Greetings, welcome to Dale's Tales - The Final Edition
It has been a Great Ride serving the amateur radio community, thank you all. From the early beginnings of taking on an ARRL position in the mid-1960s as an AEC, through several terms as EC, then SEC, Section Manager, Vice Director and then as Director, little did I suspect this whole collection of events.
I know as I walk out the door today that many projects continue on the path to improvement, not all are complete and some are specifically designed to continue to grow in scale.
Now, I ask that you give my successor Scott N8SY the same level of support that you gave me over these many years. Our goal must be to continue to grow ARRL and Amateur Radio. The two are inseparably intertwined and the very future of the World's Greatest Hobby needs your involvement today more than ever.
This year, the Year of the Volunteer, has been a good way to close out, Volunteers on the Air has loaded my log with contacts, most of my antennas stayed up, I did not cook any equipment and I have heard a lot of kind words from this ham community.
And now I send you my Best Wishes for the coming New Year and all that follow.
Thanks, you are the best!
73,
Dale Williams WA8EFK
Outgoing Director
Great Lakes Division
ARRL
dale.wms1@frontier.com
And to close this out, here are some comments from our incoming Director:
Happy New Year to You and Yours!!!
Every year at this time we all go through that phase where we reflect back on the year past and think about all the things that we wanted to do but didn’t. Have you written down anything for your New Year’s Resolution yet? If not, you might want to do that now. This is something that keeps us on track and gives us the ability to look forward to the New Year with a positive attitude and willingness to improve and make things in your life better.
This year my New Year’s Resolution list has grown quite large with the first thing on that list being the transition from Vice Director to taking over as your Great Lakes Division Director from my good friend, Dale, on January 1st. Yes, I have some very big shoes to fill for sure and I will do my very best to fill them.
I want to say “thank you” to all of you that invited me to your club activities and meetings over this past year. I had a lot of fun getting to meet some new friends and getting to reconnect with some old friends that I haven’t seen for years as well. I want you to know that I will be back to visit with you again soon. I made a promise to you that I would work hard and always keep you, the loyal ARRL dues paying member first and I meant that with all my heart.
Things are starting to get super busy for our new Vice Director Roy W8REH and me right now. The Board meeting is coming up fast and things are getting hectic. 2024 will be an amazing year for the ARRL. There are so many projects that everyone on the Board has been working on over this past year and now will be coming to the forefront. We ARE moving things in a positive direction and are focused heavily on making things better for YOU!
Hey! I want to say that if your student hasn’t applied for a college scholarship by now, they’d better get busy; they only have until Wednesday, January 10th at 12 noon to get their application in. There is a link on the ARRL homepage in addition to the link on the scholarship page. More than 100 scholarships ranging from $500 to $25,000 will be awarded in 2024. This is FREE money for your kids to go to college on! How many kids do you know that couldn’t use a helping hand with their college tuition? All applicants must be active, FCC-licensed amateur radio operators.
Go to: http://www.arrl.org/scholarship-program
January starts off with Straight Key Night (SKN) on
January 1st, from
00:00 UTC through 23:59 UTC. ARRL Kids Day follows on January 6th, along
with the RTTY Roundup running on the 6th - 7th and the North American QSO Party
(CW) on January 13th - 14th and the QSO Party (SSB) will be held on the 20th –
21st. Following that is the January VHF
Contest on the 20th – 22nd. These are
just a few of the many contests that are scheduled for this month. Here’s the link to see them all...
https://www.contestcalendar.com/
Okay, that is going to do it from me this month. This will be my last Scott’s Stuff article as your Vice Director. Next month Roy, W8REH will be giving his comments in this space. So, from me to you… Stay safe, "Catch Me On The Air, or a meeting or hamfest!!!" But most of all...
Have FUN - and get on the AIR!!!!
73,
Scott, N8SY
Director
Great Lakes Division
n8sy@arrl.org
