Jay, as I read your msg. I was going to raise the issue of the ARECC course fees but you already did, and mentioned the certification aspect of the EC course.
 
PSC monitored the development of the PR-101 course. I don't recall whether we discussed the fees for the material but if so it was not in a "do or don't" context. Allen reports to K1ZZ but we looked at the course as a 'best fit' to PSC's purview.
 
As other comments accumulate from your query I'll try to keep a mind toward having PSC look at this.
 
73  K0BJ
 
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 9:40 AM, John Bellows <jbellows@skypoint.com> wrote:

Allen Pitts, W1AGP, and the good folks at HQ have developed a PR-101 course for ARRL volunteer PIO’s (see below). The course is in CD form and is sold for $19.95+shipping. The course was available at Dayton at the ARRL EXPO booth. With all the activity at the ARRL EXPO it didn’t occur to me to ask why we decided to charge for this course.   An initial and obvious answer is that it required ARRL resources to develop the course and we would like to recoup that expense. Still, I’m a bit troubled by the idea of asking members to volunteer for a Field Service task and then charging them for the materials to perform that task.

The promo material states “The future of Amateur Radio depends on how we are perceived by the public.  As a PIO, you are our “face” to the public.” Surely we value and encourage the members who give their time to that goal. I just wonder if we should charge them for putting additional time into doing the job well. We don’t charge VE’s or OO’s for the materials required to perform their volunteer tasks. While we do charge for the EC-001 materials that involves a certification program.

My basic question is how do we determine when to charge volunteers for materials helpful in performing their tasks?

73,

Jay, KØQB

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