Perusing the ARRL Member Bulletin covering results from the Second Board Meeting, (July 18 –19, 2025) turned up a couple items of note:

For instance, I had plum forgot about the new DXCC Trident award that was announced months ago. Best I can tell this one copied the Triple Play WAS award format except with DXCC instead of States. Confirm a 100 DXCC entities worked using CW, Phone, and Digital modes and get the award, which also includes endorsements for increasing numbers of DXCC. The intent is to generate additional CW and SSB activity and this seems like a good idea.

The Board also approved a year-long celebration of the semiquincentennial of the United States. This will include commemorative ARRL US250 Worked All States awards from contacts made during 2026, as well as other on-air activity. Jeez, now I feel really old as I remember well the bi-centennial in 1976…

The Board approved making 2026 the Year of the Club and passed other motions in support of the initiative including:

  • Creation of a book featuring high-performance clubs.
  • Establishment of working with and recognizing outstanding club websites while helping clubs with ineffective websites.
  • Recognizing ARRL Affiliated Clubs that maintain a higher-than-required ARRL membership level for affiliation. Clubs that achieve a 70% or a 90% ARRL membership level within their clubs will receive acknowledgment and special recognition.

Can I root for the success of this initiative while remaining highly skeptical of the basic premise?

My observation has been that local clubs, of every variety, have gone the way of the landline telephone. I don’t think it’s a ham radio or ARRL “problem” I simply don’t believe people in 21st century have the same interest in social clubs as humans had a century ago. Locally, the Lions Club, the Rotary Club, the Optimist Club, etc. all closed shop years ago. When asked “why?” the answer was that younger people simply weren’t interested in the concept of “clubs” anymore and the current members were all in their 80s and tired. Sounds a little too familiar, eh?

But hey, I give the ARRL credit, not for trying (again) to revive local radio clubs, but for doing what members have been begging them to do in this regard. The members are wrong and I don’t think it will work, but the effort means HQ does listen, even when tossing good money after bad. Besides, there’s always the possibility that I’m wrong and this works. Drop me a note when you re-install that rotary dial landline phone in your home and we can discuss it…