[QCWA] Membership concerns...

[Dave Heil]

The young have always been the future of amateur radio.  Those of us who 
have been around for quite some time are certainly part of its pasts and 
present.  I'm a little over six years from seventy and I don't believe 
that many folks look at their lives as just waiting for the Grim Reaper.

Without those of us with experience, the newcomers will sound just about 
the way those on or near 7200 KHz do these days.  It is for us to guide 
newcomers and demonstrate the amateur radio spirit as well as 
demonstrating good operating practice.  All of us care about amateur 
radio's future.  You've demonstrated that by presenting amateur radio 
news and by bringing about the "Young Ham of the Year" award.

QCWA has long awarded scholarships to young hams so we know that the 
organization has been and continues to be concerned about new blood in 
amateur radio.

The point, though, is that QCWA's name says what the organization is 
about:  QUARTER CENTURY Wireless Association.  It isn't the Decade 
Wireless Association or the Fifteen Year Wireless Association.  We exist 
as a fraternal group interested primarily in reminiscing about our good 
old days.  Tomorrow's members will reminisce about THEIR good old days. 
  We aren't necessarily part of a solution or problem.  We are free to 
gather to do as we wish to do in peace and harmony.

73,

Dave Heil K8MN
near but not in Cameron, WV

On 1/9/2013 08 01, William Pasternak wrote:
> 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



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