[ECAC] Draft letter to NTS national staff

[Dave Colter]

Read this carefully and tell me what you think.

Dave

 

  _____  

 

Dear NTS National Staff,

 

Thanks for taking the time to develop a more constructive and accurate
response to ECAC's proposals. However, I believe you've missed a key point.
Any comparison of ECAC's Joint Emergency Communications Committee (JECC)
concept and NTS' expanded Field Organization is "apples and oranges." The
two proposals have quite different goals and are thus more complementary
than conflicting.

 

While the NTS proposal is intended to solve NTS/ARES operational interface
problems, this is not a primary goal for the JECC. Its proposed mission is
to provide high level support to both programs and thus improve performance
and interoperability across all groups and systems. The JECC is intended to
foster high-level collaboration between both programs to develop best
practices standards for ARES and training materials for both programs, and
other functions that simply creating a parallel ARES operational structure
to match NTS' cannot accomplish. A JECC might well deal with the operational
issues by enabling a dialogue between leaders in both programs and
developing joint recommendations, but that was simply one item on a much
larger and more diverse list.

 

Perhaps we should be supporting each other's proposals. If you carefully
read the JECC proposal, I'm confident you will see there is a tremendous
upside benefit to the future of both programs. We may still have practical
or philosophical differences regarding some details, but I believe those can
be worked out. Of course, I'm speaking only for myself here, but I'm sure
other members of the former ECAC will concur.

 

The alternative is that we continue to be at odds, which will create more
confusion in the minds of board members and HQ staff. That will pretty much
ensure that nothing is done, and we'll be right back where we started. None
of us want that. Nothing less than the future of Amateur Radio is at stake.

 

Regards,

Dave Colter, WA1ZCN

ASEC - Operations, Training

State EOC Team

NH-ARES

www.nh-ares.org

603-763-4976, option 1

 

Ex-ARRL Emergency Communications Advisory Committee

New England Division Representative & Vice Chairman

 

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