I agree with Tom. In this day and age there is no reason to sit on news. It's odd that we, as communicators, are not very strong on communicating. The fact that these issues take too long to reach the membership gives the appearance of wrongdoing, which is, of course, not the truth. And that becomes grist for the rumor mill. An article describing the Board meeting should be on the news crawl within a day or two of the end of the meeting. There is no secret that the Board has met. So, tell them what went on. Don't hold up the news! It makes us look at best, inept, and at worst, culpable. We're better than that. 73 de Mike N2YBB -----Original Message----- From: Tom Frenaye Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2017 3:25 PM To: 'arrl-odv' Subject: [arrl-odv:26269] Re: Board minutes question At 11:20 AM 2/23/2017, James F. Boehner, MD via arrl-odv wrote:
One of my constituents asked me whether a link to the January board minutes was ever on the news crawl or the ARRL letter. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see it on either. Anyone know for sure?
There was web story with a link to the minutes on February 3rd. The ARRL didn't carry any Board meeting news in the January 26th or February 2nd issues. The February 9th issue had a general story on the Board meeting with a title that only talked about Legislative activities but did have a link to the minutes.
I did get the board minutes via e-mail since I have that checked in my member profile.
There was apparently a misunderstanding among some staff members about when web stories about the recent Board meeting could be released. I made some phone calls around January 31st trying to figure out why there had been a delay - since in the past we've had web stories published within a day or two of the meeting, when the draft minutes came out. The Board meeting was January 20-21. Draft minutes were circulated to ODV on January 25th Final minutes were circulated to ODV on January 30th. Talking points were sent to ODV on January 31st. The Board voted to approve the minutes on February 3rd. Minutes were sent to members on the agenda and minutes e-mail list on February 16th. Web stories about actions taken at the Board meeting were held until February 3rd, when the minutes were approved. http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-board-of-directors-names-award-recipients-1 http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-board-of-directors-adopts-legislative-objectiv... Despite the title, the second link above is an overall article about the Board meeting and actions taken, and did have a link to the minutes I think the word has gotten around HQ that it is old news when we write about Board actions two weeks later. There is no need to wait until the Board approves the minutes. Until a few years ago we didn't approve meeting minutes until the next meeting. We certainly didn't hold up news of the actions taken for six months. -- 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