I am shocked and disappointed at seeing the ARRL Web story concerning the Joe Ames action.  While I have not seen the facts surrounding the decision to terminate his volunteer services, it seems to me that those who decided how to handle this matter did not follow the long-standing advice of our general Counsel concerning the rejection or termination of volunteers, which is to tell them that their services are no longer needed and never get into specific reasons for the rejection or termination.  To the contrary, it appears that those responsible not only provided a list of transgressions but went further and published the matter in all its gory detail on the League Web site.  Such publication flies in the face of sound business practices, and I cannot imagine anything good that will result from having done so.  Why was Mr. Ames not given the option of resigning from his positions?

I am now receiving strong negative reaction to the League’s handling of this matter from high-quality, strongly supportive ARRL members and active volunteers whose participation I value highly. Rather than promoting and preparing for Field Day, as I should be doing right now, I am engaged in damage control over a matter about which I was kept in the dark until two days ago.  If any of you doubt the seriousness or breadth of the mess this has created, I will be happy to share with you a sampling of what I’m getting.  You can be sure that the damage to the League’s reputation far exceeds the impact on that of Mr. Ames, and it would not surprise me if echoes of this rang for even longer than those of incentive licensing or regulation by bandwidth.  If you expect members to slap you on the back at the next convention or Hamfest and tell you, “Good job, you sure showed him who’s boss”, don’t hold your breath.  By the way, much of the resulting blame is being directed at the entire Board (just in time for the upcoming election cycle), even though some Directors were, as I understand the process, not advised of the final action until it had already taken place.

I’m sitting here with a Vice-Director nominating petition loaded with signatures, but I’m beginning to wonder, having witnessed this collective lapse of judgment, whether I should bother turning it in.

Marty N6VI