The Executive Committee of the CRES Amateur Radio Club held a meeting
on Tuesday, 18 August, 2009, at the Donatos, 610 Broad St, Pataskala.
The meeting was called to order by President Bill Erwin at 6:50 PM.
Present were Bill Erwin/N9CX, Vice President Bob Kenyon/K8LJ,
Secretary Rob Stampfli/KD8WK, Treasurer Bob Cartwright/W3CRZ, Trustee
Dave Woolf/K8RSP, VE Liaison Art Grandle/KD8ZG, and Internet Manager
Tate Antrim/KD8HJA.

Business:
1. Membership: We now have 46 members and have seen our membership
   grow at a better-than-usual rate in the past year.  What are we
   doing right?  What can we do better?
   + Cost:  We are the lowest priced ham club in the Columbus area.
   + Programs and Flyers: People seem to like the fact that we have
     a program at each meeting that involves ham radio.
   + "Friendliest Repeater": we need to strive to be the friendliest
     repeater in the area.  If you hear a new call, come back to it.

2. Field Day Wrapup and Observations:
   + Everyone seemed to enjoy this year's Field Day exercise.
   + The Infirmary Mound Park people seem to trust us and gave us a
     lot of latitude.  We should write them a letter of thanks.
   + WA8LBZ and N9CX looked at several Gahanna parks and did not find
     any that were commensurate with Infirmary Mound Park.
   + If W8GT moves back to his house in Columbus and is willing to
     host Field Day again, that might change the equation.
   + The addition of the digital station was a good move.
   + Moving to wired 10BaseT ethernet between the stations worked
     well, was reliable, and removed SAT interference.

3. Columbus Hamfest VE Session Wrapup:
   + Poor interface between hamfest organizers and VE team leads to
     confusion in both the planning and execution phases.
   + If we agree to conduct a session at the hamfest next year, we
     need a direct contact for handling VE issues.
   + Information about the VE Exams on any hamfest flyers or
     advertisements need to be cleared with us first.
   + We need to put this in the form of a letter, spelling out our
     concerns to the organizers.

4. OSPOTA:
   + We need to better mark our guy-wires this year and have a sign
     indicating the shelter house has been reserved.
   + The picnic was a good idea and should be done again.
   + K8RSP will provide the electric cords.  KD8WK will bring a few
     Field Day outlet strips.
   + W3CRZ will provide a better logging program.
   + K8LJ will provide the rig if he can fix a problem where the rig
     seems to intermittently think it sees a high SWR.
   + Unfortunately, the Findlay hamfest is the next day, so this will
     be a busy "ham" weekend.

5. W8ZPF Website:
   + KD8HJA:  Started to upgrade website to database driven design,
     but has backed off for now pending member input.
   + K8LJ:  Membership flyer still indicates quarterly (not bi-monthly)
     meetings.  It needs to be updated.
   + KD8WK:  Apparently there are still some old Flyers with KD8WK
     as contact person floating around.  (I'm still getting checks
     and applications.)
   + KD8ZG:  We should investigate setting up a members-only section
     on the website.

6. CQ-WE Host:
   + The Club was selected and has agreed to serve as CQ-WE Host Location
     for the 2009 50th anniversary of the contest because of the integral
     role the Club and its members have played in the contest over the
     years.
   + KD8WK:  The primary responsibility of the Host Location is to
     produce and disseminate a Certificate of Participation.  This can
     be a paper certificate, an electronic one, or both.  The certificate
     is normally issued after the CQ-WE results are posted in early 2010.
   + Consensus:  Canvass the membership at Thursday's meeting for
     interest in being a part of the Host Location committee.  The
     committee should begin the design process this fall, with the
     intent of finalizing and issuing the Certs as soon as possible
     in 2010.

The committee clarified the program approved by the membership at a
prior general meeting as follows:  "If a non-club-member obtains a
license, or upgrades, at a CRES-VE sponsored exam session, that person
shall be offered a complimentary first year's membership in our club."

7. W8ZPF Logs Online
   + W3CRZ offered to put the electronic logs from our previous Field
     Days on LoTW.  He will not delve into uploading our paper logs
     from years' past.

8. PCARS
   + The committee discussed a recent email from PCARS, a ham club
     that is attempting to consolidate information on talks and
     activities that occur at ham club meetings within Ohio.
   + N9CX will respond to this email with an email requesting more
     information about what they want and how they intend to use it.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted,
Rob Stampfli / KD8WK
CRES-ARC Secretary