[QCWA] Membership concerns...

[William Pasternak]

To Jeff's comment let me add one of my own.

The young are the future of ham radio -- not us 70+ year old geezers 
in declining health waiting for the "Grim Reaper" to come for us.

Without the young there will be NO ham radio in a decade or 
two.  Maybe some of you do not care about the future of our great 
hobby / service but I do.  And that gives us only one of two 
choices:  Either we do everything we can to bring the young into the 
hobby and take the time to on-pass to them -- one on one -- our 
knowledge -- or we climb into our RV's and drive away into the sunset.

Not to self aggrandize, but I made my choice some 27 years ago when I 
created the Young Ham of the Year Award.  I was fortunate enough to 
be in the position to do so thanks to support for the idea from Yaesu 
USA, CQ and later on Heil Sound.  And till the day I depart this 
mortal coil I will be young of mind and heart because I know that is 
where the future is.

Yes the body will wither with age, but so what?  I will not let that 
stand in the way of being young and devoting myself to ham radio 
because I owe it a lot including my entire lifes career.

Whether you want to be your own "Peter Pan" or your own "Grinch" is 
completely up to you.  But if you are one of the latter and happen to 
live to see this organization disappear, and want to know whom to 
blame -- look in the mirror.

Or as my budddy says, you are either a part of the problem or a part 
of the solution -- choose one.

de
Biill P. / WA6ITF



At 12:14 PM 1/8/2013, Jeffrey D Angus wrote:
>I keep hearing the same complaint, "Declining membership," and
>there's always some questionable ideas on how to fix it.
>
>The Board of Directors just took some very difficult steps to
>reverse several decades of questionable decisions.
>
>The QCWA is 65 years old now. 25 years ago it was 1987.
>
>You want new members? Stop treating the "new guys" like they
>aren't REAL hams because they didn't have to do what you did.
>Stop acting like codeless techs are "high band CBers."
>Stop acting like Extra class licensees that didn't have to take a
>21 WPM code test are "Extra-Lite."
>Stop pushing people to get an Amateur Radio license, then as soon
>as they do, ignore them because they're inexperienced.
>Stop acting like that one old guy in the neighborhood that throws
>rocks at the neighborhood kids for looking at his lawn.
>
>Give people a reason for joining the QCWA other than just where
>to find the cheapest buffet in town that you don't have to leave a
>tip at.
>
>Jeff-1.0
>wa6fwi
>
>
>
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