TeamTAS

For the last five years I have been running various efforts to show gratitude to our men and women serving our countries and those that have served in the past and have given a lot of my time to spread a positive message. I am a huge user of Twitter & Facebook as outlets to get the message out there to show appreciation but too many times the only time you see major coverage of our soldiers on the news is when they do something controversial or when we sadly lose on in battle.

Well that is about to change.

I believe every day this should be done but I wanted to set aside ONE special day a week being Thursday for people to take part in posting positive messages on their Twitter feeds & Facebook status and tag them #TeamTas  Once this tag catches on hopefully #TeamTAS will be an every day tag but until that happens we're going to be pushing it hard on every Thursday.

We see a lot of Team this, team that’s that celebrities and their fans post and they are trending within a matter of minutes. Whenever “The Voice” is on TV you will see #TeamXtina, #TeamBlake, #TeamAdam and #TeamClo all trending and no disprespect to them but it’s time to cause a shake up.  Every glittery vampire in the Twilight series has their own "Team" so why not one for our brave men and women serving and our veterans?

That being said I’m askin everyone to post a positive message to our troops on every Thursday and tag it #TeamTAS.

Whether it’s a shout out to someone you know on Twitter that is a member of the military or a veteran, whether its a tribute YouTube video or positive story, or SIMPLY a message saying thank you. If we get enough people tweeting with #TeamTAS in it we’d be on the Trending Topics list in no time at all.  If you would like to post a photo to Twitter and tag it, or link to your favourite military related YouTube video that is also ok just as long as #TeamTAS is in there some where.

This is not an ego stroke or anything self promoting it’s a chance to get the word out to the world about what we do and if you are a member of our Facebook Page or follow us on Twitter, you are already on #TeamTas

Please also feel free to take a photo of yourself holding a piece of paper with #TeamTas on it too and I'll repost them on our Facebook page.  Like our friend Tori did below!

Tori from It's Tori Time joined #TeamTas today

NOTE : If you don't use facebook you are free to upload a photo to OUR FACEBOOK PAGE holding a sign with #TeamTAS on it and I will gladly post on twitter for you too.

We’ve made two Twitter buttons below that will automatically send a tweet to your feed for you

1. Click below to automatically tweet this page in your feed

Tweet

If you would like to type your own message click the button below to Tweet to the #TeamTAS tag:


Tweet #TeamTAS
Watch our YouTube video :

Order your #TeamTAS Bumper Sticker

Check out other members of #TeamTAS

Check out Military Minds on Facebook

SUBSCRIBE to FUNKER530's YouTube Channel for rare Afghanistan Combat Footage 

Our Duty - Photo Project

CALL FOR PHOTO SUBMISSIONS

Our Duty is planning a series of videos to increase public awareness of what Canadian Forces and RCMP veterans have endured.

The public has seen a lot of war in Afghanistan but not much else. We forget all the other things, so Our Duty would like to post some reminders. We'd like veterans and families to submit photos for inclusion in these videos. In particular, we are seeking pictures of:
- Domestic ops, especially hurricane cleanup, the Quebec Ice Storm, Winnipeg Floods, etc.
- SAR training and/or ops
- Peacekeeping ops, especially interactions with locals
- Humourous pics of fun times - camp life, goofing around, etc.
- WOW pics of you doing amazing things: jump school, HAR training, live-fire exercise, anything that looks really cool

To submit, you can email your pics to poca@ourduty.org or join the Our Duty group and post them.

PLEASE INCLUDE:
- Your name,
- Date and location of photo (if possible),
- Brief explanation of photo (i.e., "Mortar training, I'm the gal in the middle"),
- Mission name (if it has one),

NOTE: These must be your own pictures, either taken by you or with you in them. This is for copyright reasons, so that you can authorize Our Duty to use them. All copyrights will remain with the owner; we will be using them with your permission. (We'll send out an authorization form before we use them.)

Thank A Soldier - Bumper Sticker

The most requested item I've gotten in the last few years is to make a Thankasoldier.net bumper sticker so I decided to go ahead and do it.  We will be giving all proceeds from the sale of these stickers to Military Minds which will be $1.00 per every on sold.

We also will be giving away FIVE of these on April 30th and details about how you canter by Facebook, Twitter & by email are listed below.

Thank You! 

To purchase any of the above bumper stickers you can ORDER HERE! ($1.00 from each one will go to Military Minds)

HOW TO ENTER THE CONTEST

Twitter : Click the Tweet button below to be entered once

Tweet

To enter on Facebook go to our Facebook page and SHARE THIS POST

To enter via email answer the question "What is the name of the person I started the "Thank A Soldier Weight Loss challenge with" The answer is here send your answer to our CONTEST EMAIL 

Contest closes APRIL 30th, 2012


Please feel free to leave a comment as to what you would like to see added and all these are also available for purchase by visiting the Zazzle page 

Meet a very special Golden Retriever

Hi!  My full name is MuchAdo Formula for Victory, but my friends just call me Tori!  While I’ve got a few fancy schmantzy titles in obedience, field and agility, and even one in dock diving, the thing I love doing most is putting smiles on people’s faces.

Back in January 2011, when I heard that Troy & Mareike Yocum (Drum Hike/Hike for Heroes) were walking across the United States to raise funds for struggling military families, I thought that was pretty neat.  But then when I heard that Emmie, their shiba inu, and Harley, their chihuahua, were walking, too, I thought that was even cooler!  I asked Mom if it was okay if I tried to get sponsors to help their mission, and she told me to go for it.  I figured I’d be lucky to raise a couple hundred dollars, but my friends really came through for me, and I ended up walking 275 miles and bringing in just under $4700! 

Helping our military is pretty important to me.  Several of my mom’s family members are veterans, and I know the ones who serve are the ones who keep us safe!  I had just become a therapy dog when 9/11 happened.  Because I still needed to complete some paperwork, I couldn’t go to the Pentagon Family Assistance Center to help like my “brother” Irish did, but I remember the stories Irish shared with me about those who talked to him at the Pentagon.  When I went to the 2008 Pentagon Memorial Dedication in Irish’s place (he was 15 then, and it would have been too long a day for him), I enjoyed meeting some of the family members, and he was glad to hear later that they remembered him!  

I know a lot of people joined the military after 9/11, and some of my favorite therapy visits of all were to our Wounded Warriors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center between 2004 and 2007.  While I hated to know they were in the hospital, I was glad to put a smile on their faces and let them know how much I appreciated their service!  Another favorite “job” has been going to the yearly Parents and Children Fighting Cancer Christmas party at Andrews Air Force Base for the past seven years!

When Troy asked if I could help out by walking again, I told him I sure could, and I signed up to do 400 more miles between Veterans Day 2011 and 4^th of July, 2012.  Since I’ll be 12 when we finish, I signed my “sister” Bridget (a three-year-old corgi mix) and my six-year-old nephew Breaker up also as part of Team Tori.  I’m in great shape and I expect I’ll be able to get all the miles done myself, but just in case I have an “off” day, I don’t want to leave my friends hanging! 

I know I could finish up the miles easily if I just walked around the neighborhood a mile or two a day, but our military don’t have it easy, and I don’t think I should either!  That’s why I try to plan most of my hikes to be four to six or even more miles at a time, and I love the hikes that are out in nature the best!  Some of them have been a bit tougher than I expected, but it’s all been worth it.  My favorite hikes are the ones that include somewhere to swim and M-U-D!! 

I’m looking forward to finishing my 400 miles and bringing in a lot more money for our military families.  If you want to keep track of my journey, look me up on my Facebook page – “It’s Tori Time”. 

Have paws, will travel!  Slurps and tail wags, Tori 

Elton Adams - East Coast Countdown

MCpl Elton Adams who we have featured on our blog many times with songs like "What A Soldier Left Behind" & "Hard" which we used in our Operation You're not alone campaign has just released a song with Canadian country artist Julian Austin called "My Canadian Girls"

For those of you who may not know Julian Austin's song "The Red & White" inspired me to create everything that is "Thank A Soldier" as there's a line in it that says "Do we take the time to thank a soldier for everything they do" and thus TAS was born.  He has played many shows for our troops in Afghanistan also and is one of the biggest supporters of our troops that I know.

We are asking that you take 10 seconds of your day vote for Elton in the East Coast Countown and help him get his music recognized.

There is no limit to how much you can vote, if you want to sit at your computer for the next 48 hours clicking VOTE every 10 seconds, GO FOR IT! ahahah 



There is no registration, all you have to do is click the above link, scroll down to "My Canadian Girls" by Elton Adams and click vote.  Then put a check mark in the YES box and click submit and you are done.  There is no sign up, you won't receive any emails from the East Coast Countdown site and you'll be showing support to a currently serving Canadian soldier who just makes music because its what he loves to do.

Thank You

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR ELTON ADAMS

View the video for "My Canadian Girls" below as well as several other videos we have made featuring Elton Adam's music.

 

I've posted some of the videos we've made using Eltons Music below as well 

Poll : Free Parking for our Veterans all year round?

In Barrie, Ontario Veterans can park at all on-street parking meters and all municapally-owned off street metered parking lots for the maximum time allowed. One condition is that the Veterans vehicle display a valid veteran licence plate which are available to the provinces license issuing offices.

While some cities offer free parking to Veterans with plate all year round some cities only permit this on  Remembrance Day in Canada and Memorial Day weekend in the United States.


Living in Calgary, Alberta I know we have the highest average for parking in all of Canada and I'm sure most of our veterans could not afford up to $30.00 a day in some downtown parking lots or even the basic meter lots.

Please take a moment to take part in our poll.

Do you think parking should be free for our Veterans in all downtown cores and municipal parking lots all year round and not just on military related events?

Do you think parking should be free for Veterans in all downtown cores and municipal parking lots?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free polls

Supercross - Toronto

On Saturday March 24th, 2012 SUPERCROSS is coming to the Rogers Center in Toronto and we are giving away THREE family passes of four tickets to our group members on this Friday March 9th.  Over 300 members have emailed me and told me that if they win to give them to a military family which is awesome and we've had over 100 military families enter.

More good news, ANY member of our Facebook page whether you are military or a supporter of our troops can go see this event for $20.00 using the discount code SCROSS on the ticket master web page

Thanks