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IN-Newsletter
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Vol. 31, No. 39
September 24, 2008 -- Covers the period September 14-20.
Upcoming Meetings and Events
Section Manager Workshop
October 10-12 - ARRL HQ
United States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI)
October 13-17 - ARRL HQ
Executive Committee Meeting
October 18 @ 9:00am in Chicago, IL
Ballot Counting for Director/Vice Director Elections
November 21 in Newington, CT
Administration &Finance Committee
November 22 @ 8:30am in Newington, CT
Media & Public Relations
Reported by Allen Pitts, W1AGP
A press release penned last week resulted in a small flurry of radio and
a few more local newspaper reports including ham activities, but no
major national coverage. AP released a story documenting the changes to
emergency communications by responders since Katrina's debacle. So as
Amateur Radio's response to Hurricane Ike slowly winds down, activities
resume for "normal" work including meeting Barry Cohen, K2JV; and
plans for upcoming events next week with Bob Josuweit, WA3PZO; and Bill
Bennett KB2ZDZ regarding the NYC Marathon. Budget projections for 2009
are in progress as well as exploring the 2009 creation of an online PR
101 course for PIOs similar to EmComm 1 classes - hopefully also having
similar positive results.
Development
Reported by Mary Hobart, K1MMH
Development traveled to W9DXCC last weekend to connect with donors and
prospects.
The status of current campaigns is as follows:
* W1AW Endowment has raised nearly $58,000 year-to-date from 990 donors.
324 contributions have come from the on-line membership form totaling
$4399. The most productive mail segment was from prior donors to W1AW
who responded with $21,762. Prior donors to any campaign produced
$17,859.
The campaign for Historic Preservation has raised $3784 from 96 donors.
The Lab campaign has raised $3624 from 77 donors.
The Education & Technology campaign has raised $18,926 from 398 donors.
The follow up to the Education & Technology Fund campaign was mailed to
major donors and major prospects.
The 2009 Spectrum Defense campaign to all ARRL members is being produced
with an expected mail date of October 6.
The Diamond Club revenues have reached $189,000 from 1378 contributions.
The program has attracted 260 new donors in 2008 and 85 members have
upgraded with contributions over and above their membership dues. In
October ARRL will extend the annual offer of an ARRL calendar for all
renewal and new Diamond Club participation of $100 or more. Buck slips
will be included with the first two member renewal notices and in
Diamond Club renewal letters. 30 new bricks are ready to be installed
in the diamond Terrace. Effective Feb 1, 2009, Diamond Club
participants at Brass Level ($250 a year) and above will have access to
the most recent four years of QST on-line as a new benefit.
Production/Editorial
Reported by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE
Getting Started with Ham Radio is being reprinted. The November 2008
issue of QST was released to the printer September 24.
Khrystyne Keane wrote and distributed The ARRL Letter, Vol. 27, No. 37,
for September 19, 2008. It went out to more than 71,000 subscribers.
She also voiced and produced ARRL Audio News for September 19.
Sales and Marketing
Reported by Bob Inderbitzen, NQ1R
The recent membership solicitation has returned 803 applications, with
49% of those being multi-year terms. As we have seen in previous
mailings where we split the mailing between former and never members,
the return is again 60-40 with more former members responding.
The latest MetLife direct mailing reached member mailboxes last week.
This new campaign ties in with their national campaign seen on
television. A new ad in November QST is planned.
Marsh Affinity Group Services is preparing a mailing for the ARRL
"Special Risk" Ham Radio Equipment Insurance Plan.
The 2009 QST schedule has been committed.
The "sworn circulation statements" for all three periodicals are due to
the US Postal Service by October 1.
The November issue of QST features two new ARRL publications: Basic
Antennas--Understanding Practical Antennas and Design and The ARRL
Satellite Handbook. Both are expected in-stock November 15. The 2009
ARRL Calendar is scheduled to arrive at the warehouse this week.
The Warehouse crew fulfilled 711 packages for publication and product
orders, shipped 402 free book membership premiums, and sent October QST
mailing supplements
Membership & Volunteer Programs
Reported by Dave Patton, NN1N
Contest Branch
Reaction to the October Radiosport edition of QST continues to be
overwhelmingly positive. I have yet to have a single email addressed to
me complaining of the contesting content. Many are along a similar
theme: "thanks for re-emphasizing contesting content in QST and please
keep it coming."
Certificates for the 2007 Sweepstakes went out the door last week.
Plates for the Sweepstakes plaques should be here in the next couple
weeks and we have committed to get those out as fast as humanly possible
once the plates arrive.
We've received 266 logs for the September VHF Contest so far. The log
submission deadline is in three weeks.
Sean made an announcement to the contesting community that the cost of
contest plaques would be going up from $67 to $75, beginning with the
2009 ARRL RTTY Roundup. This is the first cost increase for contest
plaques in several years.
W1AW
Joe conducted a frequency measuring test on all the broadcast
transmitters to ensure they are still operating on W1AW's exact
frequencies. He also processed regular QSL card requests. Joe
processed one Qualifying Run endorsement. He also began processing the
paper logs from the 2008 ARRL Southwestern Division Convention special
event station W1AW/7. Throughout the week, Joe also hosted a number of
amateurs who were participating in Mike Martin's, K3RFI, line-noise
course being held at ARRL. (As part of the course, Mike and his group
went to determine the sources of line-noise still plaguing W1AW.)
Scott worked on slow and fast code practice files for the latter part of
the month of September.
Field Organization/Public Service Team
Leona reports that she has prepared five Section Manager statement of
candidates along with their photos and the SM ballot cards which were
sent off for printing today. The following sections will have upcoming
SM elections: Eastern Massachusetts, Indiana, New York City/Long Island,
Nebraska and Southern New Jersey. Ballots and statements are scheduled
to be mailed to members by October 1, 2008. Ballots are to be returned
to HQ by Friday, November 14th and will be counted on the following
Tuesday, November 19th.
Leona reports that she has received an SM nomination petition for Tom
Fagan, K7DF for the Arizona section for the term beginning April 1,
2009.
Chuck reports amateurs from Michigan and South Carolina completed
certification to become Official Observers this week. The monthly ARRL
Monitoring System/Intruder Watch report was forwarded to the IARU Region
2 coordinator. Copy was prepared for the International Humanitarian
Award announcement to be published in QST. Several OO issues were
discussed with Bob Beaudet, W1YRC, the Section Manager from Rhode
Island, during a recent visit to headquarters. Chuck assisted with
monitoring activities associated with Hurricane Ike at W1AW this past
weekend.
Web/Software Development
Reported by Jon Bloom, KE3Z
Hugh Brower made additions to the online credit-card system which allow
the Comptroller'sDept. to enter credit-card transactions via that
mechanism rather than using the old NOVA system. He also dealt with a
blockage of ARRL-sourced email by Outblaze.
Activity in the online QST archive has settled down to a steady stream
of users, in the neighborhood of a daily 200-300 members downloading
1000-2500 articles or so. Jon Bloom made some tweaks to the system as
requested by Ed Hare to clarify points that were confusing to some users
and to do some further database clean-up. With assistance from Hugh
Brower, Jon also troubleshot and fixed a cookie-related problem with the
service.
Jon Bloom wrote a module that will allow Micah Murray to pull VE test
session data from Siebel for the new VEC screens he's working on.
What's particularly interesting about this is that the mechanism used is
a server-to-server "Web services" interface (XML-RPC) that ties into the
existing middleware code that was written during the past year to
support processing membership applications directly into Siebel. That
underlying code is being used by: the local program that processes
incoming membership application records, by a client Javascript/AJAX
program running in the Web browsers of our Customer Service
representatives, and now by a server process that will be used to
provide browser-based tools for VEC. We anticipate that the XML-RPC
interface will also be the means for additional server applications to
access the back-end systems, among them the new Web site being developed
by Fathom.
That hideously geeky explanation means only that the software we have
previously written for integration of the Web and internal systems is
being reused for new purposes as we expand the integration and add
functionality.
Micah continues to work on that VEC system, which is almost ready for
VEC testing.
Sincerely Compiled by,
Lisa Kustosik, KA1UFZ
Assistant to the CEO
Staff Absentee List
Kathy Allison 9/25 Vacation
Jon Bloom 10/4-10/13 Vacation
Katie Breen 9/26-9/29 Vacation
Hugh Brower 9/29-10/3 Vacation
Steve Capodicasa 9/26 Vacation
Jackie Cornell 10/10-10/12 Florida State Convention,
Melbourne, FL
Dennis Dura 9/20 EmComm East, Rochester, NY -
Dennis Dura
Steve Ewald 9/12-9/24 Vacation
Steve Ford 10/13 Vacation
`` 10/31 Vacation
Norm Fusaro 9/22-9/26 Vacation
Scott Gee 10/3-10/6 Vacation
`` 12/23-12/26 Vacation
Dan Henderson 10/3-10/5 Western New York Section
Convention, Buffalo, NY
`` 10/10-10/13 Michigan Section
Convention, Kalamazoo, MI
Mary Hobart 10/3 Vacation
Bob Inderbitzen 10/15-10/20 Pacific Division Convention
Joel Kleinman 9/26-10/1 Washington State Convention,
Spokane, Vacation
`` 10/3 Vacation
`` 10/9 Vacation
Lisa Kustosik 9/26-10/10 Vacation
Sean Kutzko 9/30-10/6 Pacific Northwest VHF
Conference, Moses Lake, WA
Zack Lau 9/20-9/26 Vacation
Bill Moore 10/8-10/14 RSGB Convention, England
Allen Pitts 10/6 Vacation
`` 10/14 Vacation
`` 10/31 Vacation
`` 11/3 Vacation
Brennan Price 9/23-9/25 Washington
Dave Sumner 9/23-9/25 Washington
`` 10/16pm-10/20 Executive Committee
Meeting, Chicago, IL
