On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 12:09 AM, Jorge Garzón wrote:

Hi Paul, 

Gary was trying to activate this some time ago and I offered myself as a volunteer for that. Perhaps he could refresh the steps we made! 

73!

Hello Jorge and Paul,

As most of you know, the original Ultralight Radio Awards program has been inactive for quite a few years due to a lack of volunteers. Previously we had a list of categories (U.S. States, Canadian Provinces, Graveyard Frequency Catches, etc.) which qualified for Award Certificates, and each category had certain levels of accomplishment (10 States, 20 States, etc.).

After John Bryant's accident in February of 2010 I volunteered to do the processing of the Award Certificates, which is probably the most time-consuming volunteer position, requiring Adobe Photoshop software skill, and enough free time to draft multiple certificates. As is typical in any volunteer position, occasionally there will be complaints from certain individuals wondering why their Award Certificates are not received as soon as they would like to receive them. Since I was already pretty much "maxed out" on hobby time around 2013, there really wasn't any option for me to devote more time to process the Award Certificates, despite a steadily increasing demand for them. In addition, my long time Ultralight Radio collaborator Rob Ross was reviewing the applications prior to sending them to me, and he and I both agreed that certain individuals were making it tough for us by requesting multiple certificates in each category, despite the increasing demand by all-new applicants. With well over 1,000 members in the group our volunteer efforts seemed to be taking up more and more of our free time, and the situation reached the point where it couldn't continue. As such, the program went into limbo around 2014.

For a new Ultralight Awards Program to kick off, there would first need to be a consensus on which Award Certificates to offer, and after that, at least two volunteers with plenty of free time (one for reviewing the applications, and the other for processing the Award Certificates with the Adobe Photoshop software). Jorge and I discussed having a separate Awards Program for Europe and North America, and of course if there are volunteers in other areas such as Australia, South America or Japan, those areas can also have their own separate awards.

They key point in planning for a new Awards Program is to have qualified volunteers. The second key point is to respect the volunteer work that is done, because those guys are using their own free time to perform a free service for you. Unfortunately, I don't currently have the free time to volunteer for the North American Awards Program, but I've already provided Jorge with several sample Award Certificates, and would be happy to provide them to any other volunteer for new Awards Programs in other continents. Since the DXing challenges are different in each continent, my recommendation would be for each separate continent to determine which Award Certificates to offer-- after they have enough qualified volunteers to start off off their own program.

73, Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)
Ultralight Radio Group Co-Founder