Members of the MARC, I wish to make a motion at this time. Before I do so, there is need for a bit of background to establish common understandings. I refer to the MARC By-Laws, Article IX, Section B, Paragraph 2, which I quote:

 

“2. Procedures.

There shall be created a document which delineates the rules and procedures to be used by the MARC in performing the tasks and achieving the goals for which it was formed; it shall also delineate the rights and duties of sponsors and trustees, both prospective and current. This document shall be known as “The Procedures” or as “The MARC Procedures” and shall contain all information necessary to the understanding of those rules, procedures, rights, and duties which it describes.”

Here is the part I intend to address in some detail.

 “The Procedures may be amended or changed only by such procedure as may be used to amend or change these Bylaws (ed..This is a process that takes at least 9 months to complete.) except that there shall be one or more provisions in The Procedures for the creation and review of interim rules and procedures when it is necessary to act in a timely manner to a new or changing situation for which the existing rules and procedures are inadequate or inappropriate.”

It is very important to note that these provisions for creating interim rules and procedures have never. . . I repeat . . . Never been added to the Ruling documents, even though they have been legally required, as stipulated in the By-Laws, since at least March 2, 1991, when the MARC Ruling Documents were last amended. What this means is that the writing of the By-Laws, Standards and Procedures was never completed.

I state for the record, that in my fairly educated opinion, and from everything I have seen in my latest tour of duty as MARC Coordinator, the MARC is now in a state of emergency. I believe it is now necessary to act in a timely manner to new and changing situations for which the existing rules and procedures are presently inadequate.

The MARC has a historical record of being very slow to respond to technological and social change. The process of change has always been one of changing the By-Laws, one word or phrase at a time, and only by using the By-Laws mandated nine-month process for any change to be approved or disapproved. If something gets passed and does not work, it takes another nine months or more to get rid of it. The MARC Boards have become very wary of changes over the years because the whole process can be stopped at any time in that nine-month period if an objection or improvement is raised, and the process for the change has to start all over again. The members have always blamed the Board for what appeared to be a resistance to change. This is not entirely true. Every Board I have served under has been concerned with instituting changes. The faulty process and rules that the MARC is forced to use in instituting change is the real problem. For years, the MARC has been choking on its own legislative process, as recommended and approved by the general membership. The blame for the restrictive and slow modes of instituting change, must be shared by the members who approved them in a Democratic process. The accumulated need for changes has now reached critical mass. The future of the MARC and proper coordination in lower Michigan is in serious jeopardy.

My nearly five-year involvement with the MARC has led me to believe that the largest stumbling block to updating of the By-Laws, Standards and Procedures has primarily been the lack of a transitional medium wherein new ideas and adjustments could be temporarily implemented and tested, and where they could go through language refinement before being thrown into the lengthy MARC approval process where it most often gets stopped cold. There is no mechanism in place to test new ideas and procedures. I was always amazed that such a transitional provision had not been made in the Ruling Documents. Careful study of those documents has revealed what I am passing on to you now. There was a provision made. It was never fulfilled.

Therefore, I am going to propose that the legal requirements in the By-Laws for the use of secondary ruling documents, used for the formulation of interim rules and procedures, be instituted immediately. I propose that the first of these required documents be called “Developmental Operating Guidelines. (D.O.G.)” The sole purpose of this document will be to provide a “proving ground” for testing new or different technologies, procedures, rules, descriptions, and language for eventual presentation and transition as permanent changes to the By-Laws, Standards, and Procedures.

As part of this proposal, I propose that the formation of this document be undertaken and maintained only by people with an intimate technical knowledge of repeater engineering, construction, maintenance, and interference. I propose that this group be constituted as an appointed and permanent standing committee of no less than three members or more than seven, made up of MARC full members in good standing, who are repeater owners and/or trustees of active repeaters which are properly coordinated by the MARC. This group will be moderated, pushed and administered by either a MARC Director or the MARC Vice-President. Part of the underlying duties of this group should be to safeguard the property rights of owners of existing and future repeaters from proposed rule changes that could endanger or attempt to usurp those property rights, or the private and free use of personal property, as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

I believe that a three-year moratorium should be placed on any single item entered into this document. At the end of that period, an item has to either be dropped or moved into the MARC legislative process as a proposed permanent change to the By-Laws, Standards or Procedures. This assures forward motion and further assures that there can be no attempt to replace or circumvent the By-Laws, Standards and Procedures by relying strictly on the DOG for day-to-day operations on a permanent basis..

We need this document NOW. One of the most pressing issues facing the MARC at this time is the formulation of band plans and rules for 900mhz and up. We don’t have them. Repeaters are going up fast in these bands, and we cannot coordinate them because we have no band plan or rules for them. There is a very active and nationally recognized spread spectrum repeater program at 2.4ghz in our Southeast quadrant. We can’t coordinate them either. We have no band plan or rules for those repeaters or for the developing trend toward spread spectrum repeater systems. We can use this document to quickly develop an interim band plan to allow coordination of these systems. We cannot afford to take a year to formulate these new band plans and rules. We could easily have repeater anarchy on those bands in a year.

The use of the DOG will in no way negate the power of any member’s vote. The final say for any change that will come from the DOG as a proposed permanent change to the By-Laws, Standards and Procedures, will still lie with the general membership in a Democratic vote.

This whole proposal has but one major goal. That goal is to put some speed and efficiency into affecting changes in how the MARC can conduct business. The use of the DOG will in no way become an exclusionary block or hindrance to recommendations and motions for change made by any Member in good standing, at any time.

The formation of this committee, according to Article IV of the By-Laws, could be done without a vote of the membership. However, I believe that formation of a document of  this importance, to be formulated by a standing committee, deserves to have at least some beginning structural guidelines for the formation of both the document and the committee. I have attempted to do that here. This is too important a move to be left solely to the decisions of the Board. I believe that it should be presented to the Membership at a General Meeting in the form of a motion for their approval or disapproval.

I will now state the motion:  I hereby move that the MARC immediately begin to form a new working rule document called the “Developmental Operating Guidelines” in accordance with the unfulfilled legal requirements of Article IX, Section B, Paragraph 2 of the MARC By-Laws, with the purpose of this document being to provide an active transitional medium for the introduction of new ideas, new rules and rule changes, application of new technologies, testing of proposed rule changes and technology usages, various descriptions, and the refinement of language for eventual inclusion as changes in the MARC By-Laws, Standards and Procedures. It is inclusive in this motion that the structure and administration of this document be accomplished by a permanent, standing committee of Board appointed volunteers, three to seven in number, appointed by agreement of the Board, and led by either a MARC Director or the MARC Vice-President, and that those appointees must be technical representatives or owners of operational repeaters coordinated by the MARC, this requirement being necessary to insure that a solid technological base of knowledge and understandings, specific to repeaters, is reflected in the endeavors and products of the committee for inclusion in the Developmental Operating Guidelines; and for the good of all Amateur Radio Service License holders. There will be a three (3) year maximum and total time limit imposed on any and all temporary products of the D.O.G.; at the end of which any product must either be enacted as a change, or part of a change, to the By-Laws, Standards, or Procedures, or dropped completely any from further use.

I thank you for the time allowed. I yield the floor to the President and stand ready for discussion of this motion, should the Members deem it necessary.

R. Bruce Winchell, N8UT
MARC Vice President