> How many of you guys are unhappy with the local club because the are a
> bunch of yahoos?
Lee, I think that's a common phenomenon seen everywhere ham radio exists.
The local club here, for years, has consisted of the following types of hams.
1. The Repeater is ham radio. The repeater is my life.
2. I'm VERY interested in ham radio, one night a month and on field day.
3. I'm REALLY interested in ham radio, I hate this club but I come anyway
because I think we should have a ham club.
4. I come to the club meetings once a year, pay my dues, and then the other
11 months I go to the bar and tell my wife I went to the ham club meeting.
5. I don't know why I am a ham. I don't have a radio. I like this restaurant.
Off and on over the last ten years I have been involved, uninvolved with the
club as an officer, tried to 'stimulate interest' and had failed. Even when I
was
not involved in the 'club', I felt like Paul's Old Timer - the QRP'ers kept
coming
up the hill telling me what was wrong with the club and about the repeater
being broken.
So two years ago, I decided to make another full scale, big time, one hundred
percent effort to whip these puppies into a real ham club. I went to a meeting,
raised hell about everything that was wrong, had the officers who had not
shown up in nine months impeached, and got elected president again.
I bought tons of code tapes, all the ARRL videos, some QRP kits, some keyer
kits, (all out of my pocket) and researched the internet for everything I could
find that would help me turn this group into 'a real ham club'.
For a almost a year, we had a presentation at each meeting, a video, we tried
to stimulate interest in every way humanly possible. Field day was the biggest
and best ever, we even invited all the 'hams' who only operated on 11 meters.
We had antenna construction projects, demonstrations, you name it.
Everybody was interested in EVERYTHING ! But when it came time to DO
everything, nobody showed up.... Nobody showed up for code practice, nobody
showed up for fox hunts, nobody showed up for anything....
When it got to the point we were dragging a TV set and a VCR to meetings, and
NOBODY was staying after dinner to watch 'those movies about some stupid
little island someplace' I finally realized what the problem was. I was trying
to
motivate people who didn't want to be motivated, and who didn't have the same
interests as I did. Some people I was trying to motivate belonged in the back
room at a funeral parlor.
So I quit. I gave up. I started another club, for people who ARE interested in
the same things regarding ham radio that I am. To join the new club, you
must:
1. Be interested in HF operating, contesting, and DX'ing.
2. Have a license to operate on 20 meters.
3. Have one hundred countries worked on HF or prove to the committee that
you are very active on HF.
4. Be sponsored by two current members, be voted in by the committee.
The new club is different than the old club. We have about twenty five percent
as many members as the old club once had. But we have more people show up
every Saturday for breakfast than the old club has at monthly meetings. We
don't talk about repeaters, we talk about band opening, how we did in the last
contest, who worked a new one, funny stuff on the reflector, who got what
QSL card, stuff like that. When we call an emergency practice net between
the islands on HF, ninety percent of the members show up. And when we get
together, we have four hundred percent more fun, because we are not in an
environment with other people who have a ham license, we are with other people
who are interested in the same things we are.
A few people who are 'not qualified' have asked to join the club. One of the
VHF'ers mailed in a check and an application, and when I called to explain the
membership requirements, he reacted pretty violently, telling me I had formed
a group of bigoted, prejudice, holier-than-thou, upper class, four letter call
signed
so and so's, and now that he knew what the deal was he didn't want to join
anyway, we could all go stick our head in a high voltage power supply. He told
me I had 'personally ruined the old club' because all I ever talked about at
meetings was 'that DX and HF crap'. And he wanted to join the new club ?
Two other VHF'ers who had friends in the new club spent every night for three
months sitting in a donut shop listening to code tapes and studying with each
other, went from tech to extra all by themselves, and joined the club. When
I asked why a donut shop, I was told 'If we study at night at home, we fall
asleep, but if we fall asleep in the donut shop, they wake us up....'
Another VHF'er came up the hill last week to my shack, and sat and told me of
his frustration with upgrading, and how he thought we should make special
provisions in the new club so that people like him who were really interested
could still participate. I explained we'd be glad to help him with whatever he
needed help with, and told him to please come to the regular breakfast meetings
on Saturdays and participate. He was very happy, and said he would be there.
So far he hasn't shown up.....
I have also learned that a ham club is prone to the laws of gravity. No matter
who the membership consists of, any club needs a few people who are willing
to continually push it to make it keep moving. People are people, and people
have other things to do in life besides ham radio. It's not realistic to think
EVERYBODY will show up for EVERYTHING.
Anyway Lee, we all make the same mistake with ham clubs. The key words in
a ham club are NOT 'ham license'. The key words are 'common interest'....
73, Jim KH2D
Mariana Islands DX Association - http://www.guam.net/pub/midxa/
Home Page - http://www.qsl.net/kh2d
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