[SFDXA] January 2016 ARRL Board Meeting Recap

[Bill]

Between the Board Meeting in January, the Puerto Rico State Convention
at the end of January, and the Orlando HamCation/ARRL National
Convention, it has been quite a busy start to the year!

Here are the highlights of the meeting, how I voted on each one, and
why I voted that way. As this will be a long email, I'll leave out
votes on awards, thanks to staff, and honorary positions (all of which
were unanimous). You can read the full minutes here:
<http://www.arrl.org/files/file/About%20ARRL/Board%20Meetings/2016_January_ARRL_Board_Minutes.pdf>

Those that read the minutes when they were sent out via email saw that
I was nominated for President of the ARRL by one of my fellow
Directors. (You can sign up to receive them in your profile on
arrl.org.) While I would have served if elected, I accepted the
nomination so there would be a choice available. I believe that
dissenting voices are an essential element for an organization to be
healthy. I am honored that some of my fellow Directors cast their votes
for me.

Rick Roderick, K5UR, who was the First Vice President was elected to a
two year term as President. Rick has already shown a great deal of
leadership and I'm looking forward to working with him. Rick joined
Vice Director Mike Lee, AA6ML, and me in Puerto Rico at the Convention
and again at the National Convention in Orlando a few weeks later.

The CEO Search Committee presented its report and recommendations to
the Board. I was the only Director that voted against accepting the
report. It is now widely known that Tom Gallagher, NY2RF, was selected
to be the new CEO. My vote against accepting the report was not a vote
against Tom, it was a vote against a flawed process that had still
managed to come to a good recommendation. This vote was only on
accepting the committee's report; the vote on hiring Tom as CEO was
done a week or so later in an electronic meeting of the Board and I did
indeed vote for Tom as CEO.

I have had several opportunities to talk with Tom at length and am very
excited about the ARRL's future under his guidance as CEO. By the way,
Tom is from our Division (South Florida).

The Strategic Plan (2016-2020) was presented to the Board for
acceptance. I was the lone vote against the plan. After I had reviewed
the plan, I was very disappointed with it as it lacked a vision for the
future with a path to reach that vision. You can read the plan for
yourself here: <http://www.arrl.org/arrl-strategic-plan>

The Executive Committee submitted a motion to clean up the League's
Standing Orders, eliminating ones that have been replaced by the Board
with later orders or that have become irrelevant due to organizational
changes over time. The vote was unanimous to adopt the motion.

The Administration & Finance Committee presented the 2016-2017 budget
plan and it was unanimously accepted.

Southwestern Division Director Dick Norton, N6AA, made a motion to
modify the current Division boundaries to ones contained in his motion.
The proposed boundaries were chosen to attempt to balance the size of
the Divisions. Our Division is the largest with more than 16,000
members while the Dakota Division is the smallest with about 3,500
members—4.5 times smaller than our Division. Director Norton was
attempting to give equal weight to all members by having each Director
represent approximately the same number of members. It has been many
decades since any Division lines have been changed.

The motion failed with 12 votes against it, including mine. While I
applaud Director Norton for bringing the disparity to the forefront, I
believe that the issue deserves much more attention to determine the
right way to proceed.

I made a motion to amend the ARRL Travel Policy to the following:
"Directors – Travel within their own Division is at the discretion of
each Director. Travel to neighboring Divisions on official ARRL business
shall be coordinated with advance notification to the Director of the
Division being visited.
Division budgets may be used for travel on official ARRL business to
the Dayton Hamvention, extending stays at headquarters, and making an
additional trip annually to Headquarters for those Directors serving on
committees that do not hold four meetings a year there."

The changes included allowing reimbursement for travel to Dayton,
staying at HQ before or after Board Meetings, and going to HQ one
additional time. Dayton was included as it is the largest gathering of
amateurs in the world, many amateurs travel to Dayton from all over the
country, the ARRL has a huge presence there, and it is the only place
where an annual gathering of donors occurs. Many members I have talked
to previously were surprised to learn that Directors were not
reimbursed for attending Dayton to work on the ARRL's behalf.

As to HQ travel, it is important to realize that the 15 Directors are
the voting members of the Board of a sixteen million dollar non-profit
corporation with 100 employees and 170,000 members. We have a fiduciary
duty to the organization and part of fulfilling that duty requires that
we be informed about the organization. That requires spending some time
at HQ interacting with the staff and gathering information. Excluding
the Administration and Finance Committee that meets at HQ in between
our Board Meetings, the only time a Director was previously reimbursed
was for the day traveling to HQ before the Meeting, the meeting days,
and travel the day after the meeting (Sunday). The busy Committee/Board
Meeting schedule makes it almost impossible to spend any actual time at
HQ meeting with staff. The changes allow Directors to maximize trips
there by being reimbursed for going a day earlier.

The motion was adopted.

As an aside, while we do have small budgets available for reimbursement
many members do not realize that Board Members (President, Vice
Presidents, Directors, and Vice Directors) are unpaid volunteers. This
is also true for the Section Managers.

I made a motion stating that the Board is interested in establishing an
ARRL Digital Media Content Channel and directing staff to prepare a
proposal to be submitted to the Board's Executive Committee at its
upcoming meeting. The concept is to have YouTube type videos available
on a wide array of amateur radio topics. Some would be prepared by the
fantastic experts we have on staff and others would be submitted by
members. Some would be short 3-5 minute videos aimed at sparking
interest in amateur radio by non-hams. Others would be longer 10-15
minute videos that would be suitable for use as a program at a radio
club meeting. There might be videos on how to correctly install a coax
connector, different HQ operating areas, public service, and hundreds
of other amateur radio and electronics related areas. The videos would
be publicly available on the Internet.

The motion was adopted.

Hudson Division Director Mike Lisenco made a motion to create an ad hoc
Legislative Advocacy Committee to oversee the League's activities in
legislative matters such as lobbying for the Amateur Radio Parity Act
which is pending in Congress. The motion was adopted and I voted in
favor of it. Director Lisenco has been at the forefront of our efforts
in Congress. The creation of the committee will elevate the League's
current and future efforts in this area critical to the future of
amateur radio.

The Legislative Advocacy Committee has been formed and I am one of the
four members appointed to the committee by President Roderick.

In light of Director Norton's failed motion to change the Division
boundaries, I made a motion to create a Reapportionment Committee to
study member representation. The motion specified that the fifteen
Divisions would be grouped into five sets of three based on the member
population. We are in Group 5, the largest three Divisions
(Southeastern, Atlantic, and Southwestern). Each Group was then to
select a representative to serve on the committee and the committee
would then elect a Chair.

The motion specified the committee shall explore at minimum these
possible means of reapportionment:
1. Realigning Division Boundaries,
2. Decreasing the Number of Divisions,
3. Increasing the Number of Divisions,
4. Weighting a Director’s Vote Based Upon the Number of Members They
Represent,
and any other means they may determine.

It further specifies that the committee will issue a preliminary report
to the Board and then to the membership so that comments can be
solicited from the membership. A final report to the Board is due at
the January 2017 meeting.

The motion was adopted. I was chosen to represent Group 5 on the
committee and was elected to Chair the committee.

For 2016, I am on the following committees:

Programs and Services
Legislative Action
Reapportionment
VHF+ Contest

I am also on the Board Liasion to the Contest Advisory Committee (our
CAC representative George Wagner, K5KG, is the Chair of the CAC).

Vice Director Lee is not on any committees for 2016. This is not
unusual as the vast majority of the committee assignment positions are
for Directors and quite a few Vice Directors do not serve on committees
each year.

Rest assured that while you may not see Mike and I at a lot of hamfests
due to our business commitments, we are putting in a huge number of
hours actively working to make the League even better!

73 de K4AC and AA4FL

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ARRL Southeastern Division
Director: Doug Rehman, K4AC
k4ac at arrl.org