cause.”

The riders and who ever else would like to join will be leaving Shellsburg Legion Post 166 for Marshalltown at 9:00 am and meet up at Marshalltown Community College South Parking Lot at 10:30 a.m. Starting at 11 am A Brotherhood Aimed Towards Education (ABATE) District 6 will also be holding their BIKE SHOW AND RODEO following the even. American Legion Iowa Riders Post 737 is a non-profit organization with a primary mission to support our local veterans as well as contribute to our local community.

The American Legion was chartered by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic, War-time veterans organization, devoted to mutual helpfulness. It is a not-for-profit Community-service. The organization now has nearly 3 million members, men and women, in nearly 15,000 American Legion posts worldwide.

The Waukee American Legion Post 737 started in 2006 and now has over 80 members today. The post is located in the recently vacated community center at 410 6th Street. Since we are a new post, we continue to raise funds to support our local Veterans and help support our local community. Our local post has as-sisted several local Veterans by providing grant awards and helping them with day-to-day needs. The post attends the Waukee Festivals. In addition, we continue to present the flags for Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and the Relay Walk of Life to Fight Cancer. Other upcoming events include: Memorial Weekend “The Freedom Rock” and The Mohawk. May 29, ban-quet at Des Moines Airport Holiday Inn with guest speaker Larry H. Spencer, the last IA POW released from Hanoi Hilton. May 30, The Aviation Museum program with the singing of the National Anthem and fly over OV-1 Mohawk September 17, 2nd Annual Toy Run for military families and October 31, Pumpkin Bowling at 14th St. Tap.

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For Immediate Release

American Legion Trends

Within every American Legion Rider’s post, the fund raising events and objectives vary greatly. The common theme is giving back to the community, mainly veterans. Most of the events are adult oriented, but many include families and community members with events such as hog roasts and carnivals.

Many posts had more unique annual events such as mice racing, but many more stuck with more traditional poker nights or joining with local restaurants to have por-tions of process going to the post.

Iowa Rider’s post 737 is in line with many of the trends of the other posts, but would most likely benefit from extending their fund raising events to include families to draw in more community members and improve local perception of their group.

American Legion Riders Post 737INSERT LOGO

April 2011President, Cindy Barnes

Post members came out in full force for the St. Paddy’s Day Parade. Thank you to everyone who assisted with coordinating the event, rode their bikes and watched the parade, reminding the community of our presence.

Memorial Day weekend is the “The Freedom Rock” and The Mohawk. Events will kick off May 29 with a banquet at Des Moines Airport Holiday Inn with guest speaker Larry H. Spencer, the last IA POW released from Hanoi Hilton. On May 30, we will at-tend the Aviation Museum program with singing of the National Anthem and fly over OV-1 Mohawk. On June 11, the Iowa Veterans Home Ride will leave Shellsburg Legion Post 166 for Marshalltown at 9am. More details on these events will be available in the coming weeks.

Monthly Events:

Coming up:We are looking for members to assist with the upcoming summer bbq’s and summer activities. If you’d like to assist, please contact Cindy at 515-321-4388.

Congratulations to our April member of the month: John Doe. John has been a member of the post for 2 years. John and his wife, Mary, have three sons; Jason, Jack and Jeremy. They spend their weekends watching their boys play football and enjoying time on their bikes. John has worked for the Pella Corporation for 20 years. We’d like to thank John for his continued support of the legion and assisting with last month’s St. Paddy’s Day parade.

Member of the Month: John Doe

Newsletter

The first Sunday of every month: Legion Riders breakfast from 8am to 1pm. $7 for all you can eat!

Every third Wednes-day: Women’s Auxil-iary Spaghetti dinner Every fourth Satur-day: Legionnaires Chili dinner or steak fry Every Wednesday during the summer: Grilling during the Farmer’s Market

Conclusion

The Waukee Post 737 has been successful in events and fund raising for the community and veterans. However, Cindy Barnes, president, would like to increase membership and participation. In order to do so our group proposed three specific ideas to enhance member involvement and increase awareness about the post.

We have also included an example newsletter and flyer. These can be used to advertise events to the general public and keep members informed on a monthly basis. The group needs to increase and improve internal communication this way everyone will be on the same page.

The proposals will help eliminate the general stereotype of the group with a family event as well as advertising at places in the local community. In addition, advertising on the radio and in newspapers will expand membership and community awareness.

Also, we suggest recognizing members who are participating frequently and putting in time and effort. Members need to feel appreciated when they are helping out so making sure they are recognized is very important. We suggested starting a “Mem-ber of the Month” program, then members will have something to strive for and it can be published in the monthly newsletter.

In addition, social media needs to be updated frequently to update members and the public. Many people are constantly checking Facebook, Twitter, and web sites for more information and being able to always provide that will help the post.

Currently the post is already succeeding, however, these proposals would help set the post above others and create much more success.

Budget Proposals

Not-for-profit organizations such as the American Legion Riders rely heavily on their sponsors to assist not only fund raising events, but other areas.

Proposal one is a suggested Family Event. For this event, the Riders could rent a bounce house for an esti-mated $150 for a day. Food, such as chips, hot dogs and cans of soda can be sold as a meal for #3.00 per plate and make a profit for the organization.

An estimated food budget of $200 would feed approximately 160 people. Often times, grocery stores will match or donate items for a not-for-profit event in exchange for recognition of their contribution. If this were the case, the organization would increase their profit.

Prizes and auction items can be collected from area businesses and donated by members. An estimated cost of $150 would cover packaging and supplementing prizes. Local schools and PTA’s will often allow organizations to borrow or rent carnival games. Combined, this event would cost the Riders approximately $500.

Proposal two is to increase member recognition. If the organization chooses to add a monthly newsletter, a member of the month section could included. Newsletters that are sent via e-mail will cost the organization nothing. Printed newsletters could cost a monthly average of $20 in print fees or ink and paper.

Plaques are an easy and cheap way to recognize members. If this is added, the organization can work an agree-ment with a local trophy store to make the plaques at a discounted price for guaranteed patron. Even full price, small plaques are reasonable at approximately $12 each, costing the organization less than $150 per year.Alternate to plaques: Gift cards can often be negotiated with area businesses when bought in bulk and are a us-able way to recognize member participation. Riders may anticipate spending $120 per year on gift certificates.

Proposal three includes the increase of advertising within the local and surrounding areas. A budget of $100 per year for flyers.

A weekly ad in the local newspaper would be the more expensive portion of the advertising budget. If the lo-cal newspaper has a community section in which they advertise area events, the Riders would benefit from a weekly reminder of their events. Larger ads should run for a week prior to the September Toy Run, the Pumpkin Bowling and the Cabbage Bowling events. This would cost the Riders approximately $350 per year.