As I have done in the past, I am forwarding Steve Ewald's notes from last week's SM Teleconference to the ODV list. 73, Harold Harold Kramer, WJ1B Chief Operating Officer ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio 860 594 0220 hkramer@arrl.org <http://www.arrl.org/> ________________________________ From: Ewald, Steve, WV1X [mailto:wv1x@arrl.org] Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 4:22 PM To: smlist Subject: [smlist:5043] Highlights of March SM Teleconference Hello, Section Managers. I have prepared a summary of highlights from the March 2008 Teleconference with Section Managers. On Wednesday evening, March 26, the Membership and Volunteer Programs hosted an ARRL telebridge teleconference with the Section Managers of the Central Division and Dakota Division. We welcomed Section Managers Skip Jackson, KS0J (Minnesota); Tom Cicicora, KA9QPN (Illinois); Kent Olson, KA0LDG (North Dakota); John Ellis, NP2B (US Virgin Islands). We also welcomed Greg Widin, K0GW (Dakota Division Vice Director). Steve Ewald, WV1X, and Chuck Skolaut, K0BOG, were HQ staff representatives. All Section Managers and Affiliated Club Coordinators recently received a request from HQ to name a few top clubs in their sections that do an outstanding job of recruiting, training and mentoring new licensees. The plan is for ARRL HQ to contact these suggested clubs to find out more about what they do and how they do it so well -- and then to share some of their success stories. The teleconference participants discussed how clubs in their sections are successfully recruiting and training new radio amateurs. Some clubs are associated with a school, and others clubs help sponsor a state wide QSO Party. These kinds of club commitments help foster the growth and activity levels of Amateur Radio. ARRL Field Day is also an active time of the year for recruiting new radio amateurs and mentoring new operators to get involved in various Amateur Radio activities. Call participants talked about the strategies that they employ to visit Field Day camps around their respective sections. When representing ARRL at a hamfest, convention or club meeting, it would be helpful for SMs to have access to a summarized list of "talking points" on various subjects in order to help answer questions or to appropriately make referrals. The ARRL Web's news articles, QST, and Web pages are good, timely resources to study and refer to when preparing for a meeting or hamfest. Over the years, several net frequencies - such as 14.300 MHz, 14.325 MHz, 21.360 MHz, 3.760 MHz - have also become well known and established frequencies for handling emergency traffic and situations. Teleconference participants discussed the scenario that could happen if a radio amateur with a true emergency were to call for help on those frequencies during a heavily populated contest weekend. The fear was that a station in distress would not be heard. In order to help alleviate this scenario, the group wondered if it would possible to ask contest organizers/sponsors to better promote the emergency frequencies and to ask contest participants to avoid those frequencies. One potential operating activity came to mind. How about a QSO party that promoted the Field Organization? This idea was reminiscent of the ARRL Communications Department contests of several decades ago and of the Hiram Percy Maxim birthday celebrations in the 1990s. 73, Steve Ewald, WV1X Supervisor, Field Organization Team ARRL - The national association for Amateur Radio 860-594-0265 sewald@arrl.org <mailto:sewald@arrl.org>