First off, Iceland is small. Like tiny. My ham radio license is number 434, from the beginning. I am the 18th YL to have a callsign, since 1960ish. We are very few but also very close. The Icelandic way of doing things is “Doing a lot but no planning involved because that’ll scare people off.”
The youth team in Iceland is technically just me and TF8RN. But in reality it is us and mainly radioscouts. There are 1-4 people involved and they have a supporting network of IRA members, scouts and family around them.
Next week is going to be the biggest JOTA/JOTI of the past 10ish years. There’s a team of YLs and IRA members that will help the scouts with the shack and TF8RN is going to try and activate TF3YOTA from his own station. This is solely planned by scouts, a lot of people who attended the JOTA/JOTI last year and saw its potential (it hadn’t been very active in a long time).
I plan activities by calling one person and asking if they’d like to do something, like would they be up for activating TF3YOTA with me from the IRA club station in December? If yes, then we let other people in the society know when and where and invite them to come and meet us there.
Second, I live in the Netherlands and I have voiced my concern to the IRA of how I can help there by being here but I have their full support and say that they actually think being in mainland Europe gives me more opportunity to network, which is true.
Next year, I plan to assist in any way I can with NOTA 2020, I am also laying groundwork for NOTA Iceland 2021. This will be presented at the IRA main meeting in February and I will propose that a % of the membership fee goes solely towards youth activities.
The main focus now is to build up events in a consistent manner so that the environment for youth activities is there if anyone is interested. Planning NOTA 2021 is a big step in doing that. Getting youth into the hobby in Iceland is still an issue that needs to be addressed. I have inquired about holding presentations in schools but so far they have fallen through since I am only there about a month of the year.
I discussed this with the head of the IRA and I regret to say that I will not be making bi-monthly reports when there is nothing to report. I will of course inform you when we have news but for now it’s going to be sporadic.
YOTA summer camp was on the front page of the CQ TF this month.. if that helps. And there will be an extended article on what I’ve done in the past year in the next magazine. (I attended NOTA/FHN/YOTA Bulgaria and will participate in PI4DEC/J next week)
73 de Elín, PA/TF2EQ
