In addition to the AARC, I am a member of the Potomac Valley Radio Club (PVRC). The PVRC is a "contest" focused organization. I think it is a model of how communication and members can get involved. There newsletter is at:
One of the elements of the PVRC newsletter is membership. The PVRC is a no dues membership organization. People donate their time and $ as they can.
This got me to think maybe we should rethink our membership strategy. Your a member as long as you stay in good standing at non cost. Then a couple times a year we ask for donations or we do a special event to raise funds. It would require us to rethink how we raise $. But, if we build a groundswell of members on our web site that we never turn off, we can be in constant contact with the member without dropping them off the list.
We also should strive to get EVERY licensed amateur in Anne Arundel County to become a member, to get involved, and maybe make a donation to the club to help keep the repeaters and other facilities operational.
Again, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
When I first joined, I accidentally sent too much money and Rick KK4GV, contacted me and I told him to put it in the repeater fund. That's when I was surprised to learn that there was no repeater fund. Virtually all the clubs I have been a member of had separate funds for a set purpose, in addition to regular dues. That way it someone wanted some improvement sooner they could vote with their money so to speak.
Another thought is that as a non-profit I think the club would qualify for Amazon Smile which will give a certain percentage of each purchase to a non-profit if the Amazon member directs them to.
Doug: I was thinking how nice it would be if the club had more money making contracts with the government or other public enterprises. These have probably been explored over the years. For example who might rent an antenna location on our tower? If the government owns the land, what radio relay or other functions might some government organization be interested in developing with W3VPR technical support? Since I'm not experienced in such matters, I don't even know if a non-profit organization can pursue such money making agreements?
You can probably find the not-yet made public page if you think like a email-scraping web-bot. We've already been spammed.
Thinking like a bot: This page is node 202...
Drupal 7 needs a plug-in just to be configured to not serve protected pages if the scraping bot is not logged in. I hope to get what should really be a core feature installed ASAP, plus a few other upgrades.
Membership Drive
In addition to the AARC, I am a member of the Potomac Valley Radio Club (PVRC). The PVRC is a "contest" focused organization. I think it is a model of how communication and members can get involved. There newsletter is at:
http://www.pvrc.org/Newsletters/2017_02.pdf
One of the elements of the PVRC newsletter is membership. The PVRC is a no dues membership organization. People donate their time and $ as they can.
This got me to think maybe we should rethink our membership strategy. Your a member as long as you stay in good standing at non cost. Then a couple times a year we ask for donations or we do a special event to raise funds. It would require us to rethink how we raise $. But, if we build a groundswell of members on our web site that we never turn off, we can be in constant contact with the member without dropping them off the list.
We also should strive to get EVERY licensed amateur in Anne Arundel County to become a member, to get involved, and maybe make a donation to the club to help keep the repeaters and other facilities operational.
Again, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
very 73,
Doug NA1DX
When I first joined, I
When I first joined, I accidentally sent too much money and Rick KK4GV, contacted me and I told him to put it in the repeater fund. That's when I was surprised to learn that there was no repeater fund. Virtually all the clubs I have been a member of had separate funds for a set purpose, in addition to regular dues. That way it someone wanted some improvement sooner they could vote with their money so to speak.
Another thought is that as a non-profit I think the club would qualify for Amazon Smile which will give a certain percentage of each purchase to a non-profit if the Amazon member directs them to.
W3VPR Public Marketing Revenues
Doug: I was thinking how nice it would be if the club had more money making contracts with the government or other public enterprises. These have probably been explored over the years. For example who might rent an antenna location on our tower? If the government owns the land, what radio relay or other functions might some government organization be interested in developing with W3VPR technical support? Since I'm not experienced in such matters, I don't even know if a non-profit organization can pursue such money making agreements?
Robert A Weber, WA2MQK, club member
Well I was working on that....
You can probably find the not-yet made public page if you think like a email-scraping web-bot. We've already been spammed.
Thinking like a bot: This page is node 202...
Drupal 7 needs a plug-in just to be configured to not serve protected pages if the scraping bot is not logged in. I hope to get what should really be a core feature installed ASAP, plus a few other upgrades.
fixed
Our sidebar now links our current board. We're all using w3vpr email links that usually forward email to our actual address. Usually.
If you have access to it, best to use the club roster emails instead.