After some digging into the plan/budget document, and some conversations with a couple of Board members, I've come to the conclusion that we're still not putting enough effort (time and money) into promoting ham radio to non-hams. I believe that the 2003/2004 Plan/Budget has not given that critical task enough funding. In particular, I'm thinking about two things: 1) educating the general public about Amateur Radio 2) promoting ham radio to potential licensees There are two parts of HQ that seem to be involved - Public Relations and the Support Team within Field and Educational Services. Surprising (to me) is that the Marketing Department (p.31) apparently has little to do with promoting to external audiences - their focus is on getting existing hams to become members and to anyone who might buy our publications (mostly hams). The Public Relations area (p.66) has one staff member and a budget of $84K. The focus is on media relations, support of the PR reflector (for F&ES PIOs and PIAs), and HQ support for the Board's Public Relations Committee. The Field & Education Services Support Team (p.94) has a budget of $216K. I can't tell how many staff members are in that area, and not all of their work supports educating the general public or promoting ham radio to potential licensees. The work that does support those two functions is responsible for the support of affiliated clubs, volunteer instructors, new ham recruitment (via clubs and the Field Organization), and scout/youth programs - maybe 50-75% of their focus. In talking to Dave Sumner and Art Goddard (Industry Advisory Council liaison), one of the key ingredients for a successful drive on the two goals noted above has to be industry involvement. That was the case 5-10-15-20-25 years ago and is apparently still the "missing" ingredient today. I suspect industry will never get itself organized, though I know AARE is making an effort, after several similar groups failed in previous years (and decades). Is that our only option? Can we do more ourselves? If we don't, Amateur Radio will be history in 20 years. I'm not satisfied with the funding we have allocated in the past (or plan for this next year), nor the way HQ is organized to accomplish those goals. New hams are our only lifeblood. We can't last forever on existing hams (who average about 50 years old) or members (who average about 60 years old). We have a $14M organization and only about $200K is being directly spent on the recruitment of new hams and public education (external marketing). Isn't spending 1.5% a bit too small? Can't we double that amount for this year? How about increasing it by $200K for each of the next five years? Yes, it would certainly hurt in the short term because some programs would have to be cut. We "only" plan to have about $3.6M in discretionary spending ($2.4M from Net Available Income; $1.2M from charitable donations) - why not take 5% of it to increase our external education and promotion efforts? (If the Siebel/accounting/DXCC/LOTW systems are ever finally installed and working, we ought to see some efficiency improvements from them that should increase the NAV...) Anyhow, I'm interested in whether anyone else feels strongly about this subject. Maybe there are better ideas or suggestions out there. Obviously what I've left out is how we might use that extra $200K (and what would be cut to get it). Room for lots of discussion... -- Tom PS: As an example: Moved, that the motion to approve the 2002 budget be amended to say: "Moved that the 2002 budget is approved with a reduction of the net amounts allocated to Governance by 20%, to Membership Services by 10%, and to Executive Management and General Administrative Support by 5%, and that same amount be applied to programs for educating the general public about Amateur Radio and promoting ham radio to target groups of potential licensees." Cost: None - but $205K would be reallocated within the current budget. The amount of reductions could be offset by contributions from external sources - donations from individuals, grants, or contributions from industry... ===== 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