Yes, this is an interesting topic. Although my start date in CB is unclear, I believe it coincides with the time of that board meeting. I met someone four years older than me that was a CB’er but was gifted with being able to repair antique radios, most electronics, and eventually went to DeVry to be a TV repair technician. I learned a lot about radio from him. Since I was under 18, I could not get a CB license, so my mother applied for me. In the CB community I do remember some animosity against hams, but I do not remember it being universal. I just did not know that much about ham radio. It wasn’t until my eventual Elmer saw me solder on a PL-259 and told me that I needed to become a ham that I made the transition. Hams have a history of developing anger for anything that they had that was suddenly taken away. We learned that from incentive licensing (before my time, BTW). I do think the animosity started with the hams losing 11 meters to the Class D CB service and just festered from there. Although probably inevitable, taking away or adding a surcharge to receive paper QST is likely to get the same response. This is worrisome. As far as life members, all financials aside, someone who paid for 20 years of membership at one time (or via installment plan) has made a personal commitment to the ARRL. They proudly display this on their badges and on their QSL cards. We celebrate them at ham radio events by giving them life member ribbons and authorize them to purchase a yellow ARRL badge. We give them extra points to be a VOTA contact. This is very inexpensive advertising for the League. So, after 20 (or is it 25 now?) years, they have their ROI and no longer have to support the league financially. Most life members that I meet are very proud to be life members and support the ARRL in what they do. This is like spending $$$ for a new radio that you may or may not like after using it for a while. After that commitment, you are less likely to tell anyone that you made a mistake 😊 Although we must be concerned with financials, I think that Life Membership provides good will to the League that outweighs the financial aspects. Perhaps the most astounding thing about Life membership is the 70+ Life membership. If you do the financials on that, you must live to 85 years old to realize a financial benefit. Since the US life expectancy is 79, you will be betting against the house and likely losing. However, as of last January, I found 79 hams signed up for this program! I have had 70+ year old hams come up to me to thank us for instituting this program, just before they paid their money to enroll. Unbelievable! So, I would be concerned about any consideration about discontinuing life membership or making it so onerous that no one wants it anymore. I think this will work against us in the long run. I would push the Diamond Club to our Life Members and future Life Members as well as working our major donors. Whenever I see a life member, I thank them for supporting the League, let them know that I am one as well, and that I continue to support the League as a Diamond member. That is followed up by a Diamond Club pamphlet or at least a link. I am not sure this is true but heard that the JARL has been using their Life Membership monies for operations while we have invested ours, and that has put them in a financial bind. We cannot ignore the GMRS community. They even had a booth at my last Hamfest. We must find a way to embrace that community. If a ham did not reach out to me, I may never have become one. The same could be true for a GMRS user (or many users) out there. I did hear about the long board meetings in the past from a previous Director and now HVP. He related some colorful tidbits to me . The minutes did not reflect the fistfights, though. ‘73 de Jim N2ZZ Director – Roanoke Division Representing ARRL members in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia ARRL – the national association for Amateur Radio Facebook Page: ARRL Roanoke Division Website: <http://www.arrl-roanoke.org/> www.arrl-roanoke.org From: arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> On Behalf Of Minster, David NA2AA (CEO) Sent: Friday, March 24, 2023 4:08 PM To: arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org Subject: [arrl-odv:34693] More thoughts... I did some research through the archives of board correspondence from 1967 and found a couple of things you may find interesting. First were the minutes of the board meeting where the Life Membership program was introduced in a motion (@ $100), tabled, then returned to the floor later (@ $130) and unanimously approved. Nothing interesting or informative about that. What was interesting is to see that in 1967, ARRL was losing money. In fact, it needed to sell about 200 LMs to fill the gap. The notes associated with the budget discussed the difficulty in the economy, and the reducing numbers within the licensed amateur ranks and ARRL members. So a budget deficit likely leading to a cash flow issue was a major – if not the – cause for the creation of life membership. Here’s an excerpt from a member email I received today that touches on this subject: I am a life member, I don’t know how much I paid for that or when, but I certainly have gained all the value from that payment. You should consider either discontinuing life memberships or calling it something else with a limited time period. You could have a 10 year, one time membership plan at a discount, or 20 year plan. But no more life members. Even if they die quickly after paying, it can’t be a good fiscal situation for the League and it causes other dues paying members to essentially pay for them. One additional thing: we’ve been studying adjacent communities to amateur radio in the strategy working group, which has been doing awesome work. When I have spoken about ARRL lack of growth in the 1960’s and ham radio (incl ARRL) looking down its nose at the CBers in the 1970’s, I’ve been called to task as to the accuracy of this statement. Read the attached. Very telling how even in the mid 60’s when most (or all) CBs were tube radios and the CB ranks hadn’t even begun to explode yet, there was animosity between the two communities. The most telling thing, and hindsight is 20/20, is how badly they missed the future of CB expansion and how ineffective showing people how to convert their CBs from 11 to 10 meters was. Today, we cannot discount or disregard the GMRS community. It would be easy to say these are non-serious people with toys they bought from Walmart. Big mistake. Enjoy the fun facts! By the way, in 1967 the Friday board meeting ran from 9am to nearly midnight with mostly short breaks. They were grinding it out! David
