[K3PZN-List] The "unclub"

[wa3mej at comcast.net]

Pete, 

 Very interesting article. Some 42 years ago I joined a new club just starting up. They had intentionally limited membership to a max of 30 members and although you were always invited to their regular meetings you had to be invited to join the club. But here is the thing all of these members were extremely active and all got along well. About 9 or 10 years after their founding the club, under pressure from outsiders held a constitutional convention to change the constutition and remove the 30 member limit. I and several others opposed this but were out voted.  So we opened up the membership to whomever wanted to join and yes the club grew in leaps and bounds everyone that ever wanted to be in a club joined.  Before long we had 70 some members but her is the thing. The administration of a large organization takes a lot more work than a small one people left because their family duties did not allow time for the administartion of the larger organization, arguments between members became common place and only a small portion of the membership came to each meeting.  



See its not about how large of a club you have but how active the club is... what the members get out of the meetings.  Do they learn something, to they articipate. Is the club responsive to new member needs, d o they actively seek new members when unknow hams show up ? 



Ham clubs can have a job or function such as EMCOM, contesting etc but they are by their nature a social organization and when it stops being that way you will lose members or not be able to entice new members.  ALso hams seem to have this need to learn and grow much as the hobby does, the "need to learn as you do" seems to be bread into this type of person.  We do this constantly even without knowing it.. transmit antennas, high power amplifiers, low noise receive antennas and the list goes on. We learn both from reading and from others, we need this interaction with other hams progress. There is not single person out there that has assembled a big contest station without drawing on the knowlege from other contesters, technicians and engineers out there.  I know of a station that automated his circle 8 antenna array with an arduino remoted by WIFI.. how cool is that. 



You can tell how successful a club is by the number of members that return each month.. that cant wait until the next meeting to share what they have learned or to extract more info out of their friend Joe.  When we stop growing we lose interest and dont come back, the club atrophies and dies. 



By the way that club I joined is still going and last time I checked they had over 100 members but most of them did not come meetings and did not join in any activities they were members only on paper. Way back when all 30 members were there for every meeting. Oh this club is still called the same thing today.. its the Maryland Mobileers. 



Happy New Year to all .. and have lots of fun on the bands 



Jim 

Long Live Seal Team VI 

http://www.qsl.net/wa3mej/index.htm 
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Morton" <mortonph at comcast.net> 
To: "CCARC" <k3pzn-list at mailman.qth.net> 
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2013 11:00:20 AM 
Subject: [K3PZN-List] The "unclub" 

Interesting article on the ARRL web site: 

http://www.arrl.org/the-un-club 

Please, I'm not proposing the "unclub" for the CCARC.  It's just an interesting concept. 

-Pete, W3GVX 
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