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In the latest message from our division director, our vice director, Tom, W8WTD, wrote:
And how can we strengthen our clubs in a time when people don’t want to join anything, and don’t want to volunteer for anything inside a club they do belong to? Throughout the Great Lakes Division, we see examples of clubs that are thriving, and then some that aren’t doing so well. Trying to understand what works to get people interested in a challenge for all of us.
I replied:
In your section of the latest Dale’s Tales, you ask, “How can we strengthen our clubs….” I can tell you one thing. If you and the ARRL are really serious about strengthening clubs, I have yet to see it. League officials like to say things like “clubs are the lifeblood of amateur radio,” but do little or nothing to back that up. Yes, there are a couple of pages on the website exhorting club leaders to do better jobs, but seriously, shouldn’t they get more?
Here’s an example of how the ARRL is letting clubs down. The ARRL used to publish an email newsletter called ARRL Club News. It is, in fact, still an option under the Edit Email Subscriptions tab in your ARRL user profile. But, it hasn’t been published regularly for at least a decade.
I brought this up ten or twelve years ago, when I was simultaneously our local club president and the Michigan Section Affiliated Club Coordinator. The answer I got was that the ARRL didn’t have the staff to produce it. If that’s true, then I guess that shows how far down the priority list clubs are since Contest Update, the Instructor/Teacher E-Letter, and VE newsletter appear regularly in my inbox.
At the time, I volunteered to edit the ARRL Club Letter for the League at no cost. (In case you’re wondering, I am a professional writer and editor, and have been writing about technology for many years.) I don’t think that I even got the courtesy of a reply to my offer.
I recently became aware of another instance of how low a priority clubs are to the League. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was an Assistant Director of the Delta Division. He was working on a project to geocode all US hams in the ULS license database from 2000-present, and he raised the issue of how weak the connection between the League and local clubs was. In order to try and make a better connection, his director requested a list of clubs in the division, and Norm Fusaro prepared and sent the list.
However, just the name and address of a club doesn’t tell much about them—what they offer, what they do, and so forth. He then requested that Norm Fusaro send him the latest set of reports that each affiliated club must submit to the League each year (or so) to maintain their affiliated status. Fusaro phoned him, and he learned that those paper submissions are merely put into a file drawer and NOTHING else is done with them. Fusaro said that he just didn’t have time to copy the reports, and that was that.
When I was the Michigan Affiliated Club Coordinator, I was often asked if there were any benefits to being an affiliated club. Being honest, I would tell them the only real benefit was that if the club had a hamfest, the ARRL would put their hamfest on the hamfest calendar and donate a few prizes. When you get right down to it, that’s really about all there is.
I take that back. Clubs do get a commission on ARRL memberships when they collect them. The $2 commission for returning members is a joke, though. I think that very few club treasurers consider it worth their while to collect a measly two bucks.
That’s where I left it. The point of all this is that if the ARRL really was serious about supporting clubs, then they would do something about it. At the very least, they need to get the ARRL Club News up and running again. Another thing that I’ve advocated in the past is providing club officers with training on how to do their jobs better. I’d love to start this dialogue and help our ham radio clubs work better, so that they can make ham radio more fun for their members.
Frank M. Howell says
Dan,
I couldn’t agree more with your post on clubs and the ARRL. I raised these identical issues with President Roderick and my Delta Division Director Norris at the recent Delta Division Convention in Jackson, MS. Roderick seemed interesting in responding. I further said that the League needs a Research Advisory Committee with members who have the skills needed to conduct professional social research on the membership as well as hams at large. Roderick said he’d think about it.
We will see how the League responds on this issue. But it’s key for others to follow your lead in bringing it to their attention via the grass roots. A Force of 50 (although it was actually less) is fine but a force of 750,000 licensed hams is better, hi hi!
73,
Frank
K4FMH
Pete says
I agree with the last part of Frank’s post. Local clubs are on their own. Leaning on the League to help your club gain members, whether they should or not, is the wrong viewpoint to me. Here’s some ideas:
1. Look at the ULS, divide up the list of hams in the area, and mail each one a postcard about the next meeting. Along the same lines, dig out the attendance sheet from a year ago, and send a card to everyone that signed in, but don’t come anymore.
2. Set up a booth at your local street fair. Information on the next meeting, a little bit on what ham is all about. One thing you will get is a bunch of people saying “I’ve always wanted to get into that” or “My dad/uncle/grandfather is a ham, and I still have his equipment”. Promote the next upcoming meeting the most. And don’t set up some HF station, and spend the whole time huddled behind the rig trying to work contacts. Just sit there with an HT, and have some people ready on the other end for rag chews with visitors.
3. Gently encourage each and every member of the board to get involved in the events outside of the monthly meetings. It should not be a sacrifice on their part for each board member to come out (besides FD) at least 3 times a year and work events.
4. Advertise each and every meeting, ham class and event in the local weekly paper. I repeat, advertise the club meeting every month. The weekly papers are always looking for fill for their calendar of events. Get the word out to the high school science teacher.
5. Got a ham class coming up? Buy some lawn signs and put them on the side of the road. “HAM RADIO CLASS JULY 8TH 9AM ROYAL ORDER OF WATER BUFFALO LODGE”. Include a phone number if you want.
6. Encourage club members to have your handheld with them when they go somewhere. And have a prepared spiel ready when asked about it. A quick 30 second memorized spiel about what ham radio is, and when and where the next club meeting is. For extra measure, carry business cards with the meeting dates, locations, and website of the club. Carry a radio, and people will ask what it’s for. A great “foot in the door” to introduce ham radio and the club.
As far as points 1, 2 and 5, if your club is 501(c)3, any money you spend can be a donation. I have no problem spending a $50 as long as I can claim it.
And here’s a personal viewpoint: Do clubs spend too much time and energy leaning on Field Day being the club’s big public event of the year?. I don’t know about your FD, but ours is a dud every year as far as a parade of non-hams coming out. And we do put it in the local paper every year. And if non-hams do show up, what do they see? Let’s be honest. If you were not a ham, and walked into a tent of typical FD frenzy operating, would it overwhelm you?. I’m not advocating not having FD, but I think the other points I list are more effective, as far as how to get people into the club, and into the hobby. Just my opinion.
As you may have noticed, the theme of my suggestions is get the word out about the next meeting. And I believe that’s the key. Get people to come to the meetings, Dormant hams, people that don’t have a ticket. Focus efforts on getting people to come to the meeting.
Walter Underwood says
How about liability insurance for clubs? Getting the safety rules settled for Field Day would be a lot of work. The Boy Scouts can do it for all their outdoor activities, so the ARRL should be able to.
Dan KB6NU says
You’re right. I missed the liability insurance benefit. That’s not much of a benefit, though, if there are no clubs.
Jeff, KE9V says
I think the ARRL is off the rails at least partially here because of inconsistent messaging.
Do they want more young blood in the hobby or do they want healthy local clubs? Because it seems to me the two are opposing forces. You take a young fellow with a young family, he doesn’t have time to attend club meetings and volunteer to help during bike races, etc. He’s busy running to T-ball practice and dance recitals. You show me the father of three young kids who has time for a ham radio club and I’ll show you a guy with messed up priorities.
Not sure there’s a fix here. Local radio clubs are dying because for the last fifty years local radio clubs have really been local repeater clubs. As repeaters have taken a backseat to other ham radio activities, club attendance has trailed off. The slow death of repeaters is the same slow death of local clubs.
And it may not just be age related. I haven’t had anything to do with a local radio club for more than 30 years and don’t feel I’ve missed a thing. Before information was just a click away there was a powerful need for hams to connect with other hams and the local club made this possible but are local radio clubs still even necessary in the 21st century?
73, Jeff
Dan KB6NU says
You perhaps may have not missed anything by not belonging to a club, but most hams are more sociable than you are. :)
Seriously, though, I think clubs do serve a useful purpose. They provide a social outlet for those socially inclined, an organized way for getting people into the hobby, and an infrastructure for providing public service.
I think you’re right about clubs founded as repeater clubs dying off as repeaters become less of a draw. That doesn’t mean that those clubs can’t re-invent themselves. Our club in Ann Arbor, ARROW, was formed as a repeater club (ARROW was short for Amateur Radio Repeaters of Washtenaw, Washtenaw being the name of our county.) Now, however, we’re more of a general-interest club, and operating a repeater system is only one of our activities.
I’ve blogged about this before, but if the ARRL was serious about promoting clubs, they should take a look at what Rotary International (RI) does to support clubs. They provide leadership training for incoming officers and an incredible amount of support on how to run a club. I realize that the relationship between RI and local Rotary clubs is different from the relationship between the ARRL and its affiliated clubs, but the ARRL could really learn a lot by looking at how RI supports their clubs.
Jeff, KE9V says
Since I’m not a member of Kiwanis or Rotary (gosh, maybe I am anti-social?) I’d be curious to learn the average age of members of those organizations. I imagine it would be about the same as that of amateur radio enthusiasts. I’ve seen the local Optimist Club members at the cafeteria where they meet once a month and they all appear to be pushing a hundred.
I don’t know, “clubs” just seems like a relic from the 20th century to me, but I would be interested in your take on the typical age of members of the Kiwanis, Lions Club, Rotary, etc.
I agree with you that the notion of a local radio club seems a great idea, I just think it’s like the phone book. Great idea, lots of information, but nobody does it like that anymore.
Am I wrong?
73, Jeff
Dan KB6NU says
You are wrong, actually. Ham radio clubs don’t just provide information. They provide a public service–or at least they should provide a public service. This can be the more traditional public-service communications type activities or something more current. For example, I would like to see ham radio clubs participate more in STEM educational activities, like the Science Olympiad. They could also fund their own scholarships, much like the ARRL does on a national level.
As for Rotary, Kiwanis, and other service clubs, yes, they are getting older. They’re similar to amateur radio in that older folks now have the time and resources to purse these activities. BUT, our Rotary club here in Ann Arbor does some younger members, and we’re always trying to recruit up-and-coming community leaders. And, the median age of the membership isn’t necessarily a good indicator of the amount of good that a service club can do in a community.
So, don’t write off the Optimists just because a number of them seem to be pushing 100. I just took a look at their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/MuncieOptimists/), and they seem to be an active, involved group. Think of how much poorer your community would be without them.
Ed KC8SBV says
Oh for the days, when an ARRL book called Understanding Amateur Radio was about radios, comppnents, schematics, and example projects, surely they misnamed it and it must have a huge mistake.
Dan KB6NU says
I’m sorry, but I’m not following you, Ed. What point are you trying to make?
Ed KC8SBV says
If ARRL wrote that book today, with that broad topic, Understanding Amateur Radio, what would it say? Creating your own station would not be what the book is about. If you want to capture the attention of the tinkers and makers, we need books like that. I bought a 2018 Handbook, and sadly, they published no projects in book!
Repressed says
Putting myself in the mindset of a Millennial per se, where there experience comes from an environment of social media and there is no differentiation between one person and another, as they are treated alike is somewhat different than Amateur Radio. When you step into our world you are immediately faced with a hierarchy which many tout like Banny (sp?) Roosters. This is further exacerbated by some organizations having net roll call based on a seniority basis. Again, a bit archaic when coming from their experience recognizing theirs is one where they are not a respecter of persons. All are treated the same. This could easily be viewed as ‘Who has time for such socially inept games?’.
Just a thought, but does it have any credence?
Repressed