EC Meeting
The semi-annual EC meeting was held October 27, 2007 at the Michigan State Police Academy. The session was well attended. The meeting was a mixture of presentation and discussion.
The topics covered were:
- Section Manager WA8EFK presented certificates to new ECs
- We had a good discussion of the SET and thoughts on improving
- We looked at the new ARPSC guidelines document
- We talked about how we communicate amongst ourselves
- KB8SFR gave us a review of the Emergency Management summit held in Harbor Springs
- We talked about reporting and how we can improve it
- WB8TKL gave us an update on the status of the Digital Radio Group
Material from the session
Available material presented in the session:
- WB8RCR's presentations are available here in PDF form (1992Kb). Key comments from the group were captured in the last slide of the SET, Communicating, and Reporting presentations.
- Jay Nugent presented a few key slides from his Lupton presentation available here also in PDF form (1338Kb).
- The ARPSC Guidelines document is available here (pdf 675Kb) and a PowerPoint presentation for ECs to use to roll the document out to their programs is available here (ppt 2682 Kb).
Key take-aways
Some key items the SEC learned from the session:
SET
- We need to do a better job of promotion
- A lot of training in packet is still needed
- We could do a better job interfacing with served agencies beyond emergency management
- Traffic handling skills are still very weak
- We could do better learning additional modes, especially digital and non-amateur modes
- Some scoring improvements would help encourage programs to "stretch".
Communications
- We (WB8RCR) need to do a better job promoting the circuits -- Yahoo groups, web site, newsletter, ARPSC net, packet net, etc.
- Those districts that do not have them should consider a Yahoo group
- We need to think before posting potentially sensitive topics on public groups
Reporting
- No clear preference among online and current spreadsheet based reporting
- Would like to see longer term data available for spotting trends
- Add contact information to the spreadsheet to keep it up to date
- DECs should send a reminder to their ECs
Next Meeting
The next meeting is planned for the spring. There were comments advising against March, so depending on other events, the meeting will probably be held in early April.
Thank You, MSP
Of course, a big thank you has to go to the Michigan State Police, Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division for providing us with the facilities to comfortably handle such a large group, and especially to Rich Law of MSP-HSEMD for coming out on his day off to make sure we were well cared for.
