President's Message

By: Frank T. Church
4th Quarter, 2024



I will be covering several points from this year that need to be shared with you.

Another year passed and another great reunion in Omaha, we had 675 troopers and guests attend. Overall Omaha proved to be a good place to hold our 2024 reunion. As usual there were those that had complaints. We try to have a reunion that is free of glitches and missteps, but they inevitably happen. We can only adjust, move on, and learn from them. However, I heard loud and clear from the members about two issues that will need to be addressed for next year and beyond.

The walk over the sky bridge from the hotel to the convention center was too much for our guys. This will not be the case in Tulsa, they have no skywalk and all meetings, the bunker and banquet will be in the hotel. We have used Convention Centers in the past because the hotels could not fit us into their in-house meeting space for the bunker and banquet. They have become very expensive and cumbersome in dealing with two entities for all our meeting room needs. Our reduced numbers will now allow us to fit into most hotels but could eliminate some otherwise acceptable sites.

Between the time we signed a contract in 2022 and the reunion in 2024 the Omaha Hilton went cashless for everything. We did not know about this until after the last Thunder Run was published before the reunion. This will not be the case for Tulsa. They still accept cash. However, you will need a credit card to hold a one-night room reservation but can pay the final bill upon checkout with cash. The credit card charge will drop off in 2-5 days depending on the bank you use. We have revised our requirements for future hotel searches to reflect these two items. Our bars in the bunker and banquet have long been cashless but it is now spreading to all other in-house venues. Our society is also moving to be cashless, progress they say, but a handicap for us. When making your reservations do not use a third party such as Expedia or Hotels.com. You will not get the reunion rate and the 11th ACVVC will not get the room nights credited to our account.

In response to a comment that we did not have a color guard or guest speaker from the Regiment for the Banquet ceremonies: I always invite the Regiment to attend with those two requests. We must remember that our current Regiment has an important job to do, and we were not their top priority. If it can be done, they will do it. This year it was not doable for them. They were in a training rotation and that is their only focus. I will continue to invite them to attend in any manner that fits into their mission.

During our membership meeting the well-worn subject of joining forces with the BHA and holding joint reunions was brought before the members again. There was a list of items presented on issues that must be overcome but no steps to do so other than form a committee. This was presented as being beneficial to both organizations. I agree it may be to the BHA but fail to see any notable benefit for the 11th ACVVC. It would be a tremendous amount of work for both with little to gain for us. The effort to make this happen is being promoted by a small minority of members. Please know, the 11th ACVVC and the BHA have ongoing communications and designated points of contact to coordinate our efforts when they are beneficial to both organizations and the Regiment. The 11th ACVVC welcomes any Blackhorse Trooper to join us at our reunions, no matter when or where they served. Our members are free to join them at theirs as well.