What Next for WARCI?
Submitted by: Greg Hunolt
WARCI, our club, has been successful with swap meets – with very nice turnouts this winter, a testament to the interest of our members and friends, including good folks from Illinois and occasionally Minnesota. Advertising has helped draw people to our meets, thanks to Steve Lange. We are fortunate to have an excellent venue for indoor and outdoor meets, thanks to Joe Halser. We are fortunate to have a website thanks to the efforts of Nick Tillich. We are also now fortunate to have a new club newsletter, thanks to the efforts of Ben Bensaid.
The purpose of this article is to suggest some possibilities for future new club activities and ask for your feedback on these possibilities and your suggestions for other things we might do to strengthen the club and add to its value to all of us. Dale Boyce has contributed to these ideas and joins in my request for your feedback on them.
It seems best to begin by reviewing the ‘mission statement’ for WARCI. The WARCI organization by-laws states as the purpose of WARCI: “The exclusive purpose of this Club shall be to preserve the history and enhance the knowledge of radio, television and other related disciplines.” When this statement was adopted the intent of the bylaws was to keep the purpose open to include those with lots of “related” collection interests. “Radio” can be understood by some of us to include transmitters, earphones, speakers, antennas, tubes, batteries, components, etc as well as receivers. We have members interested in television, audio and antique phonographs.
I see WARCI as having two additional purposes, 1) to promote fellowship and the exchange of ideas and experience between antique radio collectors, and 2) to preserve and promote interest in the history of Wisconsin radio. It is, after all, our home base in Wisconsin that makes us unique. I offer the ideas below with these thoughts in mind as well as the official purpose statement in our by-laws.
Possible future activities for WARCI include outreach to grow club membership, building on the success of our swap meets, making the most of our newsletter and website, and exploring cooperative activities with neighboring clubs. As we think about possible new activities, we also have to bear in mind the costs associated with them, and how we can cover these costs.
Outreach to Grow Club Membership
We need to add more members (as well as hold the members we have), both in the general interest of promoting the cause of antique radio, but also to strengthen our club. We can only do this by making membership in our club worth their while – and dues – by offering activities and benefits that meet their needs and interests. And then, we have to let potential members know about what we are doing!
To identify potential new members, we can begin by assembling a list including past WARCI members, Wisconsin members of ARCI (the Antique Radio Club of Illinois) and NARC (the Northland Antique Radio Club based in the Minneapolis area) and MARC (the Michigan Antique Radio Club) and possibly other groups. While we want to always make receiving our newsletter a benefit of WARCI membership, we can use back issues of the WARCI newsletter to showcase our club to potential members. Once we have a good list of potential members to target, we can send them a back issue and notice of upcoming WARCI meets and encourage them to give us a try.
We have been advertising our meets in Antique Radio Classified and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. We could consider also advertising in the Wisconsin State Journal and the Antique Trader, and possibly other publications.
We need to develop a list of email addresses for our members. We will have a sign-up sheet (see more below) at the next meet that will ask for email addresses. Once we have such a list, we could begin a service like the service Art Bilski provides for ARCI and use it to distribute news, pass on requests for information, etc.
We can distribute flyers announcing our meets to other antique radio clubs, especially ARCI and NARC, Wisconsin amateur radio groups and their hamfests, and Amateur Electronic Supply. Are there other organizations we should reach out to?
WARCI used to get free radio spots as public service announcements by a couple of radio stations. We had to give them a sort-of “Press Release” in a specific format with the club meeting information: what, where , when , why, who, … They had to receive the press release a certain number of days prior to the meeting. We used to get quite a few folks who heard about the appraisal booth and brought in old radio stuff. Do you think we should pursue radio spots again?
In addition to simply distributing flyers, we could offer to make presentations on antique radio to ham clubs, historical societies, schools, local history programs, etc.
Finally, can have a sign-up sheet for the general public to sign up to join and provide their contact information (mailing and email addresses, phone numbers). We should have a brief write-up for folks to take away describing the club (including information about club activities and meeting dates, the website and the newsletter.
Do you have other ideas?
Building on Success of Our Swap Meets
We have been having very good swap meets at Joe Halser’s club, which is an excellent venue, providing ample parking and indoor and outdoor space. Sunday is the best day for Joe and seems to work well for us. We have scheduled our meets to avoid conflict with other antique radio meets, especially ARCI, NARC, and MARC as well as local ham meets. Currently our swap meets run from 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM. Do you think we would have more luck drawing new people to our meets if they ran at least to 12:00 noon? (If we did so, some of us at least should stay until noon – I recall occasions years ago when new people came when almost nobody was still around.)
There are a number of ways we could add to our swap meet, depending on the interests and preferences of our members. These could include:
1. Appraisal Booth: We would need to have a group of members committed to being on-call, so that their expertise could be called upon when needed depending on what we are asked to appraise. One member would have to be at the “booth” table at all times, i.e. during the advertised hours for our meets. If someone wants to sell their appraised item on the spot, we should have a fair policy of giving all club members present the opportunity to “bid” on the item; otherwise persons in or lurking by the appraisal booth would have an unfair advantage. Having the “PA” system set up at each meet would be a simple way of announcing such an item.
2. Donation Sale: All of the proceeds would go to the club treasury. We could try this at the May, July, and October meetings, outside only. We might want to avoid being swamped with analog televisions. Unsold items would have to be taken to the dump at 38th and Lincoln immediately following the end of the meet.
3. Wisconsin Radio Exhibit: Pick a summer meet to assemble an exhibit of Wisconsin radios, which would be set up inside and would have at least one member watching over it at all times. Feature radios and related material, i.e. advertisements for them, catalogs, etc.
4. Club Tube Sales: As some other clubs do, build a stock of tested tubes through member donations or salvage and sell them at our swap meets, with proceeds going to the club treasury?
5. Activities at the meet:
a) Would you be interested in a Show and Tell, where a member(s) would bring in a
particularly interesting item and tell its story to the members?
b) Informal talks on antique radio topics, such as the history of particular Wisconsin radio
companies (e.g. Klitzen, Globe, etc.), history of Wisconsin radio stations, radio servicing
and restoration?
c) Side trips, at a summer meet, if Bob Paquette agrees, to his microphone museum, which is a
genuine national treasure and which we should find good ways to feature, perhaps as NARC
does the Pavek museum in Minneapolis, or as ARCI used to do with the Muchow museum.
Another possibility for side trips would be visit to see other members’ collections.
6. Build up to a big summer meet (perhaps timed to coincide with Summerfest, e.g. the last weekend in June), by gradually adding activities such as those listed above, adding a contest, adding an auction? (An auction would have to be well organized, with an auctioneer and clerks and help with checking items in and out.) This would take a major volunteer effort.
Do you have other ideas?
Making the Most of our Newsletter and Website
We now have a new WARCI newsletter up and running. More than anything else, to be successful it needs articles, that is, for WARCI members to write and contribute articles to Ben Bensaid, our newsletter editor / publisher. This is essential if our newsletter is to be a success. To be successful, our newsletter also needs to be published regularly; at least four issues per year. (Our present approach of publishing shortly before our swap meet seems very good.) This of course emphasizes the need for articles! Ideally Ben would have on hand articles for at least two issues.
To help with the cost of the newsletter, we should add optional distribution of the newsletter by email, as a PDF attachment. Other clubs are doing this. To be fair to all of our members, we should continue to provide hard copy newsletters by mail to those members who need hard copy.
If we use back issues of the newsletter for outreach as suggested above, we should distribute as many of them as possible them by email.
In addition to club news and antique radio (etc.) articles, we should allow members to advertise items for sale or wanted.
We also have a club website. If you haven’t done so you should check it out. It is very nicely done, with sections for our swap meet schedule, articles (actually scanned copies) from the previous WARCI newsletter, club history (actually photos from past swap meets), and a page of links to some other club and national antique radio websites. Unfortunately, the articles and history sections are out of date.
The website, just like the newsletter, depends on contributions from members. In part, though, this should be coordinated with the WARCI newsletter, so that articles published in the newsletter routinely (with at least a one issue delay), propagate to the website. We should publicize the website; we should put the website address on everything including the newsletter, flyers, signs, and ask other clubs to include a link to our website.
In addition to what we have on the website now, I suggest that we should very strongly feature Wisconsin radio – a focus on Wisconsin radio would emphasize what is unique to us, our Wisconsin heritage. We could gradually add an overview of the history of radio in Wisconsin, and within that framework articles (most appearing first in the newsletter) on Wisconsin radio companies, Wisconsin radio stations, etc. We could create a gallery of photographs of Wisconsin radios and scanned copies of advertising, etc.
I suggest that we also feature, if he would permit it, Bob Paquette’s microphone museum, with an article and photo gallery. As I noted above, Bob’s museum is a national treasure, and we should promote interest in it. Our website could be an excellent means of doing that.
Our members get calls from people looking for antique radio and phonograph repair services. W could develop a list of club members who now provide repair and or restoration services, parts, etc. We could include this list in the newsletter, on the website, and on a flyer available at our meets. We could also include contact information for the major parts suppliers like AES and Radio Daze.
Do you have other ideas?
Cooperative Activities with Neighboring Clubs
We now, through the website, and we should also through the newsletter, announce / promote the meets held by neighboring clubs, at least ARCI, NARC, and MARC.
In addition, we might consider:
1. Create an exhibit of Wisconsin radio, and offer to take it to the major summer meets of neighboring clubs e.g. to the NARC May meeting, MARC’s July meeting, and ARCI’s Radiofest, Oak Creek Hamfest in July, West Allis Hamfest at the Waukesha Expo in January, possibly an Ozaukee Hamfests.
2. Put together a presentation on Wisconsin radio, and offer to give it at ARCI, NARC, and MARC meets.
3. Provide sample copies of our newsletter to other clubs, and request sample copies of theirs to allow our members to learn of their activities.
4. Contact other clubs, and see what we can learn from their experience in all of these areas.
Do you have other ideas?
Conclusion
The ideas presented above are intended to provoke you to think of what you would like WARCI to do. Which of them do you think should be pursued, and are there some you think would not be good to pursue? What improvements on these ideas or what other ideas do you have for WARCI in the future? We can’t do everything at once – which things do you think would be most important to do first?
We will have sheets at the March 29 swap meet which you can use to provide your feedback on the ideas outlined above. If you aren’t able to come to the meet, please provide any feedback you have to me, Greg Hunolt. We will publish an article on the feedback we receive in the next newsletter.
One last thought – would you be interested in a luncheon meeting following one of our swap meets, as an opportunity to socialize and discuss WARCI activities?
