[SMCARA] Some comments on FD and beyond

[petebutt at comfac.com]

Dan,

  Thank you for reminding us that there is, indeed, life after Field Day! 
BTW, I thought the event went pretty well:

  - The weather was excellent for Saturday.  The rain on Sunday morning
was a surprise but kept the dust down so I guess we can't complain.

 - Amazing work by Eric on coordinating an outstanding set of licensing
sessions during the day at FD (1 Commercial GROL and 2nd Class... Radio
Telephone AND Radio Telegraphy licenses, 13 Technician Class licenses, 3
General Class licenses and 1 Extra Class license) - quick... someone buy
Eric a beer for actions above and beyond the call of duty.

  - A ton of great contacts all over the place by a number of folks. 
Steve Dagey (KA3WAP) has already come over to my house and we downloaded
a slew of pictures he took to my computer.  I will be uploading all of
them to our club web site this evening (Monday).  Take a look later
tonight to see them.  BTW, if anyone else took pictures, could you
please call me (301-862-2214 at home tonight or 301-904-8401 on my cell
most anytime) and let's arrange for me to get a copy of them to post on
the web site.  I am always looking for pictures, stories, etc. that we
can share with the rest of the membership.

  - The antenna-building project during FD was a highlight and I hope that
everyone had an opportunity to at least watch how to build a
tape-measure antenna out of, well... tape measures and PVC pipe from
Lowe's.  Good stuff and well worth doing.

  - Great demo's from John Johnston and crew showing all the capabilities
of the Civil Air Patrol.  Also, what would we have done without all the
knot typing demonstrations.  If you didn't go over and learn how to tie
up your boats to the pier correctly, shame on you.

  - Good food.  Hey, I hope that we hit the mark in that department.  I
tried something new this year by providing some healthy snack
alternatives... e.g.,  yogurt, sugar-free gelatin, fresh fruit cups, and
Navel Oranges.  I noticed that most of you gravitated over the chocolate
chip cookies and chips containers anyway... what is with that?  We did
consume 64 hamburgers, 72 hot dogs, entire crocks of meatballs and mac &
cheese, at least ten types of salads, Lumpia, chips and a boatload of
cookies of all descriptions.   That doesn't include the 128 bottles of
Deer Park water, 48 bottles of G2 Gatorade and lot's of sodas.  BTW, if
anyone has any feedback on food selections, etc., please post them to
the reflector so we can document them for next time.

  - We learned once again that unless you've been a chief in the Navy for
ten years, you don't know how to make coffee!  At one point, we had at
least five people working on the puzzle of how much water to put in the
coffee machine and we still couldn't get it right.  Now you know why I
don't drink the stuff.  I guess everyone has migrated over to the use of
K-Cups :)  Luckily, the man of the hour... Mr. Potato Gun himself
(Richard  Bozovich, KG3BOZ) was a Navy Chief and he came to the rescue
and showed us all once again who holds all the power, wisdom and
knowledge in the Navy!

  - Tom & Dan... we probably should craft up a nice letter of thanks to
the President and Officers of the Hollywood Volunteer Fire Department
thanking them for letting us use the Bingo Hall and facilities free of
charge again this year.  Without that donation, we probably could not
afford to use the Hollywood site due to cost considerations.

  Now, a couple thoughts on the swap fest:

  - I think we might be able to use the Bingo Hall again for a
multi-county swap fest if we talk to Gene Talley.  See my note above
about sending an appreciation letter to the HVFD membership which might
go a long way to having continued use of the site.  The nice thing about
the Hollywood location is that it is convenient to all three of the
counties, the bingo hall can serve as the central focus for any
displays, etc. and there is plenty of outside space to set up tailgating
that wouldn't block or hinder fire department operations.  For food, we
might be able to get Bear Creek BBQ or one of the other local food
vendor trucks to come in and set up if we can give them a rough
magnitude of total anticipated attendees.  That would reduce our
workload and allow more of us to participate in the swap fest
activities.

  - I would vote for a late Saturday morning time frame to start (e.g.,
about 9 AM) to give folks from out of county time to get here and run it
from 9 AM to about 3 PM.

  - Definitely invite all the other clubs from both sides of the rivers to
participate and perhaps even let them help sponsor it.

  - Consider inviting some of our local businesses like AJ Farmer
(JefaTech) to set up shop and market their wares.

  - We should consider doing some of the same activities we had during
Field Day... e.g., offering license exams, project building, equipment
demonstrations (how about a radio controlled potato gun?)

  - If we want this event to be successful, we have to start planning for
it ASAP.  It takes some work to stage a successful mini-hamfest/swap
fest but it might be worth it.  Suggest we also look at whether it might
be possible to either charge a small fee to tail gate (not sure if
that's any option) or at least have a donation box to allow us to help
defray some of the costs.

  That's all... keep the ideas coming!

  R/ Pete (WA3UMY)