At 04:05 PM 7/20/2004, you wrote:

Here are draft minutes of last week's Board Meeting. Feel free to offer any suggestions and corrections that may occur to you.

I haven't read them carefully yet but would like some help with the grassroots and BPL issue. Almost all of the discussions I've had with Dave, Chris, Jim H and others suggested to me that stirring up members to write their Reps and Senators was not timely. In fact, I answered a couple of e-mail messages that way the week before the Board meeting. Since the FCC has not acted on the NPRM yet, and explaining our opposition to BPL is a fairly technical topic, this doesn't seem like the right time to call out the troops. And until this last Board meeting we hadn't. Instead, it seemed more appropriate to encourage members to write on the two bills actually in the queue - spectrum protecting and CC&R/HOA rights. So that's what I've been saying and doing. What changed, other than the motion we passed? The web story we posted today sure looks like we're starting an all-out effort now, even before the FCC has acted. It may take weeks or months for our collective efforts to get geared up. Is that the way to go? Or should we have a more coordinated effort? Seriously, I'm still trying to work through this all logically (maybe that's where I went wrong). It's not that I think we don't need to do it (gear up for grassroots lobbying regarding BPL), but I'm not clear enough to help lead the charge yet. Exactly what are the points we want members to make to their reps? -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444