Honestly, it's been extremely hard to take advantage of the publications and official procedures from the "inside".
Just speaking for myself, the minutes of the meetings that show what I've done as an individual for the organization haven't been published because they haven't been approved.
Because we never had another board meeting, there's no way the earlier minutes can be published. They are frozen in time.
Meanwhile, Officers and the majority Directors congratulate themselves publicly on all activity.
A very few people control all of the social media, website content, and column content in the AMSAT Journal.
I moved (and it was approved) for a bylaws committee to fix the things that Bruce is talking about. There are several election issues, with electronic voting roadblocks being a big one.
A bylaws committee is a big deal. It was a priority for Clayton Coleman. He and I talked about it on the phone twice. I committed to help, and I did. I am disappointed at the lack of follow through. The bylaws committee has yet to meet. They had plenty of time. The men selected for this job are qualified and can deliver good results. We should have been able to have this committee meet, have their recommendations incorporated into the bylaws, and offer electronic voting by 2020. Unlike other things we do, this is not rocket science.
I moved (and it was approved) for AMSAT to formally support the ARISS AREx project. This was a very high priority item for AREx. There were three levels of support. The first was a very simple expression of "official support" of the project. Publicly stating that the project was good for amateur radio and should happen. That happened due to this motion.
The regulatory work that I've done is completely invisible to the membership at this point, primarily because detailed minutes for the members cannot be published without regular board meetings.
Clayton appointed me to lead very important ITAR/EAR regulatory work. That would have also been in the minutes that the membership is prevented from seeing.
We have everything we need to fix several decades of painful regulatory bullshit. We have highly competent consultants, a motivated and competent volunteer lead, and people with the technical writing chops to produce a great policy document. We can't even get a board meeting to review the work.
Not having any board meetings for an entire year means these things stay invisible.
If you vote for Paul, Bruce, or Mark, then you will get another year of this exact same thing.
-Michelle W5NYV
On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 12:32 AM Bruce Perens via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
And he shouldn't have had to. The rules were intended to allow all candidates access to AMSAT's publications for campaigning, which has never worked, and it's discriminatory because the incumbents get those publications as their pulpit year-round. And a postal mail list is provided to them because the rules were written in 1969.
On Mon, Aug 3, 2020, 10:31 PM Clint Bradford via AMSAT-BB < amsat-bb@amsat.org> wrote:
I was not “offended” not do I want to “un-subscribe” from your email messages.
I just though tit tedious to perform the work you did on this …
Clint K6LCS
On Aug 3, 2020, at 4:33 PM, Howie DeFelice howied231@hotmail.com
wrote:
Hi Clint,
Since I am responsible for this, let me answer that question. ...
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Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: https://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb