The EC has authorized an e-mail vote of the Board to authorize me to sign a new MOU between the ARRL and the National Frequency Coordinators Council, Inc. As Secretary, Dave will post the MOU document and the call for the vote early in the coming week. Before that call is sent, I would like to refresh everyone's memory about how we got to this point. At their March, 2012, meeting the EC concluded that it was time to re-negotiate the MOU between the ARRL and the NFCC, starting with a blank piece of paper. The old MOU was so out of date that revising it didn't make sense. The EC authorized an e-mail vote of the Board to approve re-negotiation, and the Board voted unanimously (reported by Dave in arrl-odv:20721) to do that. As background for the Board at the time of that e-mail vote, Dave circulated a backgrounder memo, which I have attached to this message. An item in Dave's memo that has been overtaken by events has to do with payment for Repeater Directory listings and accepting listings from more than one coordinator. The A&F took up that aspect, because it's a business decision. At Minute 16 of the A&F's July 19, 2012, meeting "[t]he sense of the Committee was to continue funding the acquisition of listings from the repeater coordinators. In principle, the Committee wants to keep the financial commitment relatively constant even if there are multiple coordinators from the same region." The intention was to have the new MOU done before the end of last year, but things took longer than anticipated. I am informed by the NFCC president, Mark Stennett NA6M, that the NFCC board has approved the draft MOU that Dave will distribute to you. Our EC has reviewed the document and found it satisfactory. Some of what follows may not make a lot of sense until you have seen the MOU document, so you may want to skim now and read more closely later. Except for the NFCC's self-description, the document was pretty much drafted by the ARRL and presented to the NFCC for their consideration. I did most of the original drafts, which were reviewed and improved all along the way by members of the 2012 and 2013 EC, Dave, Chris, and the Vice Presidents. Their edits, questions, and close attention to the document as it evolved were tremendously valuable. The key working parts of the MOU are the acknowledgements and commitments sections that spell out what the two organizations agree upon and intend to do. It is very significant that the NFCC gives the ARRL every point we asked of them, plus a little. They did not reject anything, including some points that amount to a major change in how the NFCC envisions itself and its role. The ARRL's acknowledgements and commitments make it plain that, contrary to what some coordinators have supposed, the ARRL does not want their job. We also reproduce language that's been in the Repeater Directory as long as I can remember which says that the ARRL recognizes there may be circumstances in which our recommended national band plans don't fit and in that case regionally-developed band plans will prevail. We make a concerted effort to express respect and appreciation for regional frequency coordinators and the work they do. Even though we may get irritated with them sometimes, coordinators are doing difficult and thankless volunteer work, and sometimes they take even more heat from the Amateur community than we do. So please stand by for Dave's message. Thanks very much and 73, Kay N3KN