Your ARRL
About a week ago, I worked a guy and he told me he was glad to work me again. To be honest, I was a bit flummoxed at this, as his call did not ring a bell. I punched his call into my computer log, and as it turns out, we had had a single contact nearly two years ago!
He guessed that he remembered my call because I have a 6-land call even though I’m located in Michigan. I also suggested that perhaps he’d read my blog at some point or remembered my call from my unsuccessful run for Great Lakes Division Vice Director a couple of years ago. We never did quite pin it down.
The comment about my unsuccessful run for Vice Director got us talking about the ARRL. It was such a good conversation, that I felt compelled to follow up with him via e-mail. One of the issues I touched upon was the low percentage of hams that are ARRL members. He replied with the following:
Regarding the state of the ARRL, one must wonder what compels the League’s officials, as a group entity, to respond (or not respond, as the case may be) to issues concerning the general membership. Not being a conspiracy theorist, per se, I wonder what is the motivation, beyond the oft-heard simplistic view that bolstering membership solely to “sell more magazines” thus attracting more advertisers, that constitutes the collective driving force of Harrison, et al. I truly believe that the ARRL exists beyond their (OUR) magazine publication interests. But, their questionable “behind the scenes” maneuvering sometimes makes it unclear exactly what their intentions are.
I believe each and every ham should be a member of the League. The more members, the more diverse, yet stronger, the League would be. Any organization, through loss of membership, loses its “solvency through evaporation” and becomes more tightly ensconced in its own increasingly ineffectual existence.
I also believe that the terms of those elected to official positions be restricted to a certain length of time. Term limits ain’t all bad.
I think his question as to what motivates ARRL officers is a really good question. Some hams say that all they want is to be able to sell more magazines and books, but unless they are doing some fancy footwork with the books and siphoning off some of the money into personal bank accounts—which I don’t think they’re doing—that theory doesn’t really hold a lot of water.
My theory is that it is a power and ego thing. No matter how small the pond, they are the “big fish” in that pond. Furthermore, I think this kind of thinking actually goes all the way back to the revered Hiram Percy Maxim, who, by all accounts, was quick to quash any competitors to the ARRL.
The only way to change this is to get more people involved in the ARRL. It’s really a shame that so many ARRL elections don’t have at least two candidates. I don’t think anyone should run unopposed.
Unfortunately, ARRL HQ seems more interested in keeping the membership at bay then they are at getting them involved. And those that aren’t involved, or don’t feel that they are involved, simply quit the ARRL.
As far as term limits go, I wholeheartedly disagree with my friend on this issue. Here in Michigan, we voted in term limits for our legislature ten or fifteen years ago. This has been a disaster. The legislature has turned into a political circus with many legislators having little or no experience and no one to learn from.
