As the Michigan Section Affiliated Club Coordinator, I now get involved in many different things. This weekend, I was invited to a meeting with the Michigan Section top brass. I learned a bunch of new things:
- Michigan is the second largest ARRL section. The only one bigger is Ohio.
- Michigan has 27 Official Observers (OOs). This is about twice the average nationwide. These guys are out there and listening. The most cited offense is lack of identification, followed by out-of-band operation and lack of a control operator.
- The National Traffic System is alive and well in Michigan, almost in spite of the official policy of the ARRL. Two new traffic nets were organized in Michigan in 2004.
- Although perhaps in a bit of disarray, there are many hams out there poised and ready to provide emergency communications. The Michigan Section leadership is determined to make the organization even better.
One thing that I noticed at this meeting is that little, if any, attention is being given to the recruitment and training of new hams at the state level. A couple of the guys, for example, lamented that the practice of “Elmering” seemed to be falling by the wayside. Also, the report of the ASM for Education and Training mentioned emergency communications training, but said little about license classes and other forms of basic training.
I have a partially-baked idea. I have proposed that the Section Manager appoint and Assistant Section Manager (ASM) for recruitment and elmering. This person would be the main resource for folks doing license classes and recruiting people to teach classes (I’d love to see another ARRL appointment created for these people). AND those classes don’t have be associated with a particular affiliated club.
Here in Michigan, for example, there are many boaters. A lot of these folks would make good hams and amateur radio fits in nicely with boating. One of our ARROW members is involved with the Ann Arbor Power Squadron. I have talked to him about teaching a Tech class for the Power Squadron, although we haven’t actually done it yet.
That’s just one example. Schools are another. It might also be possible to teach classes during lunch hours at local tech businesses.
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