[ADXA] Meeting Thoughts to Consider

[w5zn at w5zn.org]

Greetings to all,

I look forward to seeing everyone who can make our 2nd Quarterly meeting 
tomorrow in Hot Springs and having a lively discussion about DX in 
general. I know a number of our members have other commitments this 
weekend. June is always an extremely busy month for me personally and 
working in an ADXA meeting is extremely difficult. I always have the 
ARRL VHF Contest and Field Day then there is a professional conference 
I'm always required to attend plus Father's Day, which I don't care for 
however the family always schedules something then there is HamCom in 
Dallas that a number of our members attend. That is, of course, preceded 
by May in which I have scheduled activities with Kim (her birthday, 
Mother's Day and our anniversary all occur in May) on three separate 
weekends and Dayton takes up the other. May and June are my busiest 
months of the year to try to fit anything else in and frankly this is 
most likely the last June ADXA meeting I will attend simply due to a 
schedule overload.

We do not have a formal program scheduled for this meeting however we 
will have a couple of recommendations from the Executive Committee 
regarding DXPedition funding plus a number of business related items to 
discuss. These are for discussion only at this point. I am NOT, repeat 
NOT proposing any changes at this time however I do want everyone to 
consider these for possible action at our annual meeting in December.

One of the items is our meeting location and how often we need to meet. 
Let me first make it clear that I do not subscribe to the position 
"We've always done it that way!". Times change and people change so we 
need to make sure we are meeting our purpose as an organization as this 
occurs. The Russellville hamfest has proven to be an excellent venue for 
our March meeting. It is conveniently located close to half way between 
the Little Rock/Searcy area and northwest Arkansas. It combines our 
members interest in attending the hamfest in addition to attending the 
ADXA meeting without taking up two separate weekends.

Beyond that, it gets a bit complicated in trying to be fair to all of 
our members with our meeting location. Obviously Russellville offers a 
good "half way" venue and would be good location for our meetings but it 
has very limited, if non-existing, facilities to host an annual meeting 
similar to what we have had the past two years.

I also want us to consider if we need four meetings a year or would 
three would work fine. Its not like we never "chat" or discuss things 
anywhere except at a meeting. Our email reflector is quite active when 
DX matters come up. Obviously, we can only take action on matters during 
a formal in-person meeting but do we need four per year?

The Articles of Association state our quarterly meetings will be at a 
site and time determined by the membership. Historically we have met on 
the third Saturday of March, June and September and the first Saturday 
of December. We changed the traditional date of the March meeting to 
coincide with the Russellville hamfest and have retained the traditional 
date for the other meetings. Aside from the June meeting, the one date 
that disrupts my radio life is the annual meeting in December. It falls 
on the same weekend as the ARRL 160 Meter Contest that, unfortunately, I 
have had to forego the past three years and just to be blunt, I do not 
like it one bit. The conflict goes beyond my personal position though. 
The past two years I have been able to arrange an outstanding special 
guest or two for our annual meeting. This year I have been politely turn 
down by four high profile DX'ers for one reason and one reason 
only....."I would love to come down however that is the ARRL 160 Meter 
Contest weekend and I don't miss that!" It is also the weekend just 
after the CQWW CW DX contest, the biggest radio contest in the world, 
and some folks are in "recovery" following that.

I realize whatever date we establish will always conflict with some 
other activity for someone. I understand that however that should not 
summarily moot a opportunity to identify an option that may be better 
overall.

Our meeting detail is contained in and required by Article 4 of our 
Articles of Association plus a requirement (yes, it says "shall") to 
hold regular weekly meetings on the air!! The weekly "on-the-air" 
meeting once upon a time fulfilled a very good purpose before the days 
of the internet, DX websites and email reflectors however its value and 
purpose died when the internet came about.

Among other items, we need to develop a set of By-Laws for our Articles 
of Association that capture in writing ADXA's policies. For example, the 
current ADXA policy for a request for funding of a DXPedition is that 
the location must be within the top 50 most needed. This is an ADXA 
policy however where is it recorded? This needs to be captured in a 
By-Law.

So let's have, as is said these days, a "conversation" about this and 
seriously consider what best fits ADXA today, not 25 years ago, but 
today for us to effectively execute our mission. I have thrown out some 
of my personal opinions and that is all they are. You may have some 
great recommendations that we need to consider so lets do that now and 
by December we should have an idea if there is anything we need to 
revise.

GL es DX - 73

Joel W5ZN