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Loose Ends
 n preparing the article about the Nominating Committee that appears elsewhere in this issue, I got a chance to re-read the By-Laws once again. I wrote most of them, so I should know what's in them, but after 22 years or so, my memory was getting fuzzy. I did note a few things in there that have been honored more in the breach than in the observance.
There are a number of standing committees enumerated in Article VIII that haven't seen the light of day in years. Indeed, it would appear that a lot of the things outlined there have been shunted off onto one officer whose other commitments are beginning to take precedence over his ability to do them. That was certainly not the intent of the committee that drew these procedures up and the rest of us that have amended them over the years. It's also not fair to that officer, to make him the gofer for the rest of the Board.
Article VIII refers to 3 standing committees, only one of which has been at all active in name and deed. They are Activities, Repeater, and Social. Let's take a look at the designated duties of each, article by article:
2. Activities Committee: The Activities Committee shall coordinate all operating activities undertaken by the Club, to include all activities where the Club and Amateur Radio are presented to the general public. The Committee shall be responsible for setting up programs for General Meetings; and shall have custody over all Club-owned equipment, except for the Club Repeater Stations, W7LT/R. The Vice President shall chair the Activities Committee.
3. Repeater Committee: The Repeater Committee shall be responsible for the maintenance, custody and upkeep of Repeater Stations W7LT/R. The Chairman shall be appointed by and shall serve at the discretion of the Board of Directors and shall serve as an
ex-officio member of the Board. All monies allotted to the repeater operation, or which are donated for the operation of the repeaters shall be placed in a separate bank savings account, the purpose of which is to fund ownership and maintenance expenses and improvements to the repeaters. Unspent funds remaining at the end of the year in the account shall be left to accumulate alongside the next year's allocations, so as to allow for the further upkeep, emergency maintenance and ultimate replacement of the repeater station equipment. The Repeater Committee Chairman and the Treasurer shall be authorized signers of withdrawal slips from this account.
6. Social Committee: The Social Committee shall coordinate all purely social activities of the Club, and shall have responsibilities for providing refreshments at all General Meetings. The Chairman shall report to the Vice President and to the Board of Directors; and may be an Associate Member.
Some numbered paragraphs from Article VIII appear to have been deleted (including the one about the Publicity/Newsletter Committee, which has some life despite the lack of official status). As you can see, only the Repeater Committee has come close to meeting these criteria. There hasn't been a standing Activities Committee in about 20 years. To my knowledge, there never has been a standing Social Committee. Some of this is a matter of volunteer-based organizations' inherent inability to muster more than 10% of their membership into any level of involved activity. What the lack of an Activities Committee has meant is that one officer has been stuck holding the bag for meeting programs, Field Day, and other such things. One of the things that have made our suburban counterparts a lot more successful than PARC is the involvement of family members in social activities. That was the purpose in establishing the Social Committee in the By-Laws. We're stubbing our own toes by not implementing it.
-AL7W
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