Minutes of the August 2013 meeting of the Fort Smith Area Amateur Radio Club
08/19/2013 Meeting Minutes of the F.S.A.A.R.C.
The August 2013 meeting of the F.S.A.A.R.C. was call to order by club president Corey Freeman who then turned the floor over to Rory Bowers club treasurer who then proceeded in giving the financial report which can be viewed in it’s entirety via the FSAARC website as a logged in member.
The floor was then reopened with Corey Freeman bringing to the memberships attention that there was a board of directors meeting Thursday evening Aug. 15th with multiple discussions concerning the need for a budget set forth annually as well as concerns on how we as a club can keep from losing ground financially and be able to keep up with the annual bills. David Overton club vice president took over the discussion by explaining on how the club used the profits from the annual Hanging Judge Hamfest as a financial blanket in the past. David Overton then brought and to focus that the event has been losing ground due to a decline in attendance and explained with numerous bills needing to be paid that the club is in need of a budget.
There was a lengthy discussion on the floor from several club members about property tax assessing on the clubs van and that the county Emergency Manager would be asked of his opinion and check on the matter at hand.
Corey Freeman then brought to the floor that the board of directors is in need of an updated FSAARC equipment inventory for insurance purposes and John Samuels and Wayne Johnson would make an effort to come up with the needed information in the very near future. Jeff Ricketts then made a suggestion that there needs to be photographs of ALL of the clubs equipment to help out in identifying the insured equipment.
Corey Freeman then took the floor and asked questions about the ongoing issue with the 220 repeater, and after a lengthy discussion on the floor Rory Bowers brought to the clubs attention that the 220 machine was in his professional opinion too old to keep running due to Icom not supporting the programming aspect of the repeater and the many failures of the electronic components. John Samuels explained that a transistor has burned out in the repeater and that he purchased a couple of replacement keying transistors in which he has donated to the club. There was a question posed to the group to have a show of hands of members that used the 220 repeater and with only a few hands shown only a couple of the members had even tried to use that particular machine so there was a motion brought to the floor to discontinue the use of the 220 machine, and the vote was carried. There was then a discussion on the floor about going ahead to repair the 220 repeater and contacting its owner to see what he would like done with the repeater.
The floor was reopened for new business with a lengthy discussion on ideas on how to get new members to join the club with many productive comments including having a shorter meeting to have the extra time for programs oriented to the new HAM’s around the area and becoming more active ie. Picnics, special events and working contests again as W5ANR and inviting the new area HAM’s to participate in them.
Jeff Ricketts volunteered to do a program dealing with QSLing and Rory Bowers said he would also do a program about WinLink 2000 after next months meeting.
The floor was opened again with two new area HAM’s in attendance with their suggestions about what they as new HAM’s would like to see at a meeting.
The floor was then reopened with a motion to adjourn from Mike Bell and with a overwhelming vote to adjourn the August 2013 meeting of the Fort Smith Area Amateur Radio Club came to a close.