The CRDARS Annual General Meeting took place on Wednesday 3rd October 2018.

The following members were elected to roles on the committee:

Founding members Colin Lyne and Chris Watkins have both stepped down from their committee roles this year. We’d all like to express our thanks to both of them for their work in making the club what it is today.

Colin has agreed to continue his work as the primary point of contact for new and prospective members, and Irene has once again agreed to continue as club treasurer. Thank you to both of you for all of your work in the background. It really is appreciated.

From October 2018, subs for members over the age of 18 will rise to £20 for the year. The £2 charge for the individual meetings will be eliminated. This should be simpler for everyone, and will result in an overall saving for members who attend more than five meetings during the year. Subs remain at £5 per year for under 18s.

We’d like to extend our thanks to AJ for the donation of a 2m mobile radio, and to Richmond School Amateur Radio Society for the donation of a 2m/70cm collinear antenna.

The club has reluctantly agreed that we are not in a position to run a JOTA station for the scouts this year, although we hope to be able to put a suitable team together and run a JOTA station in future years.

Colburn Village Hall is no longer available for us to use as an examination venue. Arrangements are currently being made to register Hudswell Village Hall as our new exam centre, so we should be able to offer examinations at Hudswell in the near future.

The club is currently exploring whether or not it’s financially viable for us to repair a donated Yaesu FT-757 transceiver. If so, this is likely to become our main HF radio. Thanks to Paul Hunt for taking the time to investigate this.

A working party has been arranged to erect the club’s HF antenna, on at least a temporary basis. Hopefully this will make it easier for our members to use our G5RV until both antenna and feeders can be permanently installed. Thank you to everyone involved for your time and hard work.

As the club now meets on the 1st and 3rd week in any given month, there is the possibility that the club may hold a second December meeting on the 19th, likely depending on whether there is any interest in meeting so close to Christmas. A decision will be made closer to the time, and details will be posted to the web site once we know one way or the other.

Finally, it has once again been suggested that we attempt to hold a short, regular 2m club net. In the past, we’ve found that Sunday evenings have been inconvenient for a lot of our members, so we’re trying to come up with an alternative day or time when the majority of members can get on the air for 15 minutes or so.