As requested, here are Steve Ewald's notes from the latest SM Teleconference. Harold Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio 860 594 0220 hkramer@arrl.org <http://www.arrl.org/> ________________________________ From: Ewald, Steve, WV1X [mailto:wv1x@arrl.org] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 4:22 PM To: smlist Subject: [smlist:4915] January SM Teleconference Highlights Section Managers, Good weekend wishes. Summary Highlights from the January 2008 Teleconference with Section Managers On Thursday evening, January 31, the Membership and Volunteer Programs staff hosted an ARRL telebridge teleconference with the Section Managers of the Southwestern Division. We welcomed the following folks to the call: Section Managers: Carl Gardenias, WU6D (Orange); Rob Griffin, K6YR (Santa Barbara); Phineas Icenbice, W6BF (Los Angeles); Tom Blackwell, N5GAR (North Texas).[Tom was unable to attend the last Gulf Division Conference, so he asked Steve if he could attend this one. HK] Southwestern Division Director Dick Norton, N6AA; Vice Director Marty Woll, N6VI. Headquarters staff members Steve Ewald, WV1X, and Chuck Skolaut, K0BOG, hosted the call. With the advent of the Assistant DEC (ADEC) and Assistant SEC (ASEC) Field Organizations positions, Headquarters is seeing an enthusiastic welcome to these new official appointments around the country. The gathered Section Managers described how their Sections plan to make use of these new appointments. The ARRL Web page resources are being updated accordingly, and the following introductory page and ASEC and ADEC appointment descriptions have been posted at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/org/. The Amateur Auxiliary/Official Observer Program and common protocols and procedures within this program were discussed. Chuck described the good, on-going and successful working relationship that ARRL and ARRL HQ has established with the FCC and Riley Hollingsworth. The Santa Barbara OOC encourages Official Observers to listen for good operating practices, in addition to on-the-air problems, and to send out "Good Operator Cards" to deserving operators. Topics of interest from the recent ARRL Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors were discussed. By next week, ARRL Headquarters is expected to have and send each Section Manager his or her 2008 section budget figures. The role of the State Government Liaison was explored. Sometimes multi-section states, such as California and Texas, have different challenges to face, and communication between all the section leaders within the state is a key factor. Upon discussion, we learned that ARES members are often called upon by served agencies to handle duties other than communications. This situation was witnessed in the Orange Section last fall during the wildfires in southern California. In many cases, the communication infrastructures stayed up so ARES operator services were, at times, utilized in other ways. Thanks to everyone for your interest and participation in these teleconferences. 73, Steve Ewald, WV1X Supervisor, Field Organization Team ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio 860-594-0265 sewald@arrl.org <mailto:sewald@arrl.org>