Minutes of the February 2017 meeting of the Fort Smith Area Amateur Radio Club
FSAARC February Meeting Minutes 2-20-17
The February 2017 meeting was called to order by President Mike Cole, W5TMC at 7:00 p.m. on 2-20-17. Other officers present were vice-president, Rory Bowers, K5CKS, acting secretary, Jeff Ricketts, K5KDX and Treasurer, Cathy Haugh KF5UYT. A motion to accept the minutes of January’s meeting was made by Jim, KI7AY and was seconded by Jim Weaver KM5YV. The motion carried.
The treasurer’s report was read with John Zellmer, KD5II making the motion to accept the treasurer’s report as read and with Art Sellers, W3TZ seconding the motion. The motion carried. The group then all introduced themselves.Wayne Johnson, W5OFN, repeater chairman had nothing new about the repeater.W5OFN informed the group that there is a meeting on Monday 2-27-17 at 7 PM, at the EOC on Massard Rd. in Ft. Smith for emergency preparedness and communications related topics locally. There is SKYWARN weather spotter meeting scheduled for Monday 3-13-17 at 6 PM at the EOC.
W5TMC asked for old news and none was brought up.
In “NEW” news, Joe Stokes, K5JPS indicated that the last testing session done on 2-11-17 gave us 4 new Technicians and 1 new General. Field Day will not be at Columbus Acres. Joel Goldstein, W5GOL texted to the City of Greenwood to get Bell Park in Greenwood reserved for our Field Day the last full weekend in June. We are planning a picnic for some time in April 2017. We plan to have it at the club meeting site. W5TMC needs your email address if you have not given it to him. W5TMC advises that Main Trading Co. will not be at the Hanging Judge Hamfest this year. We will have Associated Radio, WB0W, Wireman, Mr. Robinsons wife who does hats and shirts will be here, HamCrazyStore.com will be here. Not sure if D&L antenna will be here. Battery Tech will be here. A discussion of dropping the entry donation to $5.00 per person was made by W5TMC for the hamfest. Those who donate to enter can then purchase additional prize tickets as 1 will not be given for free with the admission donation. We will not have pre-admission payments this year. KI7AY motioned that we have the entry donation set at $5.00 and have a donation can or jar for additional donations. Doc Floyd W5JE seconded the motion and the motion carried.
We will also need volunteers to help set up the venue when the vendors get here and need to set up. After discussion, we all agreed that W5TMC will draw the prize tickets out of the cage. W5GOL will let us know if we get Bell Park for FD. John Annis, WO0OOO is working on the website and still needs a key for accessing all of the website. He currently has no access to the web host and needs this to move forward. We are paid up for about 2 years on the website. Cheri suggests 2 or 3 club members have access to the webserver so we can keep the website fully functional in case someone moves, dies, etc. and we lose access to the website.
W3TZ wanted to know why we don’t do FD at the EOC. Not enough trees amongst other things. Same thing about the FT. Smith National Historic Site. The awards for 2016 were not able to be given out at the February meeting as Jimmie Lowrey, W5JNL was not in attendance. We will try to have this done in our next monthly meeting. Mike Bell, K5JMB then motioned for adjournment and so it was as the motion passed.
Respectfully submitted,
Jeff Ricketts, K5KDX – FSAARC Acting Secretary
For Steve Rutherford, WC5SR – FSAARC Secretary