Being a 'Critical Friend' (Again)

Being a critical friend is often put forward as the right thing to be when governing a school or similar.  It's a good idea.

In that respect, I am what you could call a critical friend of the RSGB: I support it's existence and aims, but, quite often, not the way it goes about things.

No, not quite like that...

So, this evening, I had a look at the RSGB web site.  I looked under the "First Steps" heading.  There's been a bit of thought and change to appearing to look interested in newcomers, which is the first thing to note and congratulate the RSGB for.

But it's a bit of an uphill struggle from thereon in. I was surprised to read this:

"If you are reading this the chances are that you have just joined the Radio Society of Great Britain. You may now have your first amateur radio licence, or be thinking about studying for it, and are wondering what to do next.

In this section we look at your first steps into the hobby – working other local hams on 2m FM; how 2m SSB can get you contacts from further afield, and a brief introduction to some of the main HF bands and what you are likely to hear and when."

Hmm.  Apart from being rather odd in limiting matters to 2m working, why assume that people become RSGB members first, and then become operators?  Just about everyone I know did it completely the other way around. 

This is a very serious error indeed, because it makes people believe (is it intended to?) that you can only become a ham, or that you are only likely to become a ham, if you first join the RSGB.  This tits-about-face approach is plain stupid.

The RSGB web site needs to forget vested interests within the society.  It needs to squarely focus on grabbing the attention of 'drive-by' interest in the hobby for a few seconds more.  It's during those few seconds that a "maybe I'll look into this more" sets in.  We don't want to put 'oh, but first fill in this form to join a bunch of people with licences, even though you don't have one' in their way.  It doesn't work.  Wake up!

So, what I think we have ended-up with is radio second, RSGB first.  You can see the problem, can't you?  No radio, no RSGB.  That's why nurturing an interest in radio, and not in RSGB membership, must be the overriding aim.  The RSGB must have confidence that, once there is interest, once there is a licence test pass, most will, in the end, join the society - provided it caters for their interests.  And there's another thing...