The FRC members meeting was simply disgusting this year.
The video post is here and has call outs for specific times as it’s about 70 minutes in length.
First the meeting was held about 1/2 mile away from the normal location in a smaller area than in all years prior.
The Board refused to let anyone anyone other than themselves speak and I demanded to speak based on the assembled crowd. After Mike Felcher relented to the overwhelming support I started to talk through our issues. At this time the other board member, N0XIA called the police saying we were not allowing the board to work and >20 people were in the room per the fire code. I made the demand that this is a members meeting and we are bound by Roberts rules of order, to which Mike Fletcher insisted this was only a board meeting (it’s the annual members meeting).
I then called a point of order that there is not a quorum present and as the members have never elected the board. One of the members has the gall to insist he was elected in 1990 and has been re-appointed ever since! Simply put they were wrong.
I made a motion to remove the board members and they would not even call the question. This is against the rules.
Further on in the board meeting the unelected board amended the bylaws to remove all the members from the corporation! So if you were a member before, you’re not now! These people are sick, and will be made to answer for this in court. As of now, the FRC has no members and is simply an unelected board.
Dana is avoiding service on behalf of the cooperation too. What they have done is unconscionable and reprehensible.
I can say they have no legal authority to operate anymore and if you see the board members ask them to account for their actions. This is truly the worst of the worst in amateur radio today. What’s most concerning is these board members are involved as board members in other clubs, certainly calling into account their actions in that capacity.
I’ve been trying to get FRC “Coordination” for a Full-Stack D-Star System here in Pasco County for years and absolutely no help has been provided by “The Board.” Being told I needed to find a 2m frequency pair I did so last year and the ZAARC membership voted to give me their pair (147.135/.735) and a letter stating this was provided to FRC November 2016 along with applications for each band (2m, 70cm and 1.2 Gig) and to date NOT A WORD from FRC. We will be going as an uncoordinated system as we have a grant (Federal) deadline to meet. I agree that SOMETHING NEEDS TO HAPPEN with FRC soon!
Bryan,
Luckily I have not had to deal with the FRC but I might have an over-simplistic idea(sometimes those are so obvious that one can’t see the forest for the trees). Since the rules you previously quoted for the recognition of a coordinating body is of the Amateurs in the area recognize it and they (the FRC) have kicked out all of the members; they now are no longer recognized as the coordinating body so you should just start a new repeater coordinating body for FL.
Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. Several years back, in Kansas the repeater council was a pay to play organization–you couldn’t apply for a repeater coordination without paying a fee. During an annual meeting a rep for the members (similar to the author if this site) had enough proxies to vote out the entire board and he took control and revamped the process (first action was to eliminate fees and mandatory membership). Today he is still the repeater coordinator and gets the job done.
There is no rule that says you can’t take over repeater coordination–the FCC just says coordinating body. I moved hear a few months back and have a repeater to put up–I’m not even going to bother with coordination.
Get ’em Bryan! I have nothing nice to say AT ALL about the FRC (Fascist Repeater Clansmen) or ‘Director Mike’ for that matter.
A view from outside…
I came across your issues when searching out answers to a local repeater issues in my area in the other Melbourne (Australia) and it occurs to me The FRC may have done you a favour.
If as it has been observed the FRC have no members and no validly elected directors, then the way is clear to create a new properly constituted coordination group with a real membership, real database, open policies and open decisions.
As observed by KB9MWR & the ARRL some time ago (2012), nothing prohibits multiple coordinators and it would be hard for the NFCC to argue a properly constituted body with a significant number of members as being non representative. A good start would be to establish a structure then document and recognise current allocations using a sites like Repeater Book as a starting point.
Check out KB9MWR’s blog entry
http://kb9mwr.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/frequency-coordination.html?m=1