Greetings, I wholly agree with Tom. Anyway, the reason for Jim's post was not to debate the larger issue about how we conduct our meetings and who we should or should not welcome in. We haven't yet signed a contract in the Hartford area and we are running out of time. In fact, we are running out of time to book a meeting for January in any city, except maybe Boise (no offense intended). So, if you haven't opined about January 2006, please do so now. If we want to move outside Hartford, it will require a formal vote of the board in accordance with the By-Laws. 73 Joel W5ZN -----Original Message----- From: Tom Frenaye [mailto:frenaye@pcnet.com] Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 8:37 PM To: arrl-odv Subject: [arrl-odv:13184] January I guess I'm just not seeing the same issues as some others. 1) There used to be (still is?) a policy of not having board or committee meetings at hamfest/convention venues. This was because there is often too much distraction and the needed interaction and policy consideration by Board members wasn't happening. I think this was instituted after the Cedar Rapids Iowa national convention in the early 80s where there was an attempt to have a public forum and use it for input to the Board meeting happening on the same weekend (that was before my time). I was told it was not a positive experience. 2) I think it was K1TWF who brought up the subject of having Board meetings in places other than Newington so we could show the flag and roll in mud puddles with members. If that isn't happening now with more than $100k spent by the Board in Division budgets, what do we think we can accomplish in one day or weekend a year? I sure hope we're all out showing the flag as much as time and budgets permit. We did a lot at Dayton this year and didn't break the bank - but that took tons of planning and organizing. 3) Several people suggested we need to show people more about how Board meetings really work - by having members come into the meetings. To me, that would be like looking behind the curtain to see the wizard of oz - perhaps a great disappointment, perhaps not. Some of our Board discussions and experiences are not uplifting... I think we ought to concentrate on having more effective Board meetings. The place we meet isn't really a great concern to me - the inside of a hotel looks the same in Honolulu and Houston and Hartford. Collectively we don't prepare well for Board meetings, reports are prepared and delivered late, people don't read them, we usually don't have a strategic agenda, etc. I'm more interested in seeing all of that improve than anything. -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444