The Critical Infrastructure Components of an Amateur Radio Club

When we talk about ‘infrastructure’, most of us think about build roads, bridges, or buildings. But ham radio clubs have their own set of infrastructure that, if not maintained, will diminish or even prevent a club’s success. In this post, I’ll take a look at what I consider to be the critical components of a radio club that need maintaining:

• The Membership List

• The Mailing List

• The Financial Tracking

• Task Tracking

The Membership List

The membership list is a critical infrastructure component of a club because these are the people that will provide the help needed for club events, provide dues and contributions to the club’s financial health, and who need to understand that they are important to the club. That’s straightforward.

You’d think that maintaining a membership list would be easy, and it often is. The difficulty comes into play when:

• There is not a unified location for the membership list - members are maintained in multiple places

• There is a tiered dues system that needs tracking - such as newly licensed hams being given a year’s free club membership where dues are prorated over a year before lining up with the rest of the annual memberships.

Focusing on a single place to maintain the membership with all the needed information is critical. Clubs will often have parts of that membership list split off for other purposes. For example, clubs will publish on their website the membership list. But you don’t want that internet listing to include addresses, phone numbers, or other private information. It’s necessary to be able to know where all membership information is located so that it can all be updated from the master list, typically a spreadsheet with all the information needed about the club member.

The master spreadsheet becomes the ‘source of truth’ and all other members listings and information come from the master spreadsheet.

The Mailing List

It drives me a little crazy to get all the reminders I get for a doctor’s appointment these days. I get emails and texts multiple times before the event. I have a calendar after all, and the appointment is on the calendar. But expecting people to look at their calendars and show up for events outside of work without reminders is a fool’s errand. The mailing list is a critical infrastructure piece for the club because it provides communications to members and non-members about club activities.

The mailing list is your opportunity to not only provide reminders for club meetings, but also for informing people about club events and other information about the club. Maintaining this list is critical for engaging with the club.

My recommendation is to maintain a mailing list that includes both members and ‘friends of the club’ - former members, ARRL representatives for your club’s area, people who pass VE exams if your club provides them, and other interested parties. This larger list of people outside of members can often provide new members to the club or at least build a larger community around the club.

Financial Tracking

Tracking the club’s finances should be a no-brainer. Yet, the tracking can be sloppy, untimely, or not prepared well.

Financial tracking goes beyond the bank balance reported at club meetings. Tracking includes knowing when known bills are due, such as club insurance, so that payments are made and reported on time. State and Federal reporting requirements for our non-profit status needs to be tracked and submitted in a timely manner along with the payment of the correct fees.

Revenue generating activities of the club, such as hamfests, need to be managed from a financial viewpoint as well as the logistical requirements. A careful accounting of the costs to putting on the event needs balancing with the revenue generated.

Specific categories of the costs and revenue need to be highlighted as well. How much revenue was received for selling booths, how much for the equipment raffle, how much for the ‘half and half’ raffle where the club gets half the money and the other half is raffled off to a winner are all examples of tracing specific components. This gives the club leadership the ability to determine if the revenue generating components are actually revenue generating.

Task Tracking

In my other life, I was a project manager for many years. Tracking task completion was a big part of the job and a key for a project being successful. If people did not complete the tasks they committed to do or didn’t do them in a timely manner, the project would falter and adjustments would need to be made to ensure the project was successful. If the tasks weren’t tracked and you just assumed that people would do what they committed to do, you were in for some spectacular surprises. Life happens and project managers needed to follow-up and adjust so that the project stayed on track.

The same is true for ham radio clubs. People commit to doing things for the club and they need to be done. Most often, these commitments are captured in the meeting minutes if you have a good Secretary. Or, for Zoom meetings at least, the AI meeting summary is pretty good for capturing the discussions and the commitments.

Capturing is one thing, and is important. Follow through is the weak point. We capture a task to be done and then don’t ask if the task was completed at the next meeting. With clubs only having monthly meetings, critical tasks and actions can lose momentum quickly.

Minimally, tasks should be followed up during the next meeting. For tasks that are due the next meeting, follow-up needs to be done well before the meeting due date to ensure the work is on track to be done in time.

Who does this follow-up from the club leadership and how it is done need to be decided as part of the club’s standard operating procedure or determined by the officers. Without this follow-up, events will be chaotic or fail, hurting the reputation and desire ability for being in the club.

Club Infrastructure is Critical to a Club’s Success

Successfully navigating these four critical infrastructure areas will go a long way to ensuring the club and its members are successful. Take a look at your own radio club and see how well your club stacks up against these critical areas.