Past Members

I sent the following message to 222 past member email addresses:

Hello friends of the Anne Arundel Radio Club,

Let me first introduce myself to you. My name is Douglas Ellmore, Sr. / NA1DX. I am the committee lead for the newly formed committee on membership development and retention.

This committee was formed because over the last few years the membership of the Anne Arundel Radio Club (AARC) has decreased significantly. As of February 2017, we were less than 80 paid members.

When I first joined the AARC in 1996, the membership was over 400 amateur radio operators and their families. With the growth of the hobby to record numbers of licensed hams in the US, you might expect growth in membership, too. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.

I am reaching out to AARC members of the prior few years who have not recently renewed. You are a small subset of the over 2200 licensed amateur radio operators in the Anne Arundel and surrounding areas.

There are a number of benefits to membership, as well as, opportunities to contribute to your local community through amateur radio activities with the club:

•Public Service Events like area Annapolis Strider running races.
•Training future hams.
•Testing future hams.
•Advancing your operating skill by using the club station and operating with the club during field day.
•Attending monthly presentations on ham radio and related activities.
•Learning to build radio equipment kits and antennas.
•Elmering new hams or being elmered.

Recently on our web site we have created new forums to promote our community and club activities based on the topics above and more. These are setup to help open the communications between members and their interests.

If you have ever experienced one of the recent emergencies or experienced extensive crowds at special events, you know that the cellular phones don’t always get through. Landline connection is also subject to emergency weather events. Being a licensed radio operator, you know that our radios do get through. Our repeater infrastructure is the common denominator for all licensed amateur radio operators in our county and beyond.

Your membership fee most importantly goes to first help sustain the AARC repeater network and building facilities. Our towers require routine safety inspections and maintenance in order for them to be used for daily traffic, weather spotters, and emergency communications. If we cannot get to past levels of membership, our club will have to look to additional ways to pay for the care of this infrastructure.

The easiest way to renew is to visit the club web site at http://www.w3vpr.org/ . On the left side of the main menu is the Web form to Join or Renew. Please consider renewing today. Primary membership is just $30!

If you are not interested in renewing, please let us know why. You can email me at na1dx@arrl.net and tell me why you don’t want to renew.

If during renewing you have feedback, you can also email at na1dx@arrl.net.

Either way, we want to hear from our past membership and rebuild your interest and the club’s support to the community and your fun with the hobby.

We look forward to hearing from you.

73 and Good DX,

Doug / NA1DX

doug@ellmore.net / na1dx@arrl.net / 301-807-2193