Boxboro Food for Thought

I thought I would recap my comments from Saturday’s meeting regarding Boxboro. Tom Walsh, K1TW, called me last week to discuss our club’s plans for Boxboro and to see what the convention committee can do for us. Tom, as some of you may remember, was the convention’s volunteer coordinator before he left for CA in 2007. He’s back in New England and taking over the reins once again.

As it does every year, the convention needs volunteers in order to run smoothly and get everything done. This year, as in years past, they are asking for volunteers to contribute two hours of their time to activities like ticket selling/taking, hleping with the forums, doing odd jobs, or counting money (no, you don’t get to keep any of it). The majority of the need is with ticketing, and the busiest time slots are Saturday and Sunday mornings from 8 am – 12 am, but can start as early as 7 am. The work is fun and easy, and goes by very quickly if you take an early time slot. If you’d like to volunteer some time please let me know. We already have 7 volunteers, so it looks like CTRI will lead the way again this year! The sooner we give him names the better, because we get first pick at time slots.

Tom also mentioned that with the WRTC occurring in New England, he thinks the convention is in a good position to help advertise it and increase interest, and if done correctly, the convention will benefit as well. What he wants to know is what we as contesters think the convention could do to help publicize the WRTC, and how we might be able to do that while increasing interest in the convention as well. If you’d give this some thought and pass along your ideas to me I’ll make sure Tom gets them. Thanks in advance.

As if that weren’t enough to stimulate your brain, Tom also wants to know what the convention can do to help publicize CTRI. This could take the form of supporting a forum, or providing a booth in the exhibitor’s hall as in years past, etc. Our continued strong support of the convention has not gone unnoticed, so if you can think of anything you’d like to see them do for us, please pass it along.

I think the big message here is that, as has been said many times, we are recognized and appreciated not only for what we’ve done within the sphere of contesting, but also for what we’ve done to help make the convention the success it has been over the years. Again we’re being given an opportunity to make ourselves heard and known better, so I’m asking that everyone take a few minutes to come up with some ideas. All hams in New England will benefit if we do.

73,

Pat, NG1G