Here's some information for you from Steve Ewald about our SM Teleconferences. Harold Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio 225 Main Street Newington, CT 06111 Telephone: 860 594 0220 email: hkramer@arrl.org web: www.arrl.org/ <http://www.arrl.org/> ________________________________ From: Ewald, Steve, WV1X Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 11:16 AM To: Kramer, Harold, WJ1B Cc: Patton, David NN1N Subject: Section Manager Teleconferences with HQ Staff. Harold, Here's a description that you asked for about the Section Manager Teleconferences that we're hosting. The Field Organization Team at ARRL Headquarters is starting something new this year to help cultivate better communication between the Section Managers and ARRL Headquarters. The action plan is to make use of the new-and-improved ARRL telebridge once a month to invite a different group of Sections Managers to join me on a pre-arranged and scheduled teleconference for about an hour or so. The idea is to offer all the Section Managers a chance to participate in a group teleconference at least once per year. To help keep the number of call participants manageable - and thus encourage active participation-- I am organizing the each call by an ARRL Division or two. While we are deciding upon the best time to hold the conference, I also ask the SMs to provide input for the agenda items. What subjects about ARRL and Amateur Radio would they like to talk about or learn more about? Are there issues, programs or services that they would like to discuss with fellow Section Managers and HQ staff? Based on this input and availability, I like to invite fellow HQ staff members (or possibly others) who are experts in their respective areas to join the call and help with the discussion. For example, Katie Breen, W1KRB, joined the most recent teleconference with the SMs of the Atlantic Division to talk about ARRL membership recruitment and promotion. We also covered several ideas for better presentation of the ARRL booth at hamfests and conventions. Katie talked about the pilot project for Section Membership Coordinator, too. Other topics were credentialing issues for ARES and the ongoing relationship between ARES and RACES in their particular states and ARRL sections. So far, the teleconference seems to be gaining positive feedback from the Section Manager participants. Chuck Skolaut, K0BOG, who works with the Official Observers on the Field Organization Team, is also an active participant on the monthly teleconference. When a particular SM teleconference is scheduled, I plan to let the respective ARRL Director(s) know when that is taking place. Also, afterward, I'll aim to keep the Directors in the loop with a highlighted summary of how the teleconference went. 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>