[W2CRA] Open Question to the Membership

[Bob Grear KA2OEE]

Dear CRA members:
 
Over the last couple of week, I have been exchanging e-mails with some of our members regarding the state of CRA, the .375 machine, the web page, and our dwindling membership turnout.  This has touched a nerve with me, as I have been a member of CRA since 1981, and I am frankly both distressed, and angry about our current situation!
 
Folks, this club has been around a long time, and I am proud to be a member and officer of a club with a great history of community service and amateur radio spirit.  I am NOT proud of where we stand right now.  Our repeater needs work, our web site needs to be revised and updated, we direly need someone to publicize the club in traditional ways, and we need to recruit new members!  The Executive Board has discussed each of these topics repeatedly over the last two or three years, and we are not making progress!  
 
Executive Board members have been taking on increasing responsibility for running the club's routine activities including the hamfest, the community service events, the awards/holiday dinner, and even the education and testing we sponsor.  The entire two member Technical Committee is made up only of Executive Board members.  We have no standing committees at all and when I or Michael before me have asked for volunteers for committees or work parties to assist the technical committee, we have rarely had anyone raise a hand to offer assistance.  It is as if the members attending the meetings are totally deaf!  What will it take to get the members to step forward and take part in the necessary functions of the club?
 
The few non-board members who turn out for club meetings don't seem at all motivated to volunteer to make CRA grow and prosper!  Yes, we need to recruit new members, but to to that, the existing members need to get involved in the process!  Yes, we need to fix the repeater "once and for all", but to do that, the existing members need to get involved to make it happen!  How much longer are YOU, the members, going to expect someone else to step forward and do it?  CRA cannot exist much longer if YOU, the members, don't take on the tasks of doing the club's work!!
 
I know all of us are not as young as we used to be, but I am not asking you to put up towers at Field day, or for that matter do a whole lot that involves physical labor!  All of us had to have enough of a technical understanding to pass our license exams!  Most of us know how to turn a screwdriver or take a voltage reading with a meter.  People, you don't need to be an engineer with an advanced degree to help with the repeater repairs!  You don't need to have a degree in public relations to contact the news outlets to announce club events!  Any one of us can do that.
 
Where do you stand in all this?  I want to hear from you!  E-mail me!  Call my home phone (908) 231-0746.  Talk to me on the air!  
 
We are at a critical point in CRA's history.  Let's all step up and fix what is broken.  Put aside your differences with personalities and volunteer for the greater good of the club!  Let me hear from you!
 
Sincerely,
 
Bob Grear, KA2OEE
President, Cherryville Repeater Association II