[OZAPRS] ZLAPRS and ZL Packet Lists

[Darryl Smith]

Hi Phil

Can you please convey to the NZART council and president my view on how
narrow minded and short sighted this decision is. The intent of the
Amateur
Radio Hobby is to 'Extend the State of the Radio Art', and the role of the
NZART is to support this. I should say that I am not a member of the
NZART,
but I have been a supporter of the Organization. I have been to two NZART
conferences at significant personal expense to assist with extending the
state of the radio art in New Zealand.

I am on the board of TAPR in the USA - and we have a policy of allowing
anyone to join our mailing lists. We will ban people and moderate as
required, but anyone can join. Same goes with this list, although there is
no actual organization behind it. 

One of the reasons that I am not a member of the WIA is their policy of
not
allowing publication of articles by non-members except in special
circumstances. I have written about 7 or 8 papers covering ham radio that
have been published internationally and I am well respected in the
International Ham Digital Community, and I find these type of policies
short
sighted.

There is of course the argument that the organization should be there for
the benefit of the membership. Offering free mailing lists does of course
provide services to more than just the membership. But because non-members
are on the mailing list, the value of the mailing list is increased. 

>From a publicity point of view this is just dumb. At my second NZART
conference I spoke on marketing the hobby, and how the hobby needs to be
marketed to the general public, to relatives and to ourselves. By dropping
mailing lists the NZART have just marketed against themselves. And this
will
have a negative impact on membership. If I were a member of an
organization
that did something like this I would leave, and ensure that people knew
why.


Of course costs for the NZART will go up as someone needs to maintain a
list
of members, and their email addresses, and correlate this to the mailing
list system. 

None of this should of course be read as anything but a personal comment
on
the situation. 

Feel free to forward these comments to those who make these dumb
decisions... 

Darryl


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