Board appoints Grant Committee for WIA Club Grant Scheme

Immediately before the WIA's Annual General Meeting on 6 May 2006, the WIA Board adopted Rules to govern the WIA Club Grants Scheme.

The Club Grants Scheme Rules require the Board to fix the amount to be allocated to the Scheme in a particular year, and to set a timetable for the year, and to appoint the Grant Committee for the year.

The Board has allocated $5,000 in the current year and fixed Monday 10 July 2006 as the last day on which qualifying Affiliated Clubs may lodge an application for a grant. A Qualifying Affiliated Club is an Affiliated Club with at least 50% of its licensed members also members of the WIA.

The Board deferred appointing the members of the Grant Committee, which is to be comprised of 3 independent and qualified amateurs.

Grants will be made for projects that advance the purposes of the Scheme, which is to promote and advance amateur radio, the WIA and it�s Affiliated Clubs by supporting useful and/or innovative projects undertaken or to be undertaken by Affiliated Clubs.

Today the WIA President, Michael Owen VK3KI announced the membership of the Grant Committee that had been appointed by the Board.

The members are Ken Fuller, VK4KF, also designated as Chair, Deane Blackman VK3TX and Wally Howse VK6KZ.

A thumbnail CV of each of them is attached to this Release.

"We are very grateful that each of these distinguished members has agreed to give their time for this important project. Clubs are urged to make sure that they read the Rules (which can be found on the WIA website) carefully, and to make sure that all Applications for Grants are lodged for the Grant Committee to consider at the WIA national office address by Monday 10 July 2006."

KEN FULLER BE (UNSW), VK4KF is a member of the WIA Queensland Advisory Committee and was responsible for the inauguration and operation of the WIA grants scheme operated initially by the WIAQ and then the QAC within Queensland. In his past life Ken was responsible, amongst other things, for the administration of a number of international science and technology agreements involving the assessment of merit over a wide range of disciplines. Ken is not as active on air as he wishes but perseveres with local nets and feeding his growing addiction to CW. He is particularly interested in the design of antenna systems for small lot and mobile application. He hopes one day to be proficient in the design of PIC microcontrollers for amateur radio applications.

DEANE BLACKMAN PhD, MEngSc, BMechE, has been VK3TX since 1968, holding a few WIA offices at times on the way. He spent most of his real life as an academic at Monash University, supporting his research by winning competitive grants, so he knows about the begging side of the business. He retired as Associate Professor in 2003. In 1985 he founded and then ran a company creating custom software, mostly for technical clients. Sadly, he suffers a CW addiction.

WALTER HOWSE PhD, MA, BEd(Hons), BSc operates Amateur Radio Station VK6KZ. Wally has played a key role in considering and choosing proposals in a wide variety of fields. Such experience has been gained as Director of Technical Education Tasmania, member of the Australian Committee (and later Commission) on TAFE, Secretary of the WA Post Secondary Commission and Director of the WA Distance Education Consortium of universities. Now retired, he is keen on the anomalous propagation of VHF, UHF and microwave signals and has held world distance records on the 432, 1296 MHz and 10 GHz bands.

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