I wanted to give everyone some of the highlights from the Huntsville Hamfest:

• The event was well attended.
• Both attendees and exhibitors were respectful of each other re: masks.
• On Friday night, we held a pizza reception for the YouTube Content Creators group which was well attended and went extremely well.
• The booth was in an excellent location, next to Icom, at the entrance to the hall.
• There was an enormous open area in front of the booth for us to wander away from the tables to engage with members while keeping socially distant.
• The mood at the booth was universally positive.  Members with ideas, but no real complaints about anything that I heard.
• Rick and I were able to meet with one of the largest donors – ever – to ARRL.  The discussion was brief, extremely positive, and he has committed to re-engage as a major donor.
• The Members Forum was not well attended but went extremely well.  The only questions asked were re: ARES Connect and status on HOA legislation.
• The membership revenue at the booth was below expectation, but given the unknown surrounding how many people might come, was quite good.
• There was a better mix of memberships from new members vs renewals over prior shows.

On a personal note, now with this as only my 2^nd in-person event, I struggle with how lightly attended the ARRL Forums have been.  We need to create more excitement to get people into the sessions.  I have heard from them how excited they are after having attended the Forum, but with such a small audience, we’re missing the opportunity to get more people energized about ARRL.

Any suggestions you have that could improve Forum attendance would be most welcome.  I suspect it has everything to do with marketing in advance, and the title and messaging surrounding the session.

On a personal note, it was great working with Mickey at the YouTube event and at the Forum.  There’s just so much more energy and team dynamics felt at an in-person event over a Zoom call.

David