Repost from Navy League of Minnesota (navyleaguemn.org)
The Minnesota Navy League Council hosted the 2024 Midwest Region Annual Navy League Conference on April 19-20.
The following is a message from Regional President Ward Cook:
“I want to thank the Minnesota Navy League for an amazing weekend! They did a wonderful job of welcoming us to the largest greater metropolitan city in the Midwest Region. A BIG thank you to Bill James and Joe Fraser, especially for their leadership in putting together this regional conference. Also, a thank you goes out to our National President, Chris Townsend,” said Cook.”
The conference began with an amazing military history lesson from Executive Director of the Minnesota Military and Veterans Museum, Randell Dietch. He spoke about the history of the USS WARD (DD-139) gun which we saw on Friday: https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/ships-us/ships-usn-w/uss-ward-dd-139-apd-16.html. What an amazing story that its gun was the first to fire on the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. The gun is currently located in front of the Capital building in St. Paul (which we also toured on Friday) but will soon be located at the museum’s new facility at Camp Ripley in Little Falls, MN.
Check them out at: https://www.mnmilitarymuseum.org/ or their new website https://www.mnvetmuseum.org/
We also had a wonderful discussion with our Navy League National President, Chris Townsend. He highlighted some of the progress that has been made over the past year and gave us highlights of things that are working across the country and how we can apply them to our councils here in the Midwest. We discussed our founding principles of Educating, Advocating and Supporting. This rolled into a robust discussion about the need to support recruiting in all facets of what we do. It was a truly amazing opportunity to discuss these important issues with our National President.
Jim Jones from the Sea Cadets then spoke about how our councils can support and work together with the Sea Cadets to build up some of their recruiting numbers. We also discussed collaboration with each council in the Midwest to provide more opportunities for Cadets. We discussed improving the knowledge of what Navy League does amongst the Sea Cadets as well.
Our keynote speaker was Jon Olsen, an author and national security expert. His presentation centered on how we can better equip and support our Navy for the potential missions ahead. Olsen emphasized the ongoing challenges in shipbuilding, Congressional budgets, and a lack of foresight, which are currently constraining our capabilities. What a phenomenal presentation! If you would like to read any of his books, here is a link to his page: https://us.macmillan.com/author/jrolson.
Our afternoon began with two wonderful presentations from Minnesota Navy League leaders, Brian Skon and Bill James. Bill went first and discussed best practices in how to grow membership and then touched on our legislative priorities as a Navy League and why they are important to all of us. Then, Brian Skon discussed how to maximize special events for membership and how the Minnesota Council best supports their adopted units. Brian blew us away with the number of things the Minnesota Council does. BZ again to those in the Minnesota Council.
The final presentation of the day was by Capt. Abigail Hutchins, Commanding Officer of the University of Minnesota NROTC Unit, regarding NROTC. It offered a fascinating glimpse into the life of a cadet. I believe everyone gained valuable insights that were previously unknown to them.
A big THANK YOU to all those who attended the conference and we look forward to the National Convention in San Diego this June.
See what the Minnesota Navy League is up to by visiting its website and following its Facebook Page.
