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Posts published in “Club Business”

New 2026 Board Officers…

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 11/16/2025

At the November 2025 regular meeting of SPARC, the membership elected the nominated officers. As there were no challengers to the current board and the current board agreed to serve another year, the officers for the new year are the same as the old year.

Elected for another term include:

  • Tom Schaefer NY4I – President
  • Carol De La Torre AB4YI – Vice-President
  • Bruce Solov K2BHS – Secretary
  • Will Scott W7WMS – Treasurer
  • Board Members
    • Dee Turner N4GD
    • John Toth KI4UIP
    • Dan (Nic) Nichols KZ0J

You can find a full list included appointed positions on the Club Officers Page available here.

On behalf of the current board, thank you for your confidence in our leadership. Your support is appreciated.

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Officer Nominations 2025 and Proposed Bylaw Changes

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 10/13/2025

The nominating committee led by Hal Chase W1EES put forth a slate of officer nominations at the October 2025 SPARC meeting. All the current officers were willing to run again hence that was the slate the nominating committee put forth. The members in attendance were then asked if there were any nominations from the floor for each specific position. Hearing none, the nominations were closed. Per the SPARC by-laws, nominations from the floor must be made at the October meeting and are not accepted at the November meeting. Since none of the officer positions are contested positions, at the November meeting the secretary will enter a single vote for each officer (per our parliamentary procedure). The net effect is the board serving you today will continue to serve next year.

Additionally, the proposed bylaw changes were submitted by the bylaw review committee chair, Carol AB4YI. These were reviewed at the meeting to constitute due notice to the membership per the SPARC current bylaws. These bylaw changes will be voted on individually at the November December meeting. More details on each proposed change are available here: 2025 By-Laws Revision Project

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SPARC Searching for a New Home…

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 10/03/2025

SPARC as you may know maintains a club station and meeting location at a local business named DMI in Pinellas Park. SPARC was advised recently that due to the owner’s changing priorities, we must find a new meeting location. This also means we must remove the equipment from the club station and all our antennas including the tower. We just found out about this recently and there will more discussions on the subject. Your officers have been contacting others and handling the calls we have been receiving about people offering locations. We are grateful to all as we figure out the best new home for SPARC. We have a special board meeting on October 14th (see right sidebar) and will have info throughout the month and at the next club meeting in November.

Please allow me to stress…this is not due to anything SPARC did. We still maintain a good relationship with the management at DMI. This is the reality of operating a small business and we are incredibly grateful for the generosity DMI has shown us over the years.

We will be in the DMI location through the end of this year so we have time to make this move as an orderly and well-managed project.

I will update this post as we get new information.

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New SPARC Board Member

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 02/19/2025

Please join me in welcoming Dan “Nic” Nichols KZ0J to the SPARC board. Nic was nominated and elected at the February meeting for the spot vacated by Tom W4CU. You can email Nic directly at boardmember3@sparc-club.org.

As you may know, SPARC is a board-run organization per our bylaws. We rely upon the board to steer the business of the club. Please join me in wishing Nic much success.

 

 

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SPARC Repeater Trustee Changes…

By Tom Schaefer NY4I on 11/22/2024

On behalf of all the SPARC board and members, I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to Billy KN4LUZ for his service to the club as the repeater trustee of SPARC. Billy–while maintaining his role as SPARC net manager–has asked to step-down as trustee and in an act that makes being president easy, found his own replacement.

Alex KO4CEE was authorized by the SPARC board at its most recent meeting to become the trustee for the WA4AKH club repeater callsign. There are some housekeeping tasks to get the change made with the FCC but this should be done within a week or so [These are now complete – 9 Dec 2024]. We appreciate Alex taking on this responsibility and we trust everyone that uses the repeaters will exercise all due care in operating on those club repeaters.

Once again, thank you Billy! We wish you all the best and look forward to your net manager reports again.

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SPARC Field Day Results & Video

By Tom Schaeffer W4CU on 07/03/2024

The 2024 SPARC Field Day was attended by 47 Hams, guests and visitors. Twenty two individuals operated and shared in reaching 1924 QSOs. The breakdown of QSOs was 800 on phone, 671 on CW and 453 on FT8. The Club’s total submitted score was 6,796 with 6096 points attributed to contacts and 700 bonus points for items such as media publicity, sending formal messages, copying the ARRL Field Day message, and site visits by an elected official. The picnic lunch/dinner event was enjoyed by all who attended. Over all, Field Day was a success and lots of fun.

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