If the Manager of F&ES is responsible for managing and administering the ARES program it would seem he is the best person to assume overall coordination of a mass multi-section emergency communications effort. SM's are familiar with and best suited to address those emergencies localized to a Section or small geographic area. When a major disaster occurs, that ability can quickly lose effectiveness, particularly where the local ARES participants are victims and in no position to render communications assistance to others. As Andy noted HQ staff did a great job with the Katrina and Rita responses, both at HQ and at the marshalling sites. Moreover, that experience was invaluable in learning, what went right, what went wrong and how to better respond in the future. Let's build on that success, not build more bureaucracy. I agree with Wade and Rev this is a non-starter. 73, Jay, KØQB -----Original Message----- From: Andy Oppel [mailto:andy_oppel@earthlink.net] Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 3:07 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: Re: Board of Section Managers proposal I agree that it's a bad idea, but there is a message in here that we should listen to. We need national leadership and coordination for ARES. This was evident during the past hurricane season -- as soon as a communications emergency spans sections, our ability to present a coordinated response to our served agencies falls apart. I'm not being critical of HQ staff here because they did a great job with the Katrina and Rita responses, including quickly setting up a resource database and so forth. However, we can do better next time if we have a person who knows emergency communications and the response expectations of our served agencies in a position to assume overall coordination of the ARRL's response (which is a lot different than the day-to-day work that F&ES does to administer the basic ARES program). -- Andy Oppel, N6AJO At 12:30 PM 12/21/2005, you wrote:
Wade: I could not agree with you more. It is bad idea and I feel it will indeed go no where. Rev WS7W
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 02:39:43 +0000 walstrom@mchsi.com wrote:
Hi Gary! This is not a Board proposal. This sounds like someones pet idea that will go no where. 73, Wade W0EJ
Anybody look over that Board of Section Managers proposal from Allan Handforth, KC6VJL? The first thing that comes to mind is where is the ARRL Board in all this, and where does the Board of Section Managers get any authority, or are they advisory to the BOD or what?!? He talks about having 15 SM directors, one each for the 15 divisions, with most of their meetings in chat rooms. But if you are going to do that, why not have ALL the SMs in on the discussions? Does this place an additional layer between the SMs and the ARRL field organization? Why do that? Seems kind of off the wall to me.