A sense of scale and proportion

The new RSGB Strategy is reaching down to a lower level of detail now. The purpose, values, goals and priorities launched at the AGM in April are being used by all parts of the RSGB, staff and volunteers, to help shape our activities for the next five years.

There are just 11 full-time and 3 part-time, very busy staff employed at RSGB HQ, where we provide a wide range of services to approximately 21,000 Members, 500 affiliated societies and 850 volunteers. We offer Membership, publishing, sales, exam, insurance and licensing services and advice to many thousands of amateur radio enthusiasts.

We currently offer around 150 active titles through our bookshop, many of those are titles that we publish ourselves, and we send stock to and attend over 50 events each year. We administer almost 3,000 exams for the three levels of amateur radio licence each year.

We are very proud to operate the National Radio Centre at Bletchley Park, where we have demonstrated amateur radio to over 28,000 visitors in the last twelve months. We reach even further with our website, social media and videos, where we offer technical and promotional content that is used throughout the world to help promote amateur radio. Our annual Convention attracts expert technical speakers from around the world to share their knowledge with others.

Of course, the RSGB also provides a whole range of other services including EMC, Planning, Spectrum, Repeaters and Beacons, Contest, Propagation, Technical, Education, Youth, ARDF, Ofcom and IARU liaison – all provided through volunteer committees and groups, co-ordinated and supported by the RSGB Board, Regional Team and HQ staff.

You’ll probably understand that it is quite an undertaking to review all of these activities against a new strategy and make sure we are focussing on and delivering the best possible service we can within our annual budget.

In future months, we’ll let you know what some of the RSGB committees and groups are focussing on in their contribution to the strategy.

Steve Thomas, M1ACB
RSGB General Manager