WANTED: Your ideas on promoting Amateur Radio to the public

[VK5MCH]

I wonder how this new resource would have helped said girl in post #8 or guy in post #12 above.

It's all well and good for the WIA to try and help boost the numbers by building a separate education website, but if we have dickheads sitting on the side drilling people for getting their callsign wrong or getting the callsign sequence wrong on their first go on air, what's the point??

It's fairly easy to get a foundation licence these days and deliberately so, it's then up to the rest of us to help the new licencees move up if they want to or make them feel comfortable enough to want to hang around, not piss them off and embarrass them to the point where they leave.

Getting them a licence isn't the problem, VK5PH is doing a great job, 51 so far this year I believe. Keeping them is the problem. I can only imagine what the people who got bounced in post #8 and #12 above has told everyone they know about the welcome received. Great advertising.

[VK5AV]

Feel free to take a look at this resource, work in progress.

The WIAs Education Committee have launched their own website...

By why in a separate domain?  Why not something like education.wia.org since the WIA already owns and uses the wia.org domain. The com.au domain has reasonably strong controls on registrations, and this is a legit site, but creating names like this which include the name of a know company or organisation is a common tactic of scammers. Finally, why include social media links (Instagram, X and Facebook) on each page which go to those of the (presumably) hosting provider, SquareSpace, and not of the WIA?

For me, a relatively new amateur and even newer WIA member it gives the appearance of the Education Committee having to go around internal WIA obstacles - ie not a united organisation.     

The website was developed seperate to the WIA domain as that was what the committee had access too (I am a member of the WIA Education Committee). It now has a WIA domain link that points to the site. www.education.wia.org.au
When the WIA update their website to a more modern format, then I expect further integration will take place.
I will pass back the feedback on the social media links. The facebook link appears to go to the WIA facebook page. I can't comment on the X link as I don't have an X/Twitter account. The Web link icon goes to the WIA home page.
The web presence is definately needing an overhaul. It would be a massive job.

[VK5AV]

I wonder how this new resource would have helped said girl in post #8 or guy in post #12 above.

It's all well and good for the WIA to try and help boost the numbers by building a separate education website, but if we have dickheads sitting on the side drilling people for getting their callsign wrong or getting the callsign sequence wrong on their first go on air, what's the point??

It's fairly easy to get a foundation licence these days and deliberately so, it's then up to the rest of us to help the new licencees move up if they want to or make them feel comfortable enough to want to hang around, not piss them off and embarrass them to the point where they leave.

Getting them a licence isn't the problem, VK5PH is doing a great job, 51 so far this year I believe. Keeping them is the problem. I can only imagine what the people who got bounced in post #8 and #12 above has told everyone they know about the welcome received. Great advertising.

Mick,
Certainly agree VK5PH is doing an amazing job.
It's probably worth a seperate thread to throw ideas around to prevent further occurances of post # 8 and #12. Of course you can't control what any particular person says or does on air, however maybe we can do more to give them the experience and confidence to be able to brush off the inevitable comments that might come there way.
Tim VK5AV.

[VK5AAD]

The website was developed seperate to the WIA domain as that was what the committee had access too (I am a member of the WIA Education Committee). It now has a WIA domain link that points to the site. www.education.wia.org.au

Yes, good to see they're on the same physical, and presumably virtual, server now.

The facebook link appears to go to the WIA facebook page. I can't comment on the X link as I don't have an X/Twitter account. The Web link icon goes to the WIA home page.

Looks like they've been fixed up now by whoever is doing the content management. When I commented, all those I checked were Squarespace links.

The web presence is definately needing an overhaul. It would be a massive job.

Indeed. Removing some very stale content would be a good start.