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Busy, Busy: ARES Incorporation and My Son’s Enrollment in an Electrician AAS Program
4 August 2012 | by It’s been too long since I’ve posted; for those waiting for my next post on the ARRL Radiogram, please pardon the delay. The last couple of weeks have been unusually busy. More important matters have largely taken precedence over ham radio and blogging, but ham radio has by no means died at the QTH of NØIP and KAØCEM!
ARES® has been thriving here. On July 5, Yellow Medicine County ARES®, Inc. was incorporated. We filed our articles of incorporation with the MN Secretary of State and also obtained vanity call sign WØYMC (Yellow Medicine County) from the FCC! Two nights ago, the board of directors held their organizational meeting at which they adopted bylaws, elected officers, etc. Now we are ready to make application for 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. Hopefully I will get to that next week.
We had one emergency operation in July, though I sort of backed into it. After I received a phone call from a friend, my son and I assisted in searching for a missing girl. At first I wasn’t even thinking in terms of ARES. Intending to just help our friends, I told my son to throw on his ARES vest to be more visible, I grabbed mine, and we brought our HT’s so we could communicate. Upon arrival at the scene we found ourselves in the midst of many similarly-clad firefighters and EMS personnel as well as police officers and deputies. Long story short, by the time the search was concluded, many more firefighters would be involved as well as local K9, bloodhounds from Watertown, SD and the MN State Patrol Helicopter. Thanks be to God, the girl eventually turned up safe.
The weekly Yellow Medicine County ARES Training Net continues. In July I covered the ARRL radiogram, an introduction to the Incident Command System, and spent one session discussing lessons learned in the search for the missing girl. Thus concludes the latest ARES news from Yellow Medicine County.
And on the home front it appears that by elmering my son Antonio, KAØCEM, I have unwittingly steered him toward a career as an electrician! This past Wednesday he was admitted to the Electrician AAS program of MN West Community College, Canby, as a PSEO (Post-Secondary Enrollment Option) student in his last two years of highschool/homeschool. He surprised me a couple months ago by asking about this, and now he’s all registered for classes and already has a pile of books to study.
That’s all I have time for right now. After dashing this off it’s back to work for me. Hopefully I’ll get back to regular posting next week.
4 Responses to “Busy, Busy: ARES Incorporation and My Son’s Enrollment in an Electrician AAS Program”
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Congratulations to Antonio! We all look forward to following his educational adventures!
Thanks, Matt!
I thought that ARES belonged to ARRL. How did you form a corporation using their trademark or copyrighted name? Did you get special permission or do they let groups do that?
Good question, Rob. After a bit of correspondence with the ARRL, they directed me to this document:
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/ARES-Registered-Trademark.pdf
We made sure to satisfy the ARRL requirements in our articles of incorporation and in our bylaws.
One important thing to note is that Yellow Medicine County ARES®, Inc. is distinct from ARES itself. Think of it as a club that is exclusively dedicated to supporting ARES work. It exists only to support ARES, not supplant it. The directors are not even required to be registered ARES operators. As EC I still have oversight over ARES in the county, and hams who register with ARES are not required to pay dues or join Yellow Medicine County ARES®, Inc.
Thanks for raising the question, Rob. It was one we had to answer before proceeding with this.