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
--
http://home.earthlink.net/~k0hb