Trip Report QCWA National Convention Kissimmee, Florida - October 25-27, 2002 I was invited to be banquet speaker at this year's QCWA National Convention. I am a QCWA member and had attended an earlier QCWA National Convention in Manchester, New Hampshire, so I had some idea of what to expect. Because the convention was held in his division, Frank Butler also attended. Attendance was only about 125 and there were no commercial exhibits. It was good to see Leo Meyerson, W0GFQ. Sadly, Leo's wife passed away after a long illness, but he is now freer to travel and is still able to do so. I hope I look as good at age 61 as he does at 91. I arrived Friday afternoon, in time for the welcoming reception and prize drawing. I was met at the airport by Joe Pendergrass, W6AAB, a recent transplant to the Orlando area. Joe and I were members of the Michigan State University Amateur Radio Club, W8SH, in the late 1960s when he was WA8UEY. Joe told me he is the youngest member of his local QCWA chapter, which holds its meetings a weekday noon - convenient for retirees but not for those like Joe who still work. There's quite a generation gap plaguing QCWA. I'm 15 years older than many amateurs who are now qualifying for QCWA membership but most of the members are at least 20 years older than me. QCWA hasn't found a way to be interesting or relevant to amateurs my age, much less those who are younger. This doesn't bode well for the future of the organization unless they make a serious effort to address the interests of younger amateurs. Saturday morning I was given an hour for a forum which was well attended, with about 75 present. I spent the first half of the forum reviewing the events of the past year, using the December QST editorial (which no one had seen yet) as the outline, and took questions for the second half. When the hour was already over and I was trying to wrap things up, John Huntoon, W1RW, asked what the reaction had been to dropping Section News. I didn't know it at the time, but apparently the question was prompted by the fact that the QCWA Board has been discussing dropping Chapter News from the QCWA quarterly journal in order to save money. I replied that the reaction had been mixed but that most Section Managers seemed to accept it and most members didn't mind. (Frank told me later that he wished he had also had the opportunity to reply.) We had lunch with the new QCWA President, Croft Taylor, VE3CT, and past President Gary Harrison, K0BC. Croft is retired from Canadian Bell where he held a senior technical position. I had decided to devote the banquet speech to the future and to talk about what QCWA members could do to ensure a healthy future for Amateur Radio. The essence of the message was, "Share your passion for radio with newcomers." I managed to work in that if you could, you should also write a check since the programs needed for a healthy future were beyond what an organization could support through membership dues. Over breakfast at the airport the following morning I talked with QCWA Director Arch Doty, W7ACD, about the draft revised MOU between ARRL and QCWA. The existing MOU dates to 1984 and has a number of obsolete references (for example, to the ARRL having a Canadian division) that require updating. A draft exists that accomplishes this that has been worked on in VRC, but there is still an obsolete reference to "information mailings" to QCWA Chapters that has been overtaken by our dissemination of information electronically. I think the reference instead should be to linking to one another's Web sites as a specific example of cooperation between the two organizations. Arch said the matter wasn't urgent, but it would be nice to get it settled. David Sumner, K1ZZ Chief Executive Officer, ARRL November 5, 2002