TOO LATE!!! You blinked your eyes! Another Holiday Season is upon us! Seems like a few days ago I was having surgery and looking forward to the warm, summer days. Oh well!
The one thing I need to do is apologize for not visiting the clubs as often as I usually do. I hope to catch a few this month. One I am going to visit is the Hampden County Radio Association as they will be celebrating 75 years as an affiliated club. Their efforts and participation over the years demonstrates what a club can do to make it last for so long. Congratulations to you on your achievement. There are other clubs that are also getting close. WPIWA in Worcester has over 100 years under their belt. Sadly, efforts to contact them have gone by the wayside despite multiple efforts.
How is your club doing? The league has continued to look at ways to help clubs grow. One thing I found is the Active Club Primer. This guide is a good read to give you some pointers on running and growing your club. Reminder, make sure you go to the League’s website and do your annual update if you have not done so. This keeps your affiliation active.
In October we had our SET exercise and afterwards Chuck WS1L sent a survey to get feedback and the big response is they were not aware of it. Hmmm, were we not communicating enough? This is also an indication that not many people are looking at the WMA website as there was mention of the event there as well as I send stuff to the ARRL WMA email reflector. Chuck has also set up an email group so anyone in WMA ARES will receive a notification if anything comes up. We will work to communicate more; you also need to read what we send. Hopefully the next SET will have better participation.
It is good to see clubs getting active in giving license classes and testing again. Covid slammed the brakes on it and things were quiet for some time. The one thing to consider when you have that new ham on board is to welcome them and do some follow up to make sure a club or mentor is getting them on the air. Giving them an information handout after they passed will give them a good start at finding a club and basic information. Back issues of QST and other magazines are good also.I truly hope each one of you will have a wonderful, warm, happy Holiday season and a fabulous New Year. Remember, Santa Ham comes to the good operators and gives them presents! Take care everyone.
73 de Ray, AA1SE