[Fists] ARRL Directors

[Alan W]

Steve:

They did not call for a Roll Call vote on the ARRL petition contents.  After
talking to a few directors and others who would know, it appears that it was
either "almost unanimous" or "one holdout."  It appears that one holdout was
the Southeastern Division director - though of course I don't know his final
vote.  We do know that all the others that are up for election voted FOR the
proposal.  The only one to apparently conduct the promised polling was
Pacific Div. Director.  The others "polled" by looking at their incoming
e-mail -- in other words they never polled at all.

So, that's the FIRST thing I would ask a candidate along with a few other
questions:

"As a Director, will you PROMISE to call for a Roll Call vote on major
issues so that the votes are talleyed in the BoD meeting minutes? Do you
support efforts to make the ARRL membership more readily aware of how their
Director votes on each issue (major or not)?

"Do you SUPPORT maintaining or INCREASING the technical content of all the
exams?"

"Do you SUPPORT  reserving the HF voice privileges as a motivation to
upgrade?  In other words, do you oppose providing additional voice HF
privileges to Novce/Tech/Tech Plus?"

"Do you SUPPORT CW skills as a prerequisite for General? For Extra?"

"Do you OPPOSE free upgrades to higher classes without taking the exam for
that class?

It doesn't take much to get someone on the ballot.  But sprading the word
about that candidate's platform and overcoming overall apathy is much
harder.  And, as I said earlier, these guys have never had any opposition --
so we don't know what we could do.  But all they have is name recognition -
maybe- and if they have an opponent expressing some real ideas, they will
have to step up to the plate too and offer something.