I agree that lack of section manager interaction with HQ and with members is a huge problem.

It is an impediment to our growth. In some places, the disappearance of the section manager after an election is a laughingstock. In certain sections, I have been to multiple club meetings where I’ve been asked to explain the recall process – which is all but impossible to do, it appears.

Other sections, it is perennially the same SM – no new blood, no succession plan by the current SM. If a health problem or a death intercedes, the section denigrates into chaos.

I agree that we need to fix this, but this goes back to a need to an overhaul in our by-laws and the need to restructure based on facts.

With the largest population of members in the Southeastern Division – by 50% - I get a lot of input. Unfortunately, “I never hear from my section manager” is high on the list of complaints.

I’ve heard stories that, decades ago, there was a strong field manager at HQ that used an iron hand to “manage out” the inactive SMs. Steve Ewald is great – but can you imagine managing 71 direct reports? It is impossible.

These days, it appears that the SM position is no longer recognized as a position of honor and leadership that it should be.

It is up to us, the people on this list, to do something about this issue. Let’s not allow this to languish for years like we seem to do for many issues. This is at the heart of organizational contact with members and deserves immediate attention.

I’m an ideas and action person. I’ve been an active ARRL member as long as anyone here, and have expertise in organizational dynamics. Forgive the assumptions, but here are some ideas in order to get a discussion going toward addressing the issues that we ALL know exists.

CEO Minster has identified a real, serious issue that indicates a lack of engagement of the field organization. Here are some ideas about how we might address this…

Provide more recognition for section managers.

Monthly “SM Profile” in QST recognizing one standout SM with a profile and photo.
Field Organization “SM’s of the year” in each division, and an overall winner from those 15.
Identify SM engagement in publicity.

Provide more guidance to SM.

Make attending the HQ orientation mandatory within the first 90 days.
The “SM Handbook” needs updating and perhaps some evaluation criteria so that SMs can self-evaluate.
I have had several “cabinet” meetings with SMs, but the same problem SMs don’t show. I have an SM that is new January and hasn’t returned phone calls or emails.
Should we (the board) insert ourselves into the SM management with more overt acts such as removing inactive SMs based on lack of activity, not returning phone calls, etc?

We’re missing a member contact tracking system. Members call into HQ and are directed to the Lab, VEC or to other departments. If we had a tracking system, member issues could be captured and escalated or noticed to the Field Organization. The Lab is great about doing this manual. A good tracking system would include a mechanism for online action. This SHOULD involve the Field Organization. Come on folks, we have 160,000 members! I have 3 sections with around 3,000 members each!
ARES appointments all come from the SMs. One of the issues with ARES is that the SEC appointments come and go with SM elections. This just happened in Puerto Rico. Is it time to bifurcate the ARES and Field organizations and make SEC’s a Division/HQ appointment? Are a third of our ARES organizations “rudderless?

Just food for thought. Let me know how I might help!

Mickey Baker

Director, Southeastern Division

ARRL

Phone (561) 320-2775

Email: n4mb@arrl.org

From: arrl-odv <arrl-odv-bounces@reflector.arrl.org> on behalf of Minster, David NA2AA (CEO) <dminster@arrl.org>
Date: Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 6:05 PM
To: arrl-odv <arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org>
Subject: [arrl-odv:32340] Field Service update

This is a very important update to understand the current struggle with working with the field organization.

The Field Service working group sent a survey to 71 ARRL Section Managers. The survey asked ONE question, open ended, about what ONE thing we could be doing better.

Only 43 SM’s responded.

Personal emails followed to the other 28 SM’s asking them to please respond, and the deadline was even extended. No further responses were received.

We have SM’s that are checked out. I personally have tried to engage with one New England SM on three different occasions. Crickets.

We need to be prepared for a discussion about how to manage SM’s that have chosen to disconnect from their responsibilities. I know that the Board has the power to make changes where they are required.

I am not suggesting we are there yet.

But this will need attention as we restructure the support, care and feeding of the field going forward. If SM’s don’t want to be SM’s, how do we manage that without creating another member explosion over governance?

David