IN-Newsletter
Vol. 25, No. 48
December 2, 2002
Upcoming Meetings
January 16th in Newington, CT at 8:30am
A & F Committee
January 17-18, 2003 in Windsor, CT
Board Meeting
Development
While the 2003 Defense Fund is developing on track with the 2002 campaign, the results to date indicate a long way to go to reach our goal of $500,000 from 12,000 members. As of this writing the 2003 campaign has brought in approximately $180,000 from more than 4100 ARRL members. We are not seeing the number of large gifts that we saw last year, but we have more members contributing. Many of our members make their year-end contributions in December so we hope to reach at least $400,000 by December 31. There will be an update on the campaign in the ARRL Letter that should help boost response.
Response to the Diamond Club has slowed a bit since its launch in late October. To date, the program has 343 contributors donating more than $51,000. The average contribution is $150. There is a lot of response from Life Members who are taking advantage of the special $50 annual donation level. Nearly 60% of the response is coming from Life Members. We do have 31 members contributing $250 a year or more, including 10 at $1000 or more. These results for the first month of activity and the continuing flow of telephone and email inquiries indicate strong interest by ARRL members. There will be a new ad in the January 2003 QST and additional solicitations during 2003 to boost participation.
Plans call for letters to go out to all donors who qualify for the Maxim Society ($10,000 or more in lifetime giving) and the Legacy Circle (planned giving commitments) by the end of December.
The fourth Planned Giving informational mailing has been sent to 15,000 members. This is the final segment of ARRL members with birth dates before 1935. Our count of commitments stands at 20. New mailings and an informational newsletter are planned for 2003.
The Development Office is current with data entry for all contributions and is working with ISD to catch up on production of acknowledgement letters and certificates for all donors, including the Diamond Club, this month.
Media Relations
Jennifer was interviewed by a reporter (and a ham) with The Commercial Appeal in Tennessee. He's working on a story about the upcoming SKYWARN Recognition Day. Jennifer provided information and gave him local contacts to interview.
A few requests for Bill Leonard Award forms continue to come in. We have seven completed nomination packages so far.
A story to announce the 2003 McGan award was submitted for the next issue of QST, and Jennifer is working on her other contributions to the magazine.
Sales and Marketing Department
Although, last week was a short week, it was far from a slow week for our department.
Members of our staff worked during the holiday off-time to whittle away at the data entry backlog associated with the computer software change challenges. Thank you Kathy Capodicasa, Zoe Belliveau, and Danny Sayad for giving up portions of your Thanksgiving holiday.
A publication solicitation emailed to 43,000 members on the Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving contributed to overnight gross sales of $5,929.43 (excluding tax and shipping). A free shipping offer for orders of $75 or more increased the average product sale amount to $56 per order (usually around $40-45/order). The solicitation continued to additional sales volume throughout the Holiday.
Membership Services
Awards Branch
WAS QSL Cards Checked 200
WAS Endorsements 1
Extra Class Certificates Mailed 21
A-1 Operator Nominations 6
Long Term Member Inquiries 1
VUCC Initial Applications 19
Grids (Data Entry) 696
Also ordered the latest batch of 5-BAND WAS plates. Processing Status: Current or within three weeks. For the coming week-Basic WAS awards for November, Code Proficiency, OTC, RCC, and VUCC awards processing and mailing.
DXCC Branch
Weekly Report December 2, 2002
Beginning Cards 197,421
Cards Received 6,392
Cards Processed 6,623
Ending Cards 197,190
Applications Pending 2,030
Processing Time 9.6 Weeks
Year-to-date
Cards Received 706,820
Cards Returned 591,176
QRPs Issued this week 1
QRPs YTD 254
DXCC is currently mailing applications received on September 25, 2002. DXCC is currently entering cards received on September 26, 2002.
QSL Branch
QSL service status: current. Cards mailed year to date as of 12/01/2002 - 1,738,115. Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday Break - no cards were mailed this week. Heather Dzamba spent 2 hours conducting tours around HQ.
Field & Educational Services
Rosalie finalized two Power Point presentations that she will give at the ARISS-International meetings next week. She reviewed a third talk that she was asked to present for Ken Pulfer, VE3PU, who cannot attend the meetings.
Field and Educational Support Team
Gail Iannone sent 5 hamfest approval letters to the sponsoring committees confirming the Division Director's approval for the events to be ARRL-sanctioned. She also sent 1 convention package.
Jean Wolfgang has been working with puzzle programs to create different types of ham radio puzzles for use by kids. She is hoping to have a few youth activity sheets done and on ARRLWeb in time for Kid's Day, January 4.
Margie Bourgoin reports another SSC renewal and has been helping Jean with Educational Advisor renewals and Leona with appointments.
Mary Lau made arrangements for our new Youth brochure to be printed. We hope to have the web versions of this brochure available soon.
Field Organization/Public Service Team
Chuck Skolaut received a request from Riley Hollingsworth asking that OOCs and OOs to monitor and document eight different ongoing cases on the Amateur Radio bands. Chuck and Steve distributed the requests via the SM Reflector and the Field Organization list server. Section Manager e-mail relays were sent for SDG, MS and MN.
Leona Adams handled about a dozen new Field Organization appointments/supplies and worked on SM expense reports and ARRL book orders. We expect more year-end expense reports to in weeks to come.
Steve Ewald is organizing the first available Section News reports to be mailed to those ARRL members who do not have access to the Internet and have requested a hard copy via the US Mail so far. Steve Cochrane, WA7H, of Wyoming, noted that Amateur Radio emergency communication is discussed in the November 14th edition of FEMA's "Spotlight on Smart Practices." This is an inter-agency newsletter published by FEMA.
Regulatory Information
John Hennesse has been corresponding with an amateur in Bangalesh over the possibility of a reciprocal operating agreement with the US. He has also been responding to increase questions on Internet assisted operations on Amateur Radio.
CNCS Grant
According to Dan Miller, all UTC and CNCS-sponsored classes are doing very well. Dan expects we will reach our UTC goal of 250 EC-001 graduates in CT very soon. He is also gathering all the necessary materials for the ARECC Seminar in Tampa over the Dec. 7-9 weekend.
CCE Courses
Howard Robins focused on extracting statistics for Dan's weekly report and for the CCE program as a whole. He created a spreadsheet to track the student completion progress for each level 1 class on a weekly basis.
Jerry Ellis completed revising Field Exam forms and had them posted on the CCE web page. He is preparing materials for shipment to Florida to support Dan's presentation there.
The Big Project
Jerry Hill reports that instructor Gerry Frumento will be bringing 15 of his Southern UCONN post graduate students to visit HQ. They are interested in the research and product testing done in the lab, specifically the scientific concepts involved.
73,
Sincerely,
Mark Wilson, K1RO
Chief Operating Officer
MW:lk
Staff Absentee List
Name Date(s) Reason
All Staff 12/25 Holiday
Gail Iannone 12/23-1/3 Vacation
Brennan Price 12/13-12/16 Vacation
Joel Kleinman 12/10 Vacation
Bill Moore 12/4-12/10 Spain Convention
Rick Lindquist 12/26-12/30 Vacation