Last night, a full-room turn-out of leaders from the newly rebadged Volusia ARES group, plus leaders from the DBARA, WestVARS and IMARS groups met to discuss the new, go-forward strategy for the ARES organization. Fred, the Volusia EC, led the meeting with very active participation from most all in the room. In summary, here’s what I took away from the gathering:

• This will be an INCLUSIVE organization, welcoming participation from all licensed Hams, from school-age possibly via a program called Junior-ARES, thru seniors who might not be mobile or deployable thru the program called Neighborhood HamWatch. We will find a place and useful purpose for EVERY person who wants to participate.
• We will consider Term Limits (to be decided by the DEC for the EC position) in order to give opportunity for ALL participants to go from trainee to EC, as their skills and experience increase. We need to promote a sense (and reality) of being able to PROGRESS in the organization.
• We will not allow a select few to hold us “hostage” with the EOC – we will rotate folks into the EOC so that no individual can hold the entire relationship with the EOC in the future.
• We will consider recommending that the County RACES Officer be the same individual as the sitting Volusia County ARES EC – in order to eliminate differences in “Agenda” and to streamline the response capabilities of the amateur community.
• We will define who our Served Agencies are: including the Volusia EOC, Hospitals, Assisted Living Centers, Red Cross, Salvation Army – PLUS our adjacent County ARES groups (Seminole, Brevard, Flagler, Putnam) and their respective EC’s.
• We will begin the process of creating a Master Plan, starting with the following:
  • A Mission Statement – describing WHO we are, WHAT we’re all about, and WHY we exist.
  • An Agenda Statement – that will change from year-to-year, but that will describe the WHAT we plan to do within the year, HOW we will do it and MEASUREMENTS to help us determine if we are succcessful.
  • A Behavior Guide and Yardstick – a statement of how we will BEHAVE and how we will implement accountability (and improvement) in our organization. I talked about how we should shun behavior that would be considered unacceptable or not in the spirit of amateur radio.
• We will be a TRANSPARENT organization – sharing all information that we have, encouraging others to be involved, teaching others in order to build as large a bench of trained, qualified and experienced operators as possible.
• We will be a LEARNING organization – striving to incorporate all of the tools that are in the Amateur tool-kit, including FM Voice, Packet, WL2K, DStar and all the new, emerging technologies yet to come.

I asked for the plan to be completed in the next 30-45 days – with participation from all, but with Fred being the primary accountable party. Folks in the room offered to help by sending their comments, suggestions or drafts to Fred for consideration and/or inclusion.

After completion of the initial (working) draft and review by the DEC, we will PUBLISH the plan for all to see – this will be a Foundational Plan – statements of principle, of how we will operate  - not a procedural book (that comes later).

Good initial progress – but the proof is in what get’s COMPLETED.

more tk

I’ve asked John (K4TUG) to help arrange a meeting on 17-August at the venue of the DBARA monthly meetings in order to provide an opportunity to talk about the Volusia ARES changes.

Although I’ve not participated in the discussions, I have been monitoring the chatter on the DBARA Yahoo group and have “heard” quite a bit of rambling about this-and-that, including calls for an external review as well as elections for ARES officials…

It’s easy to write comments in an impersonal venue like a Yahoo group, so I won’t respond using that medium. So if you’ve had concerns, suggestions, gripes or otherwise regarding Volusia ARES, please come to the church (what great irony) and discuss them with us on 17-August at 19:00. We’ll plan on staying until 21:00 but will try not to leave any question unanswered.

I commit first to being a listener, then giving you honest and candid feedback.

Hope to see y’all there on Tuesday the 17th..

more tk