It’s summertime and that means the conference is right around the corner, and this year’s book review cycle has come to a close. If you haven’t registered for the conference or made reservations at the Hotel Albuquerque, please do so soon, as the group discount rate at the hotel may not be available if you wait too long. More info about the conference can be found on our website:

https://www.mwsadispatches.com/events/2019/conference

While you're on that page, please fill out your meal selection choice for the awards banquet (if you haven't already done so).  If you'll be bringing guests, you can fill out a separate form for you and your guest(s).

Outreach and Book Drive 

We’re continuing our outreach efforts with planned programs in September in Albuquerque at the VA Med Center and in October in Austin. In addition to these writing classes, we’re having our annual book drive and ask anyone who has books to donate to please send them to Larry Greenly at 2916 Jane Ct NE, Albuquerque, NM 87112-1638, to arrive by September 10. These books will be donated to the Raymond G. Murphy VA Med Center in Albuquerque. Remember to use media mail rates to keep your costs down.

Awards

We plan to announce the 2019 season awards finalists on August 15.  We'll be posting details and links on the 2019 Season page of our website.

In addition to these individual book awards, we have three special recognition awards that are presented at each conference at the awards banquet. These are the Founder’s Award, the President’s Award, and the Mike Mullins Writer of the Year Award. To learn more about these awards, please visit this web page: https://www.mwsadispatches.com/mwsa-awards

Mike Mullins Memorial MWSA Writer of the Year for 2019

We are extremely proud of our three finalists for this year’s Writer of the Year Award. These three individuals are Kathy Rodgers, Dale Dye, and Valerie Ormond. All three are more than qualified for the award and have extensive writing backgrounds, along with involvement in other activities in support of our veterans. We anticipate all three will be at the Awards Banquet this year, so be sure to come and congratulate them.

Membership Poll--Location of 2020 Conference

Want to have input on the location of our next conference?  Let us know by filling out a few questions here:

https://www.mwsadispatches.com/2020-conference-poll

Volunteers

We continue to need volunteers, especially to help us with our website and social media efforts.  If you're interested in helping out, please use one of the emails listed below to volunteer.

Newsletters

As a reminder, if you're interested in keeping up-to-date with MWSA news and information, you can sign up for our free newsletters on our website:

https://www.mwsadispatches.com/newsletters

On that page you can sign up to receive monthly updates for news, tips and tricks, or online library updates.  You can also sign up to receive notification when the latest edition of our quarterly Dispatches magazine is available.

Trooper

Finally, if you are in San Antonio on Aug 10, there will be a 12:30 and a 4:00 showing of the film Trooper at the Lackland AFB theater. AAFES will begin distributing free tickets in the AAFES Main Exchange food court starting on July 29th. This film has a long history with MWSA as it was screened at the MWSA conference in 2009 where the MWSA attendees made a variety of suggestions, edits, etc. that influenced the film’s final production. More information about Trooper and the showings at Lackland AFB can be found at

https://www.usveteransmagazine.com/2019/07/trooper-film-lackland-base/

Hope to see you all at the conference!