Kay, A BIG THANKS for making those points. I was not aware that only five division bulletins mentioned HR 230. That is NOT good. And yes, we are NOT using our great web site to advantage here. All our users should see a yellow box as they enter asking for letters. It's like the Chinese water torture. But it will get more e-mails, eventually. We need to ask more than once. Unless all of the Board members do their utmost we are not going to get enough congressmen to sign on and get the resolution passed. Let's all do that, PLEASE! We are wasting a great opportunity and not playing a major trump card in our BPL strategy. Perhaps some of us have lost sight of that strategy which is to hang a "regulatory uncertainty" over the BPL industry for at least two more years in hopes that by that time the technology will face too many entrenched users of other, better, technologies. And, yes, we have to be a bit strident here to assure that we protect our interests. Getting our members energized is not easy. We have to ask many times for letters and, if necessary, organize letting writing meetings where we know for sure members have in fact written when we collect them at the end of the meeting. Your Legislative Action Chairs and Coordinators can help do that for you. I gave out some 3,000 two sided pieces at Dayton. One side, the front, was about HR 230 and the back about our "Spectrum Protection Bill, much less important at this point. I spoke to a lot of Section Managers and gave them the strident "NO BPL" stickers to take home along with some two sided sheets. I even had a guy I came across in the flea market promise that he and his buddies would hand out some at the Rochester, NY hamfest which I don't think I am going to get to unless my helicopter pilot buddy is going to fly us up there. I have attached the two page updated handout similar to the one used as Dayton. If you have not yet sent out a division wide plea for letters and e-mails please feel free to edit and personalize it and send it off to your ARRL members. You may want to send only the first page information as they say, "The target for the day is HR 230." It is not Bassingstoke. Even if you have sent out a please you may soon want to send another. By now all directors should be well on their way to accomplishing the mission John Chwat set us to contact tier one and two congressmen. It's very important that ARRL make contact with them and generate letters from their constituents. This is a BIG but important job that you and I cannot do alone. That's the reason for the Grassroots structure - Legislative Action Chairs in the division and Legislative Action Coordinators in the states. These key aides or cabinet members can then find the individuals - Legislative Action Assistants - in the congressional home districts who will make the contacts with the congressman or his staff. You need to start finding those people to do that job as outlined at the January Board meeting. Harold has promised me that on June 10th we will have a functioning Grassroots site to begin support those key volunteers. Thanks again, Kay, for your support here. Frank ...... N2FF...... the strident one........ Kay Craigie wrote:
This interview gets the point across in a very clear and reasonable way.
Some related observations....
As I write this, there is nothing on the opening page of our web site about H.Res. 230, so when we urge members to get informed and then write their members of Congress, we can't just say, "Go to the ARRL web site and click on" something-or-other. They have to excavate their way to a story (which wasn't that great to begin with) buried way down in the news stack. Even clicking on the link that says "BPL" doesn't take you to anything about the resolution. Are we trying to make it hard for members to take grass-roots initiative about this, or does it only seem that way?
Also, I just looked at Division e-mail bulletins issued in the last month and found that 5 Divisions have done bulletins mentioning H.Res. 230. The resolution was introduced a month ago. Is there a conclusion to be drawn from this? (Though I did not read all the Section bulletins, a spot check showed several SM's have put something out on the subject.)
If we're not going to back up the work of Chwat & Co. any better than we are doing right now, why not save the membership's money and stop paying Chwat whatever we pay him. The members of the Board's Grass Roots Legislative Ad Hoc Committee are doing good work. How much cooperation are they getting?
There may be activity going on within Divisions that I don't know about, of course, but it concerns me when it *appears* that we are in effect letting Rep. Ross hang out to dry and not pushing very hard to get the co-sponsors he needs. Will he be there for us again when we need him?
73 - Kay N3KN