President’s Report
Hello, December! This month I wanted to welcome our new president to the helm. Ben Knapp – KD9RYH, will be taking my place. I believe that he will continue the forward direction of our club.
I want to thank you all for giving me the opportunity to preside over the club for the past 2.5 years. It’s time for fresh eyes and ideas. I hope everyone will support and welcome Ben in his position. I know he has some good ideas in mind for the club.
Wishing everyone a happy holiday season and a Merry Christmas!
– Justin Flick N9WX
Meeting Minutes:
Board of Directors: 11/2/23
Rob call meeting to order at 7:21 – Darren KD9HZZ, Deb WD0EB, Tanya KD9YPM, Tom W9NWG, Rob KD9DBQ present.
Darren made motion to accept the minutes from the Oct. meeting as published in BandBits, Tom seconded all approved
Treasurer’s report Tanya – paid $1500 to lawyer for 501 (c) (3), there is $620.98 in checking. $12,088.44 in the money market, $5.04 in savings and $355.75 in Square, Deb mentioned Three Sisters deposit will need to be made when we meet with them. Tom made the motion to approve the treasurer’s report as presented, Darren seconded, all approved.
Repeater committee – Tom reported that he turned the 85 analog on so both analog and digital are working in time for ares repeater test, no WiresX yet, want to link 85 and 075 – Matt hopes to have a computer ready to go. Tom wants to take everyone on the repeater committee to Groveland and show them the setup there.
Midwest Superfest™ – meeting last week, Darren has sent emails to vendors, Todd & Brett getting the prize emails from vendors who tell Darren prizes, four forums for Saturday, mailing copies of the vendor letter to vendors he has not heard from. Meeting with Three Sisters Monday Nov.13th at 3:00pm.
Old business
Red Cross – Darren will reach out to Blake
Christmas Dinner is at Pizza Ranch on Brandywine on Dec. 12th at 6:30pm, email needs to be sent to the club email w9uvi.paarc@gmail.com by Dec. 1st with name and number coming.
Nothing on Red Cross trailer.
Nothing new on the Dunlap tower.
New Business –
Website has been remodeled, changes include: email distribution list using MailPoet, which gives us the ability to send multiple emails and have multiple distribution lists. The charge is based on number of subscribers and for now we are on the free plan. Deb has inquired from their sales team what the price would be for up to 10,000 subscribers, because she wants to build a distribution list from the previous attendees from the old superfest spreadsheet. Once she hears back from them will share the information with the board.
New look and feel of the website, the menu is now on the left of the page and for now the club logo is at the top of the menu; Deb is going to look into some of the new defaults and see if they can be changed to fix font size and color.
Deb has asked Jason Howell to take some pictures to use as the page logo and homepage along with some magic from Tom once the pictures are ready to incorporate Welcome to W9UVI – home of the Peoria Area Amateur Radio Club – 100+ years of making waves – with incorporated May 1919 at the bottom.
Deb is also working on a members only section of the website, which would restrict who can see those pages, post pictures, post comments, share like a bulletin board kind of thing possibly, she is still looking at plug-ins and deciding which one we want to use.
Tom made the motion to adjourn at 7:50, Darren seconded, all approved, meeting adjourned.
___________________________
Membership Meeting 11/14
7:01 p.m.: Justin (N9WX) calls the meeting to order.
We go around the room with introductions.
Darren (KD9HZZ) makes a motion to accept BandBits as posted, and Rich (KD9ANU) seconds. All are in favor and it passes.
Treasurer’s report from Tanya (KD9YPM):
- $10,588.04 in money market
- $399.65 in PayPal
- $355.75 in Square
- $2,145.97 in checking
- $5.04 in savings
- 2024 deposit to Three Sisters Park for $1,750
- $1500 for 501c3 lawyer
- $72 check needed for Peoria County Clerk for raffle license
Deb (WD9EB) makes motion to accept the report, and Tom (W8NWG) seconds. All are in favor.
Repeater committee:
- The 85 is analog and digital, but still not hooked up to internet
- We also need to hook the D-STAR repeater up to internet
- No update yet on the possible Dunlap repeater/tower site
- Lots of discussion among the membership about a desire for a 220MHz repeater, but none are known to be in the area.
Any old biz? None.
Superfest update:
- Darren is going tomorrow to get our raffle license and Adam needs to sign paperwork (done!)
- No Superfest meeting this month due to Thanksgiving
- Met with Three Sisters Park folks on Monday and brought up the desire for a grill.. they’re going to look into grilling pork chops and steak burgers next year, possibly. Also may provide a drink cart out in the flea market area.
- There are a few antennas at the top of the cupola that may be for 2 meters… so we want to test those and see if any are usable if we attach coax for talk-in use.
- We asked how many 30 and 50-amp hookups there are, but that number often changes because people hire electricians to move things around regularly
- We received an email from the Comet antenna company that they won’t be coming in 2024, but they are willing to send door prizes via Todd.
- Nothing more as of yet on trademarking our name.
Club elections:
- Since no one is running unopposed, we need a majority approval slate according to the bylaws.
- Nobody is opposed to that.
- Rich makes a motion that the secretary (Adam, KD9NYE) casts a unanimous ballot according to what is listed in the last Band Bits. Tom seconds the motion and all are in favor.
New business…
Proposal to change club bylaws:
- Deb wants for membership terms to change from being based on the calendar year to when dues are paid. Rich asks for the reason… Deb says that people move into the area late in the year and have to pay again mere months after they last paid. It’s brought up that we’ll need to track this carefully via spreadsheet.
- If members don’t renew within 3 months of their memberships expiring, they are to be dropped from our roster.
- Deb identifies an inaccuracy in our current bylaws… we offer three levels of membership, not just two.
- She’d also like to change bylaws to indicate that Band Bits is posted online instead of being printed as a newsletter.
- All of these proposed bylaw changes will be published in the December and January editions of Band Bits, with a vote by membership in January.
- A question comes up on whether this change in a membership year is retroactive to 2023 Superfest folks who tested for free membership? Yes, it is.
- Another question: Will there still be a non-voting level of membership? Yes, because some aren’t living in the area.
More new business:
- Darren heard back from the lawyer last week and they’re looking at what paperwork is needed to change us from 501(c)(7) to 501(c)(3).
Mark (W9WGN) makes a motion to adjourn the regular meeting for Scott’s (K9XJT) presentation on Gridtracker and we’re done at 7:28 p.m.
Proposed ByLaw Changes
These changes were proposed at the November club meeting. They can be viewed on the PAARC ByLaw Changes page.
Midwest SuperfestTM
Met with Three Sisters on Nov. 13th and discussed how this year went and ideas for next year. They were open to some of the ideas we presented and hopefully they will be able to incorporate some of them, especially having a grill going on Saturday, and possibly adding more items to the menu. Discussed use of the blacktop for parking and that it will be completely reserved for handicap parking. Signs will be posted and parking restrictions will be enforced.
The next Midwest Superfest™ meeting will be on Thursday Dec. 21st at 7:00 pm via Zoom on the club meetings page.
Peoria County ARES
Amateur radio operators use their training, skills, and equipment to provide communications during emergencies, When All Else Fails®.
December 6, ARES Net @ 7:00 PM CDT on the W9UVI (147.075) repeater. As part of the net, there will be a UHF Simplex test on 446.700 (National Simplex Frequency). Make sure your radios are programmed with this frequency.
December13, ARES Net @ 7:00 PM CDT on the W9UVI (147.075) repeater
December 20, Monthly Meeting via Zoom, 7:00 PM
Please submit your Training Documentation form.
ARES website: http://www.peoriacountyares.org/
Rich Holtman, KD9ANU, Emergency Coordinator for Peoria County ARES
email: kd9anu@arrl.net
Winlink: kd9anu@winlink.org
Cell: 309-256-4272
November Net Logs
11/5
KD9ANU WD9EB KD9IBC KD9TEG KC9IH KD9YPM NP2WJ KD9ERS W9JDP N9NDF KD9PXZ KD9JXR W8NWG KD9IVV KD9AER K9WFT W9TTX N9WFT KD9MOA W9WGN KD9RJH WF9E K9RCS KD9STL KD9MPI W9WTF N9GZ KD9WRX WW9DLM KD9RYH K9UQF KB9ATO K9CEW KC9YTT K9XJT Submitted by KD9DBQ 73 Thanks to W9WTF for the assist
11/12
KD9QQU KD9ANU WD9EB KD9YTM NM0O W9WGN K9HJZ KC9IH NP2WJ KD9YCJ K9XJT KD9JXR W9JDP KD9PXJ W8NWG N9WFT KD9AER KD9IVV KD9RJH N9CS K9NTT KD9YCJ KD9WRX KD9RYH KD9DBQ KD9STL WW9DLM WF9E KB9ATO K9RCS N9NDF Submitted by KD9QQU and W8NWG
11/19
KD9ANU WD9EB W9WTF W9WGN KD9IBC K9HJZ KC9IH KD9YPM K9RCS N9CS KD9HZZ W8NWG N9NDF KD9IVV KD9PXZ KD9JXR KD9AER KD9ZFC W9JDP KD9QQU NM0O K9TNT K9WFT KD9TEG KD9STL KB9ATO K9CEW KD9RYH K9QZ K9UQF K9XJT Submitted by KD9DBQ 73
11/26
WD9EB KD9ANU W8NWG W9WGN K9HJZ KD9IBC KD9RYH KC9IH KD9YPM K9TNT N9NDF NM0O KD9IVV KD9PXZ KD9JXR KD9TEG KD9AER KB9YYD WW9DLM K9RCS KD9WRX KD9QQU K9UQF WF9E K9CEW KD9STL Submitted by KD9DBQ 73
December Club Events
December 5 – 7:00 p.m. – ARES Net: W9UVI Repeater 147.075
December 7 – 7:00 p.m. – Board Meeting via Zoom link on club meetings page
December 12 – 6:30 p.m. – New Meeting Day – TUESDAY – Club Meeting/Holiday Social Event at Pizza Ranch, 4114 N Brandywine Dr, Peoria. Spouses/Significant Others are welcome! RSVP with the number attending by email to w9uvi.paarc@gmail.com by December 1st.
December 13 – 7:00 p.m. – ARES Net: W9UVI Repeater 147.075
December 16 – 12:00 noon – FCC License Testing: Morton Knights of Columbus, 616 W. David Street, Morton, IL. FRN Required. Bring two forms of identification and a copy of your license (if upgrading). Testing Fee: $15
December 21 – 7:00 p.m. – Midwest Superfest Meeting via Zoom link on club meetings page
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