Recording of the November 2017 Meeting

• Mike Mathews advocated for the combines club bylaws and the advantages of the 501 3(c) and how we could bring other repeaters into the system.
• Nebraska QSO Party April 22nd and 23rd 150th anniversary operating from historical locations sites important to Nebraska History like Brian’s Birthplace
• 21 paid members most of which never show up.
• Reading of the treasurers report motion accepted
• Nominating of officers,
  • President- Daniel Bergman N0DND
  • Vice President – Jeremy Smith KC0NUK
  • Treasurer – Jay Rasmussen wx9r
  • Secretary – Open
• Talked about Asking Brad to have his ham Training classes here in GI
• Press Release?
• When do you want to go look at centennial towers
• Antennas at EOC, possibly need HF Radio.
• Talk to Jon about antennas and HF Radio. Setting up on radio for digital and one for phone.
• Talked about making a goal of having our own club house
• Wondered why whoever is responsible for D-Star is not wanting to maintain system, does not currently operate correctly, Some issue with gateway. Maybe talk to jon?
• Training on knowing your radio
• Meeting Adjourned

As many of you know there have been a few changes in the works. We have been working to combine the clubs under one flag, giving us the benefit of size, numbers, and non-profit status. Mike Mathews, President of the Hastings club, has put in a lot of work toward these ends. I have here a few documents for your review. Please comment now or forever hold your peace. These documents are stored in a dropbox account, if you want to make notes feel free to do so. We will make sure it gets back to those who need to know. Otherwise just comment on the post.

Articles of Incorporation

Bylaws of Midwest Amateur Radio Club 

Also, and maybe more importantly, We will be reaching out to all club members in the coming days to chat about some of the changes we have been doing and/or thinking about. We also want to update our Database on members, whether or not they want to participate in ARES activities and whether or not they want to have equipment on the list that can be volunteered. In the coming days there will be another post about ARES operating procedure, our interfacing with the EOC emergency operations. There will be many training opportunities and activities. 

At our Saturday morning breakfast this week the topic of fund raising came up. While we are working on becoming a 501c3 organization which should help with donations, it has become necessary to increase our funds somehow. This can be accomplished in a couple of different ways, one would be to raise membership dues, but another way would be to hold a couple of fund raisers during the year.

Why has this become necessary? Our equipment  has become aged, and some of it needs repair. Some components need to be upgraded, for instance the comet antennas we are using have proven not to be very reliable. Even if we build our own equipment we still need materials. We are going to start training and even some of that is going to require some funds.

Also, if we can grow the club and get more participation it would be a pretty cool deal if we could provide ourselves a club house where we can set up our station, and actually spend some time playing with the big boys. Is it a dream? well maybe but if we all set a little time asside to participate it is something we can achieve.

At this time we are looking for ideas! Even if you don’t have an idea a comment or two to know where we stand as a club would be great. So let me know what you think and lets start moving our club in a direction where we all want to be there and where we all are having fun with it, that is after all why we are wll here. so, sound off guys.?

In Attendance:

Dan Bergman N0DND

Jeremy Smith kc0nuk

Gene Hornung wb0pkp

Jay Rasmussen nx9r

Jaden Smith Visitor

Perry Haake kb0ifm

Darlene Haake Visitor

Stan Coleman n0yxv

Rachelle Lipker Special Guest

• Introduced Michelle Lipker, the new Executive director of the Red Cross to the club
• Voted on not having Meeting in December, officers will be nominated in November and voted on in January
• A quick recap on the club joining. Mike Mathews, President of hastings club, is working on bylaws now and will let us when He gets them written.
• Discussed once again how to get topics on the Agenda
• Recap of Harvest of Harmony, Auxcom training, and jeremy gave a short synopsis on the Presentation to the walnut middle school science club.
• Dan passed on to club CERT members Jon was thinking of a 10 hour a year Minimum
• Dan gave a Training Scenario that began a lot of discussion on how we would and should prepare for a disaster.
• Adjourned for the evening