October 24, 2020

On Saturday, October 24, 2020, a regular meeting of the Club was conducted.  Twenty-one members were in attendance.  Draft Minutes are now available under MEETING MINUTES, under the OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS, second tab from the top left on the site.  A quick synopsis of the meeting is:

• George Haneke (NV7Z) presented the financial status report to the club.  Please look for TREASURER’S REPORTS under the OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS tab, second tab from the top left on the site.
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• Phillip Beall (W5EBC) gave a PowerPoint presentation covering the proposed new Constitution & Bylaws.  A copy of the notes used for Phillip’s remarks, the PowerPoint presentation, the draft Constitution & Bylaws, a Resolution and a Motion to Postpone are now on the site.  The location is the new tab on the top left titled GOVERNANCE PROJECT.  Please click the tab and review the information in the order it is presented.

Additional important information passed along at the meeting:

• All new test candidates for technician   test will be need an FRN # before taking the Technician test.  A member of the VE’s will have a laptop available for to use to obtain an FRN # at test time.  This is a new FCC requirement (SSN’s are no longer accepted).  This web link below can be used to get a FRN #

https://apps.fcc.gov/coresWeb/publicHome.do

Candidates who have any category 0f amateur radio license already have an FCC assigned FRN.

At this time we are meeting at the Graham Baptist Church; both the north and south parking lots and entrances available.  Wheelchair access is on the north side of the building.

The address of the meeting place (for meeting and testing) is below: meeting times (club and testing) is 10:00 AM

514 Graham Street Paris, TX  75460

 

August 26, 2020

On Saturday, August 22, a regular meeting of the Club was conducted.  There were 15 people in attendance.  Meeting minutes are in the process of being written, but a synopsis of the meeting is:

• George Haneke (NV7Z) was confirmed by the membership as the Club Treasurer.  Thank you for your service George!
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• The members present were reminded of our need to fill many open spots on the Tour de Paris and Fair rosters.  Please email Phillip Beall (W5EBC) and tell him where he can plug you in to the schedule.
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•  Kelly Collins (W5KJC) briefed the membership on the Friday, August 21, meeting with KXII station management.  Here is  Phillip’s write up on that meeting:

KXII Debrief
08-21-2020 Meeting

On Friday, August 21, T. Wayne Moore, Kelly Collins and Phillip Beall met with station management at KXII.  Club President Steven Davoust had been slated to attend, but he was hospitalized a couple of days prior to the meeting and so VP Moore took his place.

The meeting was to explore possible options for the RRVARC to have KXII host some of our repeater gear.  The meeting was cordial and the station General Manager Rick Dean validated that they are willing to explore how the two entities might work out such an arrangement.  However, he did indicate that there had been miscommunication reference how they might host our gear.

The general outline of what they are willing to do is to consider hosting our gear on their tower.  He told us that alone was an accomplishment as the corporation considered their tower space to be extremely valuable, going on to say that Grey Communication had never even considered entrees to allow outside entities to place gear on their towers.  So, in that regard our talks are somewhat extraordinary.  What they are unwilling to do is allow any of us or our gear inside of their building.  They expressed willingness to allow us to place our own building there on site.  And they expressed willingness to discuss a contractual arrangement.  So, all in all, really good news and confirmation that we may be able to come to terms.

Another item that will require resolution is the tower climber.  They continue to have issue with the insurance provided by the tower climber we have been speaking with.  His insurance is a homeowners policy with a two million dollar ($2MM) umbrella liability rider.  They were clearly indicating that they were looking for someone with commercial liability coverage.  Their entire posture changed when we asked if they had used anyone local for their tower work?  They immediately offered that they had two they had a long-standing relationship with.  They clearly thought highly of these two entities.  Telling them it seemed unlikely we could afford to pay the commercial rate a larger operation such as these two might charge we asked if they would call and talk with the two firms, going on to ask them to plead our case a bit and tell them to expect contact from us?  Mr. Dean indicated that he would call and talk with both.  Those commercial services are likely to cost more, but in post-meeting internal discussion the RRVARC participants agreed that taking that path would greatly enhance our likelihood for success with station management.  Station management clearly preferred the thought of us using one of the two local tower climbing services they are familiar with.

We left the meeting with the agreement that we would work up an outline for a refined approach to what we would like to do at the site and send that to Mr. Dean for his consideration.  If we can reach agreement on the general outline of what the two groups believe can be done, then we can again work with outside counsel and redraft proposed language to effect an agreement.  Mr. Dean indicated that he would then take that package to the appropriate other officers of Grey Communication, the parent corporation of KXII, to seek their concurrence.

Mr. Dean was very kind in telling the group early on that we should have probably held the meeting a year ago and he graciously blamed himself for that not having happened.  He further told us that we were the first non-employee personnel in the station building since the COVID19 outbreak, so clearly he was trying to engage with us.

Going forward our plan is: 1) Get some numbers from the two tower climbing firms station management is clearly comfortable with.  2) Work to come up with the outline of a package we think would work for the Club and get it to Mr. Dean promptly.  To that end the group committed that Kelly and the new chief engineer will stay in touch and Phillip and Dean will trade ideas.

We will keep you updated as discussions proceed.

Please go to the buttons on the left and figure out where you can help out with the Tour de Paris and Fair.

73’s

Steven Davoust [N5KCH]
President

T. Wayne Moore [KC5KOH]
Vice President

Phillip Beall [W5EBC]
Secretary

George Haneke [NV7Z]
Treasurer

Kelly Collins [W5KJC]

Trustee

August 10, 2020 Update

The Club officers reviewed the poll results over the weekend and discussed a lot of considerations:

• Looking backwards:
  • We have not had a member meeting in several months.
  • A lot of business has transpired over those months.
  • We have attempted to communicate all relevant details via email, the website and the Monday night net, but we know some people highly desire an in-person meeting.

• Looking forward:
  • The Tour de Paris was postponed to Saturday, September 26.
  • Saturday, September 26, would normally be our regular meeting date for September.
  • The pre-Fair cleanup would also normally have been on the Saturday the TDP was postponed to.
  • The pre-Fair cleanup is now rescheduled for Saturday, September 19 at 0830.
  • The fair is Wednesday, September 30 through Saturday, October 3.
  • The post-Fair cleanup is Sunday, October 4 at 0830.

Got all of that?

The quick poll we did last week where we asked “If we held an in-person member meeting on August 22nd, would you attend?” was answered as follows:

14 – Yes
13 – No

The Club officers determined that the fourteen members who wish for a meeting are more than sufficient to be considered a quorum so the August 22 meeting will be held.  With the courtroom still closed to us Kelly Collins (W5KJC) graciously offered to allow his church to be used so the meeting will be conducted at 10am at the Graham Street Baptist Church, 514 Graham Street, Paris.

The fact that we have not had a meeting in many months, during that time the Club officers have accomplished a lot on your behalf, means there is a lot of information that needs to be imparted. That includes discussion of new governing documents. But the fact of the matter is we have got to put those discussions on hold until we get to the October meeting as there are just so many things that be squeezed into one regular meeting. Right now our focus is on the Tour de Paris and our partnering with Lion’s Club at the Fair. So the agenda on Saturday, August 22, will be:

1. Tour de Paris and Fair – Briefing and recruitment drive for both. We may be seeking volunteers to help with calling people to fill in the blanks on our volunteer lists.
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2. Treasurer election – George Haneke (NV7Z) graciously accepted appointment as “acting” treasurer since we needed to fill the spot vacated by the family health issues that Sandi Boyd (KF5PVW) was experiencing. At this meeting we will need the members to either vote to confirm George or nominate and elect someone else willing to perform the duties.
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3. KXII Brief – On Friday, August 21, Club representatives are scheduled to meet with KXII management to discuss the framework of a possible agreement for KXII to host some of our Club repeater equipment. This meeting has been a long time in coming and we will brief the group at this meeting.

We are currently working on how to allow people to sign up for the Fair by inputting their choice directly via the website. Any of you that are familiar with deceased Lion’s Club member Paul Denny’s Excel spreadsheet knows how great that was. We have taken that very spreadsheet and updated it with some additional detail. We have the ability to put that on the site right now, but we are working on an option that would allow people to actually sign themselves up and get a confirmation email. When we are ready to go live with that we will follow up with you.

We look forward to seeing all of you after entirely too long!

73’s

Steven Davoust [N5KCH]
President

T. Wayne Moore [KC5KOH]
Vice President

Phillip Beall [W5EBC]
Secretary

George Haneke [NV7Z]
Treasurer (acting)

 

August 7, 2020 Update

The poll reference whether to have a meeting or not has now closed.  The question asked was:  “If we held an in-person member meeting on August 22nd, would you attend?”  Each time it was checked we were surprised to see it go back and forth between yes and no.  And that was the case all the way to the end.  The final count was:

Yes – 14

No – 13

The officers are going to discuss the result over the weekend and then announce their plan on Monday.

73’s

Steven Davoust [N5KCH]
President

T. Wayne Moore [KC5KOH]
Vice President

Phillip Beall [W5EBC]
Secretary

George Haneke [NV7Z]
Treasurer (acting)

 

August 3, 2020 Update

The Club officers recently contracted with an attorney who is also an Extra Class license holder. He has extensive experience with writing contracts between clubs and repeater site hosts. We had him draft a contract suitable for exchange with KXII station management. The draft went through multiple reviews and was modified to reflect the specific needs of RRVARC and aligns with the goal of placing our repeater gear on KXII’s tower.

On Friday, July 31st, the RRVARC officers met and finalized the details of our plan to meet with station management at KXII. Several actions were taken at that meeting and subsequently on Monday, August 3, 2020.

• The officers, reflecting that without a meeting to have the membership adopt the draft Constitution & Bylaws (C&B) and with the fact that our current C&B is poorly crafted for things such as establishing agreements with other parties, we needed to adopt some language we would abide by. To at least partly address those shortcomings we formally adopted the following positions reflected in the current C&B draft:

• No Club repeater equipment shall be placed on a host site without first securing a written agreement establishing the Club’s obligations to the site host and the host site’s obligations to the Club.
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• Any meeting conducted for the purpose of securing a contractual agreement:
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• Shall be attended by no less than two persons representing the Club.
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• The persons shall be at least two from the following: the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and/or trustee.
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• We further agreed that it is our strong preference to have no less than three Club representatives present. Recognizing some current limitations on numbers of people present based on the pandemic this may not always be possible, but it is our stated position that we strongly desire three representatives present for such meetings.
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• Only the president of the Club may bind the Club by signing an agreement.
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  • Any agreement to be signed by the Club president shall first be reviewed and approved by the vice president, secretary and treasurer. Only after approval by the other officers may the president sign the agreement and the agreement shall also be signed by at least one other officer.
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  • If the language of the agreement is substantially changed from the language our outside counsel drafted for us the officers may opt to have the language reviewed by outside legal counsel prior to voting on whether to adopt it or not.
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  • In the event an agreement is reached the language shall be distributed to the membership promptly with a layperson explanation of the details.
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• Kelly Collins (W5KJC) learned that KXII has a new chief engineer. This explains at least part of the reason Kelly has had recent difficulty in getting replies to emails and messages left with their technical representative.
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• A meeting has now been scheduled with KXII management.
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• A letter has been sent to KXII management confirming the date and time for an in person meeting with them. A copy of that letter can be viewed at the “Correspondence” button on the left.
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• We have recently had members making requests that we believe are best served by placing them onto the website. We may eventually have functions such as a member user forum, a request for assistance, a “flea market” type page, etc., but in the mean time we have put up a simple page with a button on the left which says “Member Assistance/Requests”. Please click that button and look at the two currently listed.

• Please email Phillip Beall or Kelly Collins to have your name added to the Tour de Paris list linked at the top button on the left. Shortly we will start recruiting people to help with a telephone tree to call every person who has previously participated in order to proactively seek persons to fill the spots on the sign up list. If you have not signed up but are planning to help with Tour de Paris please email Phillip or Kelly so that they do not have to call you.

• Finally, we are going to test a very primitive version of polling. We will eventually get some sophisticated tools up to find out what the Club members want to do, want us to pursue for them, etc., but for now we have a very simple matter to ask your opinion about. So far the courtroom is still not open to us to conduct a meeting. Kelly Collins has offered to allow the Club to use his church in order to conduct a meeting. There is no sense in having a meeting if nobody comes so what we want to know is if we hold a meeting somewhere – Will you come? To help inform your decision you may assume all reasonable safety measures will be in place and there will be adequate spacing to allow for social distancing. With those stated, please click this link [The link was removed at 1700 on 08/07/2020.] and answer that question. We will publish the number once the results are in. Please reply by 5PM on Friday, August 7. It is up to us to make mature and informed decisions, but we do very much value your input.

73’s

Steven Davoust [N5KCH]
President

T. Wayne Moore [KC5KOH]
Vice President

Phillip Beall [W5EBC]
Secretary

George Haneke [NV7Z]
Treasurer (acting)

 

July 30, 2020 Update

Please continue down the page for an update on the maintenance underway on the site.  But right now we wanted to point you to some very specific buttons on the left:

• Tour de Paris 2020 – Please go there, take a look at the map and drop us an email at WB5RDD@WB5RDD.ORG and let us know where we can add you to the list.
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• Field Day – Read the debrief on Field Day 2020.  If you have operating notes and/or a picture of yourself operating on FD2020 please send them to WB5RDD@WB5RDD.ORG so we can add it to the page.
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• Cellular Hot Spots – The button on the left related to cellular hot spots lists a bunch that are coming up for renewal.  If you can match yours to one of those listed, or just send us the serial number for yours, we will start trying to provide reminders and links for renewing your individual cellular hot spot.  Please drop us a note to WB5RDD@WB5RDD.ORG and we will enter your information in the Club record.
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• W4W – The Club scored a great 1×1 call sign for 2020 and we were very disappointed that Field Day 2020 for the Club did not get to include more Club members having the opportunity to use it.  Well, we have great news…  WE SCORED W4W AGAIN!  We are going to get another chance to use W4W, this time for Field Day 2021.  We have a year to get prepared, so let’s plan on making this the best Field Day the RRVARC has ever had!

Soon we will send everyone an email reference the items above, but in case anyone came by the site we wanted to go ahead and put these details up to encourage the flow of information and ask you to please help us with the information requested.  Thank you!

73’s

RRVARC Officers

In coordination with, and with the blessing of, the officers of the RRVARC, the site (WB5RDD.ORG) is in the process of being completely revamped.

1.  The first step was behind the scenes.  Look up at the address bar and see if there is a padlock, https, a check mark, etc.  These are your guarantee of the security of the site.  Why is that important?  To protect your personal information.  To safeguard the Club and all of its history.  To allow us to add PayPal.  There are many reasons.  RRVARC now has commercial grade security in place.
2. The next step was to actually organize the information on the site.  Honestly, it was a mess and that organizational process continues.  You will notice buttons being moved around on the top and left side.  Notice that some have years under them.  We are organizing things so that you can find what you are looking for.  You are encouraged to check the buttons out.  Most are incomplete, but many are fairly well developed.  The top buttons are about 80% there and the top 4-6 buttons on the left are also 80%, maybe 80%+.  They are getting content fast.

If you came to the page while these  site changes are being made please be patient.  You are welcome to poke around.  There are a lot of other plans for the site, but we had to get things all aligned.  Under one umbrella as far as all of our documents and records.  Safe and secure, easy to access and then we will move on to even better stuff.

If you like what you see, please tell us.  If you do not like what you see, please tell us.  We work for you.  Just drop us a note at WB5RDD@WB5RDD.ORG  – Phillip Beall