ARRL Club News for December 2006

Welcome to the first edition of the ARRL Club News.  Published
monthly, the ARRL Club News is a source of information to invigorate
and stimulate your radio club.  Features will include meeting
activities, on air activities, recruiting and training new hams.  We
hope to share some exciting things that clubs are doing to make ham
radio fun.

Did you know that there are more than 2,000 clubs across the country
affiliated with the ARRL?  Some of these clubs are single purpose
groups that may support a repeater; some specialize in DX and contest
operating; some have an emphasis on public service and emergency
communications; and others are all purpose ham radio clubs that are
striving to maintain or obtain status as an ARRL Special Service
Club. http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/club/#ssc_program

Initially the ARRL Club News will be published in plain text format
but we plan to produce it in HTML format by March of 2007.  Using
HTML will allow us to share photographs of members and club
activities.  The ARRL Club News is for your club.  Please be sure to
share with us some of the things that your club is doing.  

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Spotlights 



Portage County Amateur radio Service, Ohio
This group started just over a year ago and has grown to almost 50
active members.  PCARS is active in community service and holds
regular club activities including license classes, on air nets,
meeting activities and of course Field Day.  The club encourages hams
to get on the air.  Whether it is on a net, a contest or just plain
old rag chewing, hams on the air are hams having fun and making
friends.

http://www.portcars.org/

Madison County Amateur Radio Club, Ohio
When Bob Lewis, N8GU joined the Madison County Amateur Radio Club
there were just six members and no meeting programs.  Today the club
is 39 members strong and has meeting activities, a weekly 2 meter net
and submitted a top in class score for Field Day 2006.  According to
Bob the club tries to keep focus on fun by having regularly scheduled
meeting programs and good communication with their membership about
club activities and news.  

http://qsy.to/mcarcoh/

Arrow Communications Association, Michigan
Dan Romanchick, KB6NU tells us that the Arrow Communications
Association in Ann Arbor, Michigan has a jewel called the Ann Arbor
Hands-On Museum (www.aahom.org).  This is ostensibly a children's
science museum, but the facility is a lot of fun for adults, too. 
Dan met with the director a couple of weeks ago, and he was very
enthusiastic about the club providing an amateur radio station at the
museum.  The museum's director has agreed to provide space for
classes. The club is planning to set-up a special event station at
the museum in a couple of weeks and plans to start the classes there
in January.  

http://www.w8pgw.org/

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Elmer's Corner

License classes are a great way to recruit new members for your club
and the post-license mentoring sessions attract members who may have
been away from meetings for a while.  An important part of effective
amateur licensing is keeping in touch with new licensees and keeping
them motivated and moving forward with their new activity.

The folks at Michiana ARC of South Bend, Indiana are preparing their
"One Day Only" licensing class again.  The club had overwhelming
success with this program in 2005 and says that the essence of this
intense single day program is not on what happens that day but what
occurs at the "elmering" sessions following the licensing class. 
Students prepare to take the Technician class exam in an eight hour
class that drills home the material covered on the exam.  The
following club meeting is dedicated solely to mentoring of the new
hams.  The "mentor meeting" brings out many club members who are
eager to share their knowledge with the newly licensed hams.  

http://community.michiana.org/marcsite/


ARRL Instructors

The long awaited ARRL Instructor Manual (9817) is now available.  The
manual comes with a CD that has complete PowerPoint Lesson
presentations for each section.  The ARRL Instructor's Manual is
designed to be used with the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual (9639) as
an integrated teaching system.  The material also correlates with the
ARRL On-line Technician Licensing course.

Book with CD-ROM #9817 -- $15.95
 
Order on-line < http://www.arrl.org/catalog/ > or use our toll-free
order line 1-888-277-5289.

www.arrl.org/instructor

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The ARRL Club Commission Membership Recruitment Program allows ARRL
Affiliated Clubs to retain a portion of the ARRL membership dues from
each new member or renewal that the club collects and submits.  

Under this program, clubs retain $15 for each NEW membership and $2
for each renewal submitted (regular and senior memberships only). A
NEW MEMBER is defined as any individual who has never been a member
of ARRL or any individual who has not retained a membership for two
or more calendar years prior to the application submission.

The details and forms can be found on the web at the ARRL Club
Companion page:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/club/benefits.html#commission

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Doughnuts Are Health Food

Healthy, active clubs are the foundation of Amateur Radio. It doesn't
matter if your club has eight members or several hundred members,
your club is your ham radio family.  Our local radio club is where we
get to interact with other hams and share information and knowledge. 
It is through the local club where many hams earned their first
Amateur Radio license or upgraded to a higher license class.  Amateur
Radio clubs act as a catalyst where close personal friendships grow. 
Whether the activity is Field Day, a licensing class, a public
service event or an antenna party, the local club really is where the
rubber meets the road.

Clubs with a strong social appeal tend to be more active clubs.  On
the surface, Amateur Radio may appear to be a technical hobby, but it
really is about people.  Ham radio is people communicating and
sharing ideas with each other.   For 100 years hams have developed
and exploited technology to be able to communicate with other hams
and on behalf of the people in their communities.  When we get on the
air we are people sharing a common interest.  During times of
disaster hams are people helping other people.  Members of our radio
clubs are our friends.  The magic boxes have changed quite a lot over
the years, but the one thing that remains the same are the people who
use them.

Though not scientific, a recent ARRL web survey indicated that 57% of
those who attend club meetings do so because of social contact with
other amateurs.  Coffee and doughnuts are hardly technological
marvels but they are a large part of what keeps a radio club active. 
 Many clubs have rearranged the format for their meetings where they
have a presentation or guest speaker at the beginning of the meeting
followed by a social break, and then the business portion of the
meeting is held at the end.  Interestingly, many members who did not
regularly attend club meetings because they were forced to sit
through the business meeting at the beginning, before socializing,
not only increased their attendance at meetings but these same folks
stayed for the entire meeting-- including the business segment. 
Serving desert first not only satisfies the sweet tooth, but it also
quenches the need to be with friends.  Even though the doughnut is
not listed in the major food groups of healthy eating, the fried
treat is essential to a healthy radio club.

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ARRL Club Affiliation Milestones for 2006

75 Years
----------
ARA Of Long Beach 
Associated RA Of Southern NE
Delaware Valley Radio Assn 
Falmouth ARA 
Morris Radio Club
Rochester Amateur Radio Assn
Schenectady ARA 
St Louis ARC 
St Paul Radio Club
Tulsa ARC
Yakima ARC
Yale University Arc

50 years
----------
Aero ARC
Totah ARC
Northwest St Louis ARC
Penn Wireless Assn 
Tallahassee Amateur Radio Society
Downey ARC
Carnegie Tech Radio Club
Flathead Valley ARC
Cumberland Valley ARC
Tupelo ARC
Central Oregon Radio Amateurs
Keystone VHF Club
Yellowstone Radio Club
Alamogordo ARC
Pine Bluff ARC
Kent County ARC
PENN-MAR Radio Club
Coffeyville Arc
Bristol Amateur Radio Club
Columbus ARC
Indian Hills Radio Club
Midland ARC
North Kitsap ARC
Kankakee Area Radio Society
Nittany ARC
Blackstone Valley ARC
Montgomery County A R E C
Daytona Beach ARA

25 years
---------
Albuquerque DX Assoc
Tompkins County ARC
North Franklin ARS
Palestine/Anderson County ARC
Sun City Center ARC
Green Valley ARC
Blue Ridge ARC
Hancock ARC
Delaware Valley VHF Society
West Alabama Amateur Radio Society
Callaway Amateur Radio League
London Bridge Amateur Radio Assn
West Jersey DX Group
Ararat Temple AR Shrine Club
Redwood Empire DX Assn
Lakes Area ARC
Peninsula ARC
Chehalis Valley ARS
Benicia Amateur Radio Club
Conyers Amateur Radio Group
Katy Amateur Radio Society
Louisiana Tech Arc
Muncie Area ARC
Kendall ARS
Mid-Ohio Valley Amateur Radio Club
Arrow Communications Association
Madison County Amateur Radio Club
Eastern New Mexico Arc

10 years
----------
AARC Aurdrain Amateur Radio Club
Amateur Radio League of Lawrence County
Bakersfield ARA
Center for Amateur Radio Learning
Central Oh Severe Weather Net
Clay County ARS
Crest REACT ARC
CTRI Contest Group
ECTAR, Inc.
Filipino-American ARS
Friends In Amateur Radio
Housatonic ARC
Huckleberry Mtn Contest Club
Inland Empire Council of AR 
Maple Valley ARC
Mine Creek ARC
Mother Lode DX/Contest Club
Muskingum Valley Ham Radio Club
Network Engineers Rptr Assn
Ozark Wireless Society
Park County Radio Club
San Gorgonio Pass ARC
Santa Fe Trail ARC
Southern Polytechnic ARC
Southwest Iowa ARC
Thermal Belt ARC
Tricounty ARC
University Of Oklahoma ARC
Valencia County ARA
Western States Weak Signal Society
White Mountain Amateur Radio Club
William Lupo, WR2M Repeater Club

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The ARRL Club News is published on the first Wednesday of each month by
the American Radio Relay League--The National Association For Amateur
Radio--225 Main St, Newington, CT 06111; tel 860-594-0200; fax
860-594-0259; www.arrl.org. Joel Harrison, W5ZN, President.

The ARRL Club News is an e-mail digest of news and information of
interest to active members of ARRL Affiliated Clubs. 

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