[NCC] Purpose of NCC?

[Patrick Barkey]

Hi all,

Out here in the Indiana wilderness, I have been thinking a bit
about this question.
Pardon me if I seem a bit abrupt here, but this is the easiest
way for me to
express these thoughts.

I think its time that we all decided exactly what the heck it is
that we want
NCC to be, and then go about accomplishing that.  Life is too
short to just
keep stumbling ahead without a better sense of direction.

I think it is vitally important that we have a sense of identity
and pride.  We should
do what it is we want to do very well.  Otherwise, I see no
reason to exist.

Personally, I think that we should be geared to one basic goal: 
to participate
and enjoy to the fullest operating contests.  Over these last
months, my sense is
that our club identity only emerged through the Sprint teams that
K3LR
put together (thanks Tim!).  Other than that, we all pretty much
operated 
the way we always do.  I am sure that we put "NCC" down in the
Club 
competition category, and that was about as far as it went. 
Which is pretty
much the way its been for quite a while, right?

I'd like to suggest some changes to this routine.

Let's decide here and now that we are going to start becoming
more active
as a club.  We're not going to run every contest, but in the
one's that we do
run we're going to do well.  For a club our size, what does that
mean?

I can think of several different kinds of goals.  We should be
announcing our
activity before each contest, tabulating our scores accurately
afterwards,
and communicating that information to each other to get each
other pumped
up.  In contests where the club is making a commitment to
compete, we're
going to make the individual effort to make that successful, even
if it involves
operating a mode or a weekend that isn't one of our usual
favorites.

What can we strive for?  There are lots of possibilities.  In the
contests with
size categories, we can try to win.  We can try to beat Mad
River.  We can
try to have the highest points per entry club score.  We can try
to have
a continuous streak of rising club scores (imagine the challenge
there as
sunspots go down).

I think we need three volunteers to make this happen.  One is an
active
President who will get the club together and get a consensus of
the 
members as to what we want to do, and then spearhead the effort
to
get it accomplished.  We need a Contest Whip who will record and
communicate NCC contest activity pre and post contest.  And we
also
need a newsletter and/or web page person who will put together
something
that will give us a sense of identity.  If we get off the ground
with this, we
well also need a fourth person - a Membership person to fight off
the droves
of people who will certainly want to join what can once again be
one of
the best contest clubs in the world.

Thoughts?

   - Pat
     N9RV

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