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Militarydutystations.com at AUSA 2010

Association of the United States Army (AUSA) 2010 Convention. Washington, D.C.I am so excited! Militarydutystations.com will be presented at the AUSA (Association of the United States Army) conference this coming week in DC. This conference is pretty much kicked off with the Army 10 Miler today! (Go runners!!!) and the exhibits and speeches will officially start on Monday, October 25th and conclude on Wednesday, October 27th. The AUSA is where the Who is Who of the Army-world meets, speaks and exhibits. And I am a part of that! Militarydutystations.com was chosen as an example of how military spouses use social media in the “Army Exhibit Social Media Presentation”. I happened to use social media in connection with my website and my goal of reviewing military duty stations and now also to, hopefully, add to your PCS ‘toolbox’ as you  uproot and move your family.

I am not sure what the exhibit will look like. I had sent in some screen shots, a few video notes and then the Army Social Media Team did their magic. What I know for sure is that they will have a have a screen during the convention displaying hashtag #AUSA2010 tweets. This brings me to my request for all TWEETERS: Would you please tweet messages with my Twitter username @mildutystations and the hashtags #AUSA2010 during those days for me? You can schedule tweets via Twuffer or TweetVance -  I have used them both and like them both! I would love for all the visitors to see where the tweeters are located and how we (the milspouses) connect!

If you moved this year you are one of over 500,000 families that relocated to a new duty stations? I believe that most families do not know much if anything about their new location, but settling the family quickly with smooth transitions is always a concern, isn’t it? Who doesn’t want to hit the ground running? There is a lot to do and I want to have YOU all on my main website and my social media site and help me with input.

AUSA might not be familiar to you, especially if you are related to a different branch of the Armed Forces, then know this: Association of the United States Army

“AUSA is a private, non-profit educational organization that supports America’s Army – Active, National Guard, Reserve, Civilians, Retirees, Government Civilians, Wounded Warriors, Veterans, and family members. AUSA provides numerous Professional Development Opportunities at a variety of events both local and national.”

In short: AUSA supports Army soldiers and their families.

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Another Website? Another Blog?

Military Duty Stations Logo BannerTo some of you this all might be confusing that I decided to pull my blog out of my website. See, what you might not know is that www.militarydutystations.com IS a blog. So, basically, I had a blog in a blog. Am I making this harder to understand?

The short version is that I needed to get more attention to the blog itself. I have seen a lot of question on Facebook, that I have partially or completely answered in my blog, but for some reason, they weren’t found by the ones seeking answers. Now, mind you I am completely overwhelmed by how much there is to know about PCSing. It’s the money, it’s the technicalities -can I do this, can I do that?- I decided that it’s all worth a new site. Installation information and PCS info needed to be separate, but they still belonged together.

There, now you have it. I would love to hear your suggestions, your questions – this could be a full time job for me. It would be one that I’d gladly hold! Stay around, stick with me!

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Your writing guide! Ideas and suggestions

The reason I started this website is clearly to have your PCSing questions answered. I would like for this place to develop into a site where you come when you can’t find answers anywhere else and you want feedback from people who lived where you are going or even connect with them if you are still there.

The blog AND the PCS Guide is there to answer your questions in regards to PCSing. How to pack? How to prep? How to pay?

To be quite frank most if not ALL information that I publish is available on the net. However, I am researching and collecting THIS information and package it so that you have it all in ONE place. The more I can offer you the happier I’ll get.

That said, please know that this is a user generated content website. This means that www.militarydutystations.com lives from YOUR comments and entries. Therefore, your input is absolutely crucial. You can consider your entry here on “MDS”(Military Duty Stations) as your good deed for the day!

As of now, Militarydutystations.com is not a For-Profit website and it is purely there to help – from one military spouse to another.
At some point I am hoping to be able to receive donations to improve it and make it more usable but this is what i can do and I hope you ‘ll find it helpful enough to recommend it to your friends and to take the time to write up some information yourself.

How to write:

  • First of all, let me tell you that ANYTHING you add is great. Know though, that it is more helpful to write a detailed information about ONE thing than just a few general things. Let’s say you did not want to write not more than 5 sentences, it is much more helpful to just focus on one tab or even only one subject. Be it about a specific school district or 5 sentences in Moving Tips
  • Feel free to add links to information or Youtube videos. If you add 2 URLs or more, it will go into my ‘approve’ folder. Other comments are published directly
  • It’s ok if you DON’T like your base. Don’t flame, as this really doesn’t help any one. Think of it this way: There is a good chance that the next person has NO choice but to PCS to this duty station, therefore tips on how to overcome the not-so-great things are really important and would be tremendously helpful.
  • I do keep a close eye on the comments. Unfortunately, there is A LOT of spam coming in. I think I am catching most of it. However, if I missed one -especially if it’s offensive. Tell me immediately so that I can take action and remove it.

Now, let’s get to WHAT to write:

Under the “General” Tab:

  • Everything that you think you can’t fit in any of the other categories. General Post/Base info – life in that particular state. Going out, eating out, having fun, entertainment suggestions.

Under the “Housing” Tab:

  • Housing: Do you have info about nice/safe housing off Post? Prices? Special tips? + + Housing ON Post: What’s good bad and ugly….don’t we all want to be prepared?

Under the “School” Tab:

  • Schools: If you have kids, that’s a biggo. Any school info is important ….Preschool programs, Elementary, Middle, High School. How did you like the teachers? Is there something special about the district? Ie. We DON’T have bussing service in our district. That’s key information! Are there drugs? Violence?
  • If you are super happy with a school: share it. Even if you are not: share that (in an appropriate manner ;-) too. I’d want to know, if I was moving there.
  • Even if you homeschooled your children, are there certain considerations great places to go to support your teaching job at home?

Under the “For Kids” Tab:

Is there anything worse than kids’ boredom. When my husband deployed the weekends were the worst. I would like to come to this tab and see if anyone has listed some resources, places or events that I could go and do with my children. If you have done some great stuff, or if you have just seen something that your inner kids would love…share it here.

  • Post the information and tips you have about on or off Post -places/activities
  • Where do you go for birthday parties? Are there special summer vacation programs?

Under the ‘Medical’ Tab:

  • Have you ever been treated outside off base/post? Where did you go? How did you do that? Are you using Standard or Prime?
  • What were the name of the medical facilities and which services did you use? Do you have a recommendation for a good dentist or a pediatric dentist?
  • What facilities are on installation? Is the facility big/small or old/new? How are waiting times? How is the pharmacy?
  • A lot of expecting moms want to know about the hospital. I don’t blame them. It is not fun to move when you are pregnant. Period. However, moving and NOT knowing where you will deliver is even harder. So, the more we can share here the better.

Under the ‘Moving Tips’ Tab:

  • How is life here different from your previous duty stations? Colorado ie. is high elevation living. Ft.Stewart might be hot and humid, with big (?)bugs , maybe? As we do not have any or not many  bugs here in Colorado, this would be interesting to me…

You could write a book pretty much about your life in an overseas duty station. I am sure you have plenty of information to share.Long story short. Anything is helpful, and it doesn’t have to be much. If time is short, simply focus on one subject and be specific about that.

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