Derek's comments should go to all the Section Managers. At 04:15 PM 11/18/2003 -0500, you wrote:

This is a report from Derek on a little experiment that we did in the Great Lakes Division. My thanks to Jim Weaver, Dick Mondro, Joe Phillips, John Meyers and Dale Williams for their efforts in a successful campaign.

So you see, a little effort pays off.

73

Jim Haynie, W5JBP Return-Path: <derek.riker@chwatco.com> Received: from rly-xk03.mx.aol.com (rly-xk03.mail.aol.com [172.20.83.40]) by air-xk01.mail.aol.com (v97.10) with ESMTP id MAILINXK12-5893fba85ad1ec; Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:49:22 -0500 Received: from mail.ARRL.ORG (mail.arrl.org [69.0.106.216]) by rly-xk03.mx.aol.com (v97.7) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXK37-5893fba85ad1ec; Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:48:47 -0500 Received: from postmaster.surr.com ([207.188.233.10]) by mail.ARRL.ORG with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6713); Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:48:27 -0500 Received: from chwatco.com ([66.160.120.22]) by postmaster.surr.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.5329); Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:48:13 -0500 Message-ID: <3FBA863F.5020109@chwatco.com> Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 15:51:11 -0500 From: Derek Riker <derek.riker@chwatco.com> User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030624 Netscape/7.1 (ax) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: k8je@arrl.org CC: Jim Haynie <w5jbp@arrl.org> Subject: Congressional Letters Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------060907000604060909030001" X-OriginalArrivalTime: 18 Nov 2003 20:48:13.0765 (UTC) FILETIME=[48EE9F50:01C3AE15] X-AOL-IP: 69.0.106.216 X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version)

Jim,

I just wanted to pass along my thanks for all of your efforts in getting amateurs in the Great Lakes division to write their members of Congress. Their letters have made a definite impact in adding co-sponsors to both HR 713 and S 537.

Many writers have copied the League on their letters and emails. As Capitol Hill lobbyists for the League, these ultimately end up on my desk. They serve as an excellent entrée into an office to discuss amateur issues. They also provide a direct constituent connection when I ask staff to have their boss co-sponsor our legislation. (Also, and unfortunately, more often than not, these offices receive so many correspondences that they often get lost or take forever to get read. By hand delivering them personally, I try to skip all of the pitfalls and dead ends.)

In recent meetings with House members' staff from Ohio and Michigan, at least 3 have commented to me on the increasing numbers of correspondences they have received from amateurs. In fact I had met personally with Rep. Rogers (R-MI) Legislative Director. When she called to say they would co-sponsor HR 713, she said the reason was because of the constituent mail they had received.

Although Congress will be wrapping up their 2004 legislative activities during the next week, both bills will remain in play during 2005. I hope you and the Great Lakes amateurs keep up the good work.

Derek Riker, VP Govt. Relations Chwat & Company, Inc. KB3JLF

Andy Oppel andy@andyoppel.com