To celebrate the (un)official opening of our new QTH, during the evening of May 4th members of Newport Amateur Radio Society welcomed Jessica Morden (MP, Newport East) and Ruth Jones (MP, Newport West) to our club. We have been at our new premises at the community hall of the Tabernacle Chapel, Rhiwderin for two months already but celebrated this prestigious visit to commemorate and celebrate the relocation to our new home.
Both Jess and Ruth enjoyed the evening tremendously with Jess feeling particularly proud when making her first QSO which happened by total coincidence to be with coronation special event station GB23C, and with Steve (GW4OGO) of course supervising at the helm. We had also registered a special event call sign for the event – GB0NMP (Newport Member of Parliament) and made QSO’s with several stations during the course of the evening.
Both Jess and Ruth engaged in discussions including how in the future we could work with local schools etc to encourage more youngsters into our hobby, how we could attract more women into the hobby, together with how we can experience VDSL noise and interference from local broadband suppliers – items that both MP’s said they would be happy to take up for us as and when needed.
Steve also gave a super demonstration of FT8, and the large TV proved its worth by attracting a lot of attention from both MP’s when they asked about the greyline map of the world.
A semi-formal ceremonial cutting of the tape to officially welcome us into our new home was performed, and both MP’s praised the club with encouraging and supportive words.
On a final note, we did get one more House of Commons seal of approval from the evening, in that Mo, Mike’s wife (MW1EHW) was singled out for praise by providing yet another delicious chocolate cake for those present during the evening.
I think it is fair to say the evening can be described as a tremendous success.
Thanks to all who made it possible – John GW3JVB