WIA President and Vice President Attend the NZART Conference

Michael Owen, VK3KI and Ewan McLeod, VK4ERM attended the NZART annual conference held in New Plymouth on the weekend of June 4/5. A comprehensive MP3 summery of the conference by the incoming NZART President, Bruce Douglas, ZL2WP, can be found on the NZART webpage at http://www.nzart.org.nz/nzart/Update/Broadcast/

The following is the address by Michael Owen delivered at the conference;

I am personally delighted to be with you though I do not need to be reminded how long ago was the Gisborne Conference. I am also delighted that this year I am accompanied by Ewan McLeod VK4ERM, WIA Vice President and a first attendance for him.

As many of you know, the WIA is a very different organisation now than it was just over a year ago through restructuring to a single national structure from a complex and less efficient Federal structure.

That change is, of course, not instant but more an evolution that still continues.

That change became essential as Amateur Radio itself faced the need to change as the amateur population aged and there were not sufficient new entrants. Change was essential. Different countries have addressed it differently. Some saw Morse as a barrier to entry, some strongly disagreed with that, and some saw a new entry licence as a solution.

But in all this change we must not throw out that which is good. That is why the WIA was most anxious to preserve the relationship with NZART, particularly the mutual interchange between our two societies.

The very nice article at the end of your symposium booklet seems to ask 'Who really started this relationship?'

The answer is that it happened because enough of us have been freely, openly and trustingly allowed to participate in the other society's activities to both understand each other, to see the need for co-operation and to understand and accept the differences between our two societies and countries.

I believe now, more than ever before, we must seek to work together,

We have had the benefit of Fed Johnson as part of our BPL team and hopefully NZART has received some benefit in return.

We share many problems, though we live in very different regulatory environments.

As a result of the interface between our societies we are used to working together at the ITU level.

But we can do more and we seek to do more.

While there will not be any further Federal Convention, I can assure you that the WIA will be inviting you to send your representatives to meet with our WIA Board and to participate in appropriate activities.

I have one regret; we can offer you nothing that can compare with an NZART Conference.

Thank you.

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