Clubs

Amateur radio seems to be enjoying a renaissance on college campuses around the country. Here in Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, the U-M Amateur Radio Club was revived about ten years ago, and it’s still going strong. They hold regular meetings and have a great station. Their callsign, W8UM, is often heard on the air.

This is not an isolated case.  California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, recently set a record for the largest number of freshmen to take the Tech test, and the Iowa State University ham radio club recently celebrated its 100-year anniversary. There are active clubs all over the country.

To help bring these clubs together, Jameson, KD8PIJ, the current president of the U-M ARC, started the Collegiate Net. They meet every two weeks on 20m, and on EchoLink, and the next net will take place this Saturday, May 10, at 2030 Z. The 20m frequency is 14295 kHz. The EchoLink node is W8UM-R.

According to KD8PIJ, he started the net because he saw a gap – or rather an opening – in how amateur radio serves the college community, and decided to start the net to try to fill the void. Its goals are to:

• promote amateur radio to the college students,
• share club activities and projects,
• discuss how to incorporate radio into other college and/or community events,
• brainstorm ways to increase and retain membership to ensure club longevity, and
• help new or inexperienced Hams get on the air with a familiar audience.

While the net caters to younger hams, OMs can certainly check in. KD8PIJ says, “We want to hear from everyone! There’s plenty to be learned from alumni hams, and since most clubs include a combination of older and younger members, we want to include everyone. You don’t necessarily need to be connected with a college to participate, either.”

For more information, you can email KD8PIJ or join the Amateur Radio Collegiate Net Google Group. More information on how to join the net is available there as well.

In a LinkedIn discussion about grant writing for amateur radio clubs, I learned about a membership survey done by the ARRL’s Delta Division. There’s a big section on clubs and club activities. Here are a few bullet points from the executive summary:

• Clubs and the experiences that League members have in them constitute important elements shaping both amateur’s behavior and assessments of membership. Almost two-thirds (65%) say they are a member of at least one local club. The median distance to their nearest club is 9 miles, irregardless of their membership status. By comparison, the average commute to work in the US is almost one hour. Comparing ARRL Affiliated Club locations with those of the survey respondents using GIS methods, the objective distance to a club does not appear to have an important relationship to membership even though it was the second highest reason given for non-membership.
• What does affect membership appears to be the availability of time to participate and the quality of club leadership. Life cycle demands involving work and family obligations are tied to age and marital/parental status. These periods reduce the potential for many to seek membership in clubs. Leadership which allows or even fosters a hostile political environment and which does not plan and conduct interesting educational activities sponsored by the club are the most reported signs of poorly-evaluated leadership in the Delta Division.
• Club leadership is rated very positively by many Division club members. There appears to be a segment of clubs, however, who have lost members due to poor leadership and perhaps a lack of leadership training for succession in club leadership roles. 

You can download and read the full report. The 2011 Delta Division survey is also available.

Being a member of both an amateur radio club and a Rotary club, I often compare the two. One of the things that Rotary International does that the ARRL fails to do is to actually provide their clubs with training and materials on how to make the clubs stronger.

The January 2014 issue of the e-mail newsletter Rotary Leader includes the article “Creating a Strong Club.” It suggests that you should treat your members as customers. While I’m not totally sold on that particular idea, the article does include a list of common mistakes that clubs make with regard to membership. They are:

• Focusing on recruiting new members, while neglecting engagement.
• Forcing new members to adapt to the club and not thinking about how the club can adapt to new members.
• Failing to understand the needs of new members.
• Blaming new members for dropping out rather than evaluating what the new members need.

I do like this list, although I’d probably change #1 to read, “Failing to proactively recruit new members.”