After the introductions, most amateur radio club meetings start out with officer reports. BORING! After all, how many people really care about how much money is in the treasury, or the latest tweak to the repeater made by the club’s technical coordinator?
Instead, why not have member reports? Ask members to volunteer a report on their latest amateur radio activities, or even other cool activities? They’ll certainly be a lot more interesting, and they’ll have the effect of generating better discussions and better friendships.
Jeff says
I would have to disagree. Only because active clubs (and I have to stress active) spend money on projects. Our reports are minimal and only take about 10 minutes. I can’t imagine someone getting so bored in 10 minutes that they wouldn’t come back. If they do, they probably do not need to be there anyway. 73 de KA1DBE
LAYNE AE1N says
Our club, the Nashua Area Radio Club (N1FD.org), asks Officers before the meeting if they have any agenda items. Our President, AB1OC, then strictly limits the time allowed. Members are interested in our finances and our Treasurer does a good job of summarizing. Usually all is done within 10-15 minutes!
LAYNE AE1N
Jim Higgins says
What you advocate translates to many as “less transparency.”
Rather than squash the aspects of the club you don’t like, why not schedule a “business” meeting at say 7:00 and then schedule the “membership/fun” meeting at 7:30. The 7:00 session would be open to all who care for that sort of thing and the 7:30 session for those who don’t care about the business side of things. That maintains transparency without squashing something simply because it isn’t your cup of tea.
73 de KB3PU
Dan KB6NU says
That works for me, too. Seriously, though, the boring business part of most amateur radio club meetings turns off more people than not.
Bill VK2KT says
Nice to see the logo of our Wagga NSW club used on your page. Best club that I’ve ever been a member of. :) Cheers, Bill, VK2KT.
John Eyles says
Hi Dan,
I am President of the radio club whose logo you have used – Wagga Amateur Radio Club. Very pleased you think it a ‘cool amateur radio club logo’ as we think it is too.
Interested in your comments. I too am not a big fan of boring business meeting. Our club is run by an Executive which meets on another night and simply presents a report of happenings at the designated club meeting which takes around 30 minutes but from time to time we do need to take stuff to the membership and that also happens at the designated club meeting. We usually try to finish off with some sort of entertainment whether its a talk or even some you Tube videos and we finish off the night with supper. We seem to be holding our attendances to a very acceptable level so I think this mix works quite well. We have also added a second night which is project based.
And finally, a word on our club. We turn 50 in 2018. Our logo features a crow with headphones and antenna. Our city is Wagga Wagga which is located about half way between Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. Wagga Wagga is an Indigenous Australian term meaning place of many crows.
73 De John VK2YW
Dan KB6NU says
Thanks for the info and for letting me use your logo, John. I really do like it! Now, the crows make sense!
Cory Klumper says
Yes, yes, yes, a thousands times, yes. I have become inactive at our local club because the entire meeting was Business Stuff (BS). A couple of us tried to push for those reports at every other meeting, but it just drifted back to the old rut. The only real activity this club usually does is Field Day, so it’s not like we had a bunch of business to talk about either.
As of right now, I am a member of two real clubs and two “virtual clubs” who only exist as email lists and an annual meeting. The Minnesota Wireless Association does more with one meeting per year than the other three clubs combined.
I’m seeing this same kind of thing creep into my beer homebrewing club too, so it’s not limited to ham radio. Focus on what is valuable to your membership or they will leave.
Brent KF5THB says
As so many will say, being a club officer is a thankless job! We all need to be appreciated and to a degree, enjoy being in the “limelight.” Some times the only limelight available is when said unthanked club officer has a captive audience and can regail them with their adventures of getting the 2012 Quicken update to load properly and then getting it to correctly populate the mass mailing/merge letter they created in Word. That, so they can send out the notices to all 19 dues-paying members. Yeh back when they started keeping the accounts, all they had was this steno-pad.
So, at the risk of sounding like I am merely poking fun at the many long suffering club officers, I am really/truly advocating for 1) proper recognition of their contributions and b) the need for systematic “circulation” of members through the leadship ranks. Clubs should have a defined program for bringing new members into operational positions such as field day events, and similarly; eventually moving them into more stategic leadership positions. It might take a while but every member should have an opportunity (in most all cases) to have their “hand on the tiller” and a view of the big picture.
That way everyone can have a fuller appreciation for the procedural needs of the organization as well as the difficulty in herding cats which running things in many clubs can resemble.