Good afternoon:

 

I wanted to inform the Board of a new initiative we are launching that has been named “The ARRL Learning Network” -- a series of online webinars presented by member-volunteers, for members. While somewhat a reaction to the pandemic, like hamfest forums and radio club presentations, these webinars are intended to help members get more active, involved, and engaged in amateur radio.

 

Prospective speakers will be invited to complete an online form including their topic and other information. A cross-departmental staff team will select speakers to schedule for the webinars. At least initially, the webinars will be hosted using our 500-seat GotoWebinar account, though we will likely evaluate Zoom, too. Webinars will be recorded, and some will be made available for viewing as part of a ARRL Learning Network library. In this way we will be able to control the quality of both the content and the presentation for distribution.

 

Motivation for the Learning Network stems from a handful of goals and interests:

 

•           We want to identify more subject matter experts for our future online course member benefit, the ARRL Learning Center. In addition, this might also help identify content providers for our line of publications (both books and periodicals) although that is not the primary purpose.

 

•           We want to position ARRL and our experienced member-volunteers as a regular source of quality learning and skills development in amateur radio.

 

•           We want to be able to respond to regular requests from our affiliated radio clubs for quality programming, particularly clubs that lack ready access to presenters, or have a last-minute speaker cancellation.

 

•           We want to bolster the ARRL membership proposition. The live webinars and recorded presentations are intended for members and will create additional value in the membership.

 

To help initially identify potential presenters, we will be enlisting the SMs in this first step as, individually, each is well connected with known speakers and presenters from throughout the clubs and hamfests in their Section. We will be sending out the attached Call for Speakers to the SMs later this week. Our current plan is to begin scheduling speakers for webinars as early as mid-July.

 

The ARRL Learning Network is the creation of, and is being developed by, Kris Bickell for Lifelong Learning, and Bob Inderbitzen for Product Development. Steve Ford, for Publications, will provide additional support for vetting speakers and topics. Ally Flynn, also for Lifelong Learning, will provide additional support and coordination for the program and speakers. Overall it calls for a collaboration across functions at HQ and it uses qualified member-volunteers to help us reach our objectives, two things we have been criticized for in the past.

 

Right now the program is labeled “beta” as we anticipate making modifications as we introduce and evaluate the webinars.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions and we will try and answer them.

 

73,

Barry, N1VXY

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