About a week ago, I received the 4/21/18 Executive Committee meeting minutes. As usual, I found a few curious things in them:
- In item #3, it is reported that president Rick Roderick, K5UR, “noted that the projections on the impact of the dues increase on League membership continues to remain on target and if that continues, and in line with previous dues increases in the past, that the League should see an anticipated increase in membership during 2019.”My first question would be what are these targets that he refers to? Then, as I have for years, I wonder why the ARRL doesn’t set specific membership targets, either as a percentage of licensed radio amateurs or an absolute number of members? Without specific goals, the ARRL has little chance of truly increasing their membership.
- In item #4, CEO Barry Shelley, N1VXY, reports, “The New Lifelong Learning Manager and new Controller will begin work on Monday, April 23, 2018.” I don’t care so much about the controller, but I am quite interested in the new Lifelong Learning Manager and what they expect him or her to accomplish.
- In item #6, the Executive Committee is proposing to change Article 1 of the Articles of Association from “The name of our corporation shall be The American Radio Relay League, Incorporated…” to “The name of our corporation shall be The American Radio Relay League, Incorporated. It may be informally referred to as ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio (sic).” My take on this is that if you have to spell it out like this, it’s probably not a good thing. This change makes no real sense to me. Anyone want to explain it to me?
- In item #8, it is noted that there was some discussion about changed to the infamous “Code of Conduct.” At this point, it appears that any changes will be delayed until at least next January.
- Item #16 discusses the work being done to modify the Official Observer (OO) program. The news here is that newly-elected vice director Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, is the new chairman of the Amateur Auxiliary Study Working Group. As the former FCC official responsible for enforcing the amateur radio rules, I can’t think of a better person to be in charge of this effort. I would like to hear from any current members of the Amateur Auxiliary about the proposed changes and what they think the program should look like in the future.
Dave New, N8SBE says
On a related note (Lifelong Learning), the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium is shutting down. The CDLC was the entity that hosted all the ARRL online courses, such as Emergency Communications, and Antenna Modeling. Likely appointing a Lifelong Learning Manager may very well be the first step in putting together an alternative to the CDLC. that may be under control of the ARRL, to avoid having the rug pulled out from under them again.
Starr Center says
Why did the CDLC shut down? Did they give a reason? Did it have anything to do with lack of participation – no students taking the courses?
Dan KB6NU says
No reason was given, and if you visit the CTDLC website, there’s no mention that it’s no longer functioning. The last post, though was sometime in 2016.