Legacy Committee

Training and development is a Legacy Subcommittee priority

Training and development is a Legacy Committee priority

The Legacy Committee considers applications from individuals and groups and advises the RSGB Board in reaching their funding decisions 

The Legacy Committee is a sub-Committee of the board and as such only meets when applications are being considered. An annual report of the Committee activities is normally submitted alongside those from other Committees and Honorary Officers in February each year.

Helping good ideas happen

The RSGB Legacy Fund, thanks to the generosity of donors, has resources available to encourage and develop amateur radio.  Some excellent projects have already been supported.  However, the fund is able to do more and inaction cannot be blamed on lack of resources!  To succeed, it needs good proposals.

Of course there are guidelines. We want the fund to help keep the amateur radio flame burning for current and future members. Its objectives are deliberately wide and projects must make a difference for lots of people. So this isn’t your opportunity to fund a brand-new software defined radio for your own shack – or even that of your club! We are looking for projects which develop the amateur radio service on a wider scale. Please follow this link (2-page/92.3KB PDF) for more detailed guidelines to help you plan an application.

Here are examples of projects which have received funding

Funding has been provided for a new DX competition scoring system

Legacy funding was given for a new system to score ARDF competitions

Spectrum pollution and interference. The increasing pollution of the spectrum affects many of us. While we benefit from the astonishing pace of technological growth, we are also increasingly at the mercy of a radio spectrum which is increasingly noisy.

There has been a project to provide the EMC Committee with top quality equipment to help amateurs in measuring and addressing interference (2013). A second project was funded to develop software that will help radio amateurs detect, and hopefully help us combat, interference form VDSL (2017). More proposals would be welcome

Specific activities. To support a very thriving activity, the Fund has provided equipment and software for ARDF—Amateur Radio Direction Finding.   Legacy funding has helped it remain relevant and in tune with changes in technology (2014). We have also provided funding to exam centres for the purchase of hardware that can facilitate on-line amateur radio examinations (2018). A trial workshop was sponsored to allow a wide range of people to gain experience of GNU programming (2018).

Display vehicle for Royal Signals AR  The Fund gave funding jointly with RCF to support a training and display vehicle for the Royal Signals RS (2020).

The fund has supported projects to encourage radio construction — one in the south-west (2015) and the other in Scotland (2017). In 2017 a radio construction tool kit was funded to allow any Affiliated Radio Club to borrow all the gear needed to run group construction workshops. Funds have also been made available for buildathon workshops that helped newcomers develop their soldering skills and another helped some ‘old hands’ get to grips with surface mount construction (2018).

Video programmes suite 

A grant for the production of a series of diverse and Amateur Radio focused videos. These will be added to the RSGB existing portfolio of video presentation to add further diversity of subjects  in support of promoting Amateur Radio to a wider public audience (2020)

Not necessarily young!  The Legacy Fund exists to support the whole current age profile of the Society. The Cambridge Community Amateur Radio Project enables continued enjoyment of the hobby by those who are restricted in some way—perhaps health problems, challenge of advancing years, disability, limited antenna space (2015).

These examples are to give a feel of the sort of projects which might get support. They have all been aimed at support and development of amateur radio and have the potential to reach a significant number of people. More projects would be very welcome.

Make contact.  So how do you or your group make contact?

If you have an idea which you think might be right for legacy funding, get in touch with the Legacy Committee at legacy.chair@rsgb.org.uk. Let them have your early thoughts so they can be talked through.  Then there is a simple application form to complete—see below—which asks for the details of your proposal, the skills of those proposing it and its benefit to the amateur radio community, timetable and costings.

The Committee is an advisory Committee to the RSGB Board  who make the final decision regarding funding applications.

Please get your thinking caps on! It will benefit our hobby and also keep faith with those whose generosity has made such funding available.

How can I donate to the Legacy Fund?

The easiest way is to send a cheque made payable to the RSGB with a covering letter stating that it is for the Legacy Fund to:

Jackie Tite, Financial Controller, RSGB, 3 Abbey Court, Fraser Road, Priory Business Park, Bedford, MK44 3WH.

If you would prefer to make a bank transfer, please call Jackie on 01234 832700, or e-mail to Jackie.tite@rsgb.org.uk  for details of which bank account to make the payment to.

If you want to leave something for the Legacy Fund when you pass away, then just make your wishes known in your will and include the contact details above; your executors can then carry out your wishes.

We look forward to hearing from you.