Contest Seminar DVD Sales
May
18, 2005
Objectives and
Leadership of the Contest Seminar and DVD, an Update, by Jack Hammett, K4VV, President of the Potomac Valley
Radio Club
In March 2005, the Potomac
Valley Radio Club (PVRC) hosted a comprehensive two-day Contest Seminar, where
we presented 21 technical and operational
aspects of contesting. Fifty-five contesters, from rank beginner to
accomplished leaders, attended the seminar. We had 12 of our most
knowledgeable members as faculty.
To
generate enthusiasm and build the ranks (and quality) of the general contesting
community, we are offering professionally produced DVDs of this Seminar for sale
at the Dayton Hamvention and afterward. This is our way of giving something
back to the contesting community, providing everyone access to the same
information presented in our two-day Seminar. All of the Seminar
planning, management, presentation, videotaping and editing of this DVD-set;
along with the marketing and sales continue to be performed by PVRC members
without compensation. Our volunteer labor contributed through May exceeds 1,000
hours. The PVRC treasury and members paid the Seminar costs.
Our Treasury paid the $5,000 costs for the DVD production of 100 copies
(600 DVDs), marketing materials, and sales at the PVRC booth at Dayton.
Our pricing is aimed at recovering only some of our direct costs.
We intend to apply any "surplus" that may result from future sales to
help support the next Seminar. We
will once again share those presentations with the contest community.
We want to make the Seminar an annual event, building
on the foundation of this years program.
Again,
let me emphasize, we have invested many hundreds of hours by twenty PVRC
members to produce the Seminar and DVDs. None of us has charged any fees
for our work. It is a 100% volunteer project, except for the materials and
essential services that we had to pay other professionals to perform. We
are running this project as a service to the contest community, and not as a
profit making enterprise to generate profits. Our goal is to get these
DVDs as widely distributed as possible at a relatively low price to cover our
expenses.
Our
members requested this Contest Seminar to expand their knowledge of operating
and station building skills. The
campaign to organize the Seminar ramped up in late 2004.
Brian McGinness - N3OC, recent VP and President for six years,
volunteered to lead the initiative, along with Bill Hider, N3RR, and Jim Nitzberg,
WX3B.
WX3B arranged the venue for the Seminar. N3OC
generated a draft agenda and recruited speakers as faculty. We are very
fortunate to have a number of experts in ham radio contesting available to us,
and our invited speakers rose to the challenge and arranged some entertaining
and educational presentations. N3RR led the campaign to generate the
professional marketing support for the Seminar and N3OC put the marketing and
registration process up on his web site. N3OC
and WX3B made the arrangements for activities during the Seminar weekend.
K4VV emailed other Club Presidents and N3OC posted the marketing on www.contesting.com
and ran the follow-up email campaign. Don
Daso, K4ZA, made the trip to Fredericksburg, VA from Charlotte, NC with his
BetaCam to record the video and audio of the Seminar, which made it possible to
produce a DVD version.
The twelve faculty volunteers who
created and presented at the Seminar are: Frank Donovan W3LPL; Fred Laun
K3ZO; Don Daso K4ZA; Bill Hider N3RR; Brian McGinness N3OC; Ken
Clearbout K4ZW; Ray Conrad KT4W; Mark Bailey KD4D; Bob Cox
K3EST; Mike Sims K4GMH; Gene Zimmerman W3ZZ; and Bill Seabreeze
W3IY.
Registrations filled the Seminar to
capacity 18 days after the initial marketing hit the streets, adding to our
motivation to make a six-DVD set available to many who could not attend.
K4ZA reviewed the tapes and let us know the quality was good. This encouraged us to pursue the DVD production.
Discussions at several PVRC meetings added momentum to this objective.
The
PVRC team of K4VV, N3RR, W2DZO (Henry Heidtmann), K4ZA, WR3L (Dave Baughter), and WX3B
formed in April with N3OC and W3DQ (Eric Rosenberg) in support. W2DZO volunteered to perform the critical function to edit
the video to create the digital master that included introduction, titles,
names, transitions, combined with each Speakers PowerPoint images.
N3RR volunteered to pull together the marketing inputs from the team,
create the brochure, web design, the DVD marketing campaign, create and design
the DVD Case sleeve, Dayton booth layout and banner, web site content, and
select and edit clips of video for demo in Dayton Booth #198 and in the
Hospitality Suite at the Crown Plaza as well as work the PVRC Booth throughout
the Hamvention. K4ZA drove halfway
to meet W2DZO to hand off the videotapes and a professional DV deck and he
supported the planning and execution of the project. W2DZO tackled the very time
consuming editing process. The team
reviewed and approved portions of the edited video from Henry and proceeded to
production with a known provider for DVD delivery to Dayton on May 18.
K4VV provided team coordination and decisions as needed and handled Booth
and Crown Plaza arrangements. WR3L,
PVRC Treasurer, provided the financial management and advice to keep the project
on track and volunteered to process and ship orders for DVDs that flow from the
Internet. WX3B did reviews and
planned the staffing for Booth #198, brochure distribution, and coverage at the
Crown Plaza. N3OC implemented the hosting of Seminar Internet sales on his web
site and gave advice. W3DQ gave advice and help in sales. This has been a very serious and determined volunteer
team-effort to achieve our objective to release the DVDs at Dayton.
Many others gave help and advice.
Six involved members contributed $1,450 to PVRC to make sure that our
Treasury remains robust during this period before we receive income from DVD
sales and our annual membership contributions.
This project is intense, successful, and on schedule. We look forward to a welcome response from contesters!