Club Activities Meetings

2025-05-14 May monthly meeting one of the most social of the year

2025-05-22
Eve

Thanks to everyone who turned up and made the May 14th Monthly Meeting one of the liveliest and most social meetings of the year. There were over 60 attendees, with about 31 people in the room and 32 on Zoom. Unfortunately, there were some significant audio problems for the folks on Zoom for the first 45 minutes or so. We apologize sincerely for this!

Annual General Meeting June 11 – Reminder

Roger kicked things off with a reminder about the Annual General Meeting (AGM) next month on June 11th. Everyone is asked to register in advance. Click here for more information about the AGM and the link to register. The AGM is your chance to:

  • Review the 2024-25 Financial Statements and Annual Report, and
  • Elect the incoming Board (all current directors are standing for re-election).

Everyone is welcome to attend the AGM but only members in good standing are eligible to vote.

  • To be “in good standing”, members must have renewed their membership through the Zeffy online payment system between June 1, 2024, and May 31, 2025. If you haven’t done so already, click here to join or renew before May 31, 2025.
  • The Board will recognize all such members as eligible voters.
  • Voting members must attend in person. Voting by Zoom will not be possible.

We will also look ahead and discuss the coming year. Watch for updates inside the AGM item in the online calendar and in the newsletter.

New Hams Forward

Roger then provided an update on plans for new hams, including:

  • the new hams welcome package, and
  • plans for a new hams group photo and welcome BBQ on June 28th to coincide with OARC Field Day at Scouts Headquarters. 

Roger also reminded everyone of the upcoming change in the ISED exam questions, effective July 15, 2025. Mike’s May “mk’s word” column has some helpful thoughts on this change.

Volunteer updates

Roger acknowledged some of our volunteers:

  • A big thank-you to our new Membership Coordinator, Claude VA3VLW, for all his effort to bring our membership lists up to date and for bringing his energy to member engagement.
  • Much appreciation to our outgoing Website Administrator, Neil VE3PUE, for all his work running the website and the newsletter all these years, providing IT support, and performing many other vital, often invisible, tasks. Neil will continue in the IT-support role, trouble-shooting problems with the website, maintaining our club email server, and more.
  • A warm welcome to our new Website Administrator, Eve Panagapko, who has experience with web and graphic design, writing and editing, and has a great sense of user experience. Eve is an Amateur Radio enthusiast who took our course with Harrie and is currently studying to write her exam. We are really grateful to her for volunteering to be our new Website Administrator. She’ll be doing this work remotely from her home in Saskatchewan.

In other news…

Tour of some recent website changes

Joanne gave a brief tour of some changes to the OARC website, including the new online calendar (anything that has a date will always be on the calendar) and a new grouping of existing club activities under Education, Equipment, Activities and Partnerships (the four goals from the 2025-28 Strategic Plan).

Presentation 1: Ottawa Amateur Radio Shack Discord Channel

After that, Ken VA2TXZ provided a tour of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Shack discord server. This is a private, online discussion forum and you have to be invited in order to join. There is a tremendous amount of discussion on a broad variety of topics. This includes: looking for solutions to common problems, upcoming events, interesting Youtube videos, etc. An invitation to join the Ottawa Amateur Radio Shack discord server will be sent to meeting attendees within the next few days.  The invitation will only be good for 24 hours.

Presentation 2: Battery Technologies and Applications

The audio disruption at the beginning put us behind schedule and so we ran out of time for Wayne Getchell’s presentation on Battery Technologies and Applications. (Wayne: We apologize sincerely for having you on deck and then having to pull the plug!) We will reschedule and we will put Wayne first on the agenda so he has all the time he needs. We are looking forward to it!

See you next month on June 11, 2025 for the Annual General Meeting. Click here for more information about the AGM and the link to register.

Last Updated on 2026-01-05 by Joannadanna