December, 2023 Blog

With the Holiday season upon us, thoughts go to gift giving and receiving. Each year our club is very lucky to receive donations from members like you that help support the ongoing activities that make our club fiscally strong and able to offer services that other clubs simply cannot. We support an extensive array of repeaters for 2 meter, 440 and even 220. We support Fusion and D-Star for our club members. Our expenses for these are not insignificant since we pay for real estate for our repeaters atop Park Tower in Chicago. Each year those costs rise, but our club can still afford to offer these services to the club because of your generous donations. Dues have been frozen at our current level for years despite rising costs for meeting space at Heller Nature Center, adopting a hybrid meeting format for club members to attend from the comfort of their homes or offices. We have an active build club that offers services partially underwritten by the club. And let’s not forget our expenses for Field Day, Hams in the Park, QRP Night, etc.

When you think about your charitable donations this year, why not include NS9RC in your gift giving to help underwrite these activities and keep our club fiscally strong for years. Your gift is tax deductible. Thanks for your support.

One of the joys of being President of NS9RC is recognizing outstanding contributions to our growth and success. While there are many of you who work tirelessly on our behalf, I owe a great debt of gratitude to our Board members who serve tirelessly throughout the year and handle everything from running the organization to troubleshooting crisis situations such as when one of our antennas or repeaters stop functioning. So, a special thank you to the 2023 Board members for their outstanding service. This year, as in the past, I would like to announce the “Ham of the Year” award. It is with great pleasure that I bestow the Ham of the Year award to Dave Hewitt, WW9S, our Vice President who has served tirelessly and continually to bring quality programs to our club each month for many, many years and has been the generous enough to offer his home as a kind of clubhouse, also for many, many years. Congratulations Dave!

But wait, there is one more name that rises to the top this year and shares the award with Dave.

Tami Witbrodt, KD9IXB, our Membership Director and behind the scenes Thursday Night Net logger/host also deserves this award this year for her tireless enthusiasm in helping to recruit, interview, and keep track of our ever-growing membership roles. Under her leadership Tami has helped grow our club from about 1250 members to well over 250 members in just three short years. She is, in many ways the public face of our organization and works very hard to maintain our records of membership as well as interview each prospective member. So, congratulations Tami for a job well done.

Finally, I would like to say a fond farewell to all of you as your club president. It has been an honor to serve over these past three years (the Covid years) and I have enjoyed meeting and interacting with so many of you. Now it is time to fade into the background and let a newer generation take the helm of our club. It has been my pleasure to serve.

73,

Burt KR9T