National MOAA is the leading advocate for the 18th year in in a row.  We have a very strong program for our members to support the legislative efforts through the Legislative Action Center 'Take Action' portal on the MOAA website.

Many important military and veteran benefits are held at the State legislative levels.  MUSNAVC has members in all 50 States and therefore, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for our organization to focus on each States legislative issues.  This has been a concern and challenge for our leadership since our beginning. 

With this in mind, MUSNAVC has proposed a joint collaborative initiative with the MOAA Councils and Independent Chapters to bring our members to become involved and support their mutual beneficial State level legislative efforts. 

Below is a message sent to all Councils and Independent Chapter leaders.  We realize this is only the beginning of a joint initiative but, we believe it to be worth the effort and beneficial for all military beneficiaries and contributes to the overall MOAA mission.

Message:  
 

This is LTC Joe Gollasch, USA (Ret), President of the MOAA Uniformed Services Nurse Advocates Virtual Chapter (MUSNAVC).  Since our virtual chapter founding in 2016, COL Jeri Graham, USA (Ret) and I have been exploring ways in which virtual chapters could become involved with State level advocacy efforts.  Our issue continues to come back to the fact that, unlike geographic chapters and councils, our “community”  spans all fifty (50) States.  I have attended many MOAA Council, and Legislation Forum, meetings and am impressed with what many of the Councils are doing with their State advocacy efforts.  Most Councils work with coalitions, VSOs and MSOs so it makes sense to include our own MOAA Virtual Chapters, as well, to support their efforts.
 

MUSNAVC has members in each State and an outreach to State representatives in each State.  As chapter members, our commitment to legislative advocacy issues Nationally has been proven.  I would propose that our 528+ members would be an asset to the State level advocacy efforts in which they reside.  Although MUSNAVC encourages our members to join a geographic chapter, some do join, and others do not.  Nonetheless, we would add to the numbers and strength of your State level advocacy efforts.
 

As the MUSNAVC President, I propose a collaborative initiative of mutual beneficial outcomes.  When your Council is reaching out to your geographic MOAA members to contact State representatives via email, phone, or in person, they send me the same information and I will send it to our members from that State and ask for their commitment and involvement to strengthen your efforts.  The Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee Councils have already agreed to support this initiative.  I ask for your consideration in joining the initiative.

I am also the Council of Virtual Chapters Vice President. We will start with MUSNAVC and then bring it to the Virtual Council and propose that each virtual chapter adopts the program.  This would more than double the outreach.  There would remain only one point of contact, under the Virtual Council, for you to include which will reach all Virtual Chapters.
 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and hopefully to a successful joint venture.   If you’d like to discuss, send an email to the link below.

Respectfully yours,

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Look forward to hearing more as our initiative develops and we welcome your comments, suggestions, but most of all, your support and participation.