[NCARC] Hamfest Committee

[David Johnston]

My fellow Americans,

In the last 24 hours there have been numerous emails flying around about
the upcoming hamfest and more specifically the changes that the committee
has decided to make regarding price structure. I can assure you that these
changes were not made rashly, and that they were discussed ad nauseam at
our meeting. As per club procedure, I plan to address the board of
directors at the upcoming meeting, and then the club members at the
subsequent meeting regarding these changes. This is something that was
missing last year, a committee that made decisions and a chair who has the
time to attend meetings to discuss them. Jerry had personal problems that
prevented this from happening, and I am not faulting him for it. I am
however taking a more aggressive approach. My goal is to have everything
planned, decided and whatnot by mid August, so we can focus *entirely* on
marketing from that point on.

Before sending the email out to the NCARC community, Charles did not allow
me any chance to respond to the changes, something which I find very
upsetting. If he would have allowed even three hours for me to get to a
computer, I would have written him a very lengthy explanation of why we
decided on these changes, and reassured him that they were discussed, and
are still up for discussion. Instead he decided to blast everyone with an
email regarding the changes. I just received a response from him, and his
reason for sending this to the whole club was because of a remark from
someone who (probably) felt like he came on a little strong. Let's leave it
at that.

That being said, I take extreme offense to the notion that we were acting
irresponsibly in deciding to change the pricing structure. You want to know
what's irresponsible? Having personal issues that keep you from doing your
duty as hamfest chair and "not having the time" to tell anyone that you
weren't getting your tasks done. I understand personal issues, but I also
understand how to communicate to people that you were having problems.
Telling us a month before hand that you are sick doesn't help us.
Futhermore, it's irresponsible to go to the board of directors and say that
you "can't get a hold of someone" without making an effort. Know what else
is irresponsible? Waiting until 5 weeks before the event to start
contacting vendors. Oh, and I'd say it's pretty irresponsible for someone
to complain to the membership when a snippy email is received. I'd say if
you want to talk about responsibility, let's start looking at last year.

I was pretty calm about all of this until I re-read the email that Charles
sent out. How dare you call us irresponsible. If you have a problem with
something we did, please act like a responsible adult and contact the
committee chair. Don't play this game of emailing the whole club.We saw how
this went with the voting receiver, and I'm not letting the hamfest be
handled the same way.


A few things to keep in mind:

        1. The hamfest committee is tasked with planning the hamfest and
making all of the important decisions so that the board of directors is not
overwhelmed with the work load of planning a massive event. These decisions
DO need to be run by the board, and at the board meeting (July 9) they will
be discussed. Any and all input from board members will be taken by the
committee chair (me) and presented to the committee for consideration. This
is how these things work. We decide something, the board discusses it, and
we make sure everyone is on the same page. The whole idea is that we don't
need to bother EVERYONE in the club with details about this event.
Interested people are welcome to attend any meetings (including the board
meeting) and are also welcome to contact me directly.

       2. The hamfest committee this year is taking a completely different
approach than last year. We are making decisions early on and are talking
to vendors NOW instead of in late December, as was done last year. This
should dramatically increase table sales, and will also give us a buffer if
we find that tables are not selling at the new price structure. This means
that we'll be getting feedback about prices before we are in too deep to
get back out. *If we are getting a poor response to the price changes, we
can very easily revert back to the old pricing structure.*

      3. Since we are starting to contact vendors now, and will hopefully
have a much larger vendor turnout, we can market general admission
differently, by saying that we had some troubles last year but we can
assure people that we will have more vendors, no empty tables, and that we
are going to give them the best bang for their $8 that they can get. We are
still the largest show in the area.

      4. My role as hamfest chair (and PAO) means that I am ultimately
responsible for what happens with the hamfest. This is not something that I
take lightly. I have carefully selected my committee (all of whom
volunteered to help) and we are making great strides towards conveying to
everyone (both vendors and attendees) that we are under new management and
that the hamfest is growing. This means that while I am the "face" of the
hamfest to the members, we decided things as a group.

Rather than sending mass emails to everyone regarding this event, I am
asking everyone to please attempt direct contact with me personally first.
I am usually on the 447.275 repeater at some point during the day, and you
now have my email address. My work schedule will be changing slightly this
month, allowing for more free time for me to work on this event, and I
would LOVE to hear from people with their thoughts. I do not often hear my
phone ring, and I cannot answer it while I am working, but I can almost
always respond to emails, and can make phone calls when I get off of work.
I promise that I will respond within a reasonable time frame, usually
within a few hours. If I'm camping, or otherwise not within radio/cell
phone range, I will get back to you when I return.

If this is something that needs to be dealt with immediately, please email
the hamfest committee at "hamfestcommittee" AT ncarc.net. This will reach
the entire committee. In my absence, they are still able to hold meetings
and make decisions. I do not plan to take any major vacations or be out of
touch for more than five days any time in the next 6 months, so this
shouldn't be a problem.

We as the hamfest committee are doing everything we can to try and get
things back on track to make this the biggest and the best hamfest in the
region. We suffered some minor glitches last year, and I can assure
everyone that we are working VERY hard to make this go off well.
Let's be grown ups about this. No more mass emails and no more calling each
other names!

-- 
-Dave
KD8BQN