Hi David, You're not going to like this answer but there is one person who seemingly has this all figured out - Dan Marler, K7REX. I would suggest starting with a conversation with him. In my experience dealing with section managers some are indeed completely checked out. They don't go to meetings, or interface with membership. But they have the red badge and the "prestige." On the other hand there are extremely hard workers who go to events and take initiative on their own. To begin with though, there really isn't much interest in an SM position in many sections. In NNJ it was hard to find one when Robert KA2PBT resigned. K2SO took over only to become SK some months later. Due to health and religious reasons he could never fully reach out to membership (Saturday events were completely out for him). The section managers have been asking to be more involved. Technical issues aside, did they simply not respond to email? What about phone calls? Many hams are horribly technophobic. They won't respond until they get a phone call. If you have any in Hudson that need follow up, I'd be happy to pick up the phone... 73 Ria, N2RJ On Thu, May 6, 2021 at 6:05 PM Minster, David NA2AA (CEO) <dminster@arrl.org> wrote:
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
_______________________________________________ arrl-odv mailing list arrl-odv@reflector.arrl.org https://reflector.arrl.org/mailman/listinfo/arrl-odv