The growth in numbers of Amateurs over the past decade has been
overwhelmingly via the Technician license. This segment of the Amateur
population does not seem highly attracted to ARRL membership, nor
affiliative with the "national association" nature of ARRL.

Interestingly, however, these new Amateurs are "local joiners". They
attach some importance to public service communications events such as
disaster drills, SkyWarn, flood relief, marathons, parade
communications, and similar functions of a local nature. Interestingly,
even though their on-the-air participation is limited, they represent a
significant portion of the crew at Field Day, hamfest staffs, and
similar "local" events. They are also well represented on the rosters of
many local clubs.

Following is a PBI (Partially Baked Idea) to favorably position ARRL
(and Amateur Radio in general) with these newcomers to our hobby.

I propose that the ARRL BoD consider an initiative to attract these
newcomers to an interest in ARRL by establishment of a new "Department
of Community Support".

The mission of this department of ARRL would be to organize, train,
support, and nurture a system of tactical communications teams on the
LOCAL level. I use the term "tactical" as opposed to "emergency"
intentionally to broaden the scope of the mission to include a wide
variety of community-level communications needs.

This "department" would be outside the current Field Organization, and
given VISIBLE and COMMITTED volunteer leadership at Director or Vice
President rank.

Did I hear someone muttering "Isn't that what ARES is all about?" or
"Our current field organization already provides for this." Good
points -- ARRL already has some of the pieces in place, and it looks
good on paper. Unfortunately these "pieces" tend to be scattered around
the ARRL organization and are not linked into a cohesive program.
Support and leadership responsibility, from Newington all the way down
to the local level, is often a collateral duty and the attention level
is spotty and often diluted by competing responsibilities and personal
interests. Leadership attention at the SM level is widely variable, and
SM's have a diminished mindshare of the general membership by the
unfortunate H.Q. decision to remove "Section News" from the national
journal of our Association. Without dwelling overlong on the
shortcomings of the current situation, I think we can all agree on four
points:

1) A focused national program with Director (or higher) level leadership
would have more impact than the current fragmented attention to "local"
Amateur Radio.

2) Such a program, if successful, would give Amateur Radio valuable
credibility in the regulatory and legislative arenas, and with national
organizations like Homeland Security, FEMA, and the Red Cross.

3) Such a program, if successful, would serve to elevate the perceived
value of Amateur Radio with local civil authorities, perhaps softening
the effects of issues like tower ordinances, etc.

4) Such a program, strongly identified with the League, would provide a
membership "attractor" to those classes of Amateurs that are now only
locally "affiliative". Gaining some traction into this huge reservoir of
potential members would be a godsend to the health and growth of ARRL.

What would need to be done to implement such a plan. Here are some "off
the top of my head" thoughts.

-- Define the mission and organizational structure.

-- Many of the people (SEC/EC's, etc) are already in place. The
organization structure would need to include a short chain-of-command
headed by a focused leader at Newington.

-- Move Field Day and SET into this organization as "their" events.

-- Devise a recognition vehicle to give visibility to noteworthy work by
individuals and teams in this Department. This visibility (QST?) should
extend outside the organization to the "general population" of hams as a
recruiting tool.

-- Establish a new periodical (like NCJ for contesters and QEX for
experimenters) to help build a "sense of community" among the
participants.

-- Educate local civil authorities about this organization, their
capabilities, and how to best interface with them to take advantage of
their capabilities.

In order to build some critical mass and gain traction, the outreach
effort to build these teams should not initially stress ARRL membership
for "grassroots" level players, but rather depend on a strong ARRL
identity to build esprit de corps and lead to an attitude of support and
affiliation with the parent organization. Perhaps appointment to team
leadership positions would be conditioned on ARRL membership.

Obviously a lot of this proposal needs a great deal of "fleshing out"
and refinement, but I present it in the spirit of a "topic for
discussion". I'm sure that the minds gathered here will not be bashful
about improving my PBI.

73, de Hans, K0HB