preliminary report on HAM class: success AND a face plant

[Joe Decuir]

Hello to Cathy et al,

 

Cathy and staff: consider this a written apology from me, on behalf of Issaquah Amateur Radio Club and Issaquah Citizen Corps.  At best, this is a teachable moment on how things don’t go as planned.

 

Upside:

• Several dozen people passed the HAM radio tests: technician and general
• I do not have a report from Daniel yet.

 

Downsides:

• We were shorthanded for training and testing staff - only 2 teachers and 3 VEs
• Many were out sick
• We did not start testing in time, nor finishing testing in time
• IMO, testing should start 2 hours early (2pm), not 40 minutes early (3:20pm)
• We need enough VEs so that test grading can happen in time allocated
• In the big rush at the end several bad things happened:
• We went about an hour late – 5pm instead of 4pm
• We didn’t do a sufficient cleanup job
• Center staff had to be paid overtime
• Center staff were insulted by discourteous class attendees
• As a parent, I understand the need to pick up children on time

 

Result: we are NOT welcome back, at least not with the current defective plans.

We might be able to use other training facilities like Public Works in the future.

Those are limited in space.

 

Lee: who would we talk to in order to book training space in December?

 

Joe Decuir, KF7BMD

Issaquah Amateur Radio Club, W7BI.com

Issaquah CERT 0015, Zone 14

E: jde...@ieee.org

E: jde...@uw.edu

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