Help — Using the BARC Website

Finding Your Way Around

  • The top menu has dropdowns. Hover over (or tap, on a phone) Home, Events & Programs, Resources, Ham News! or Members to see the pages underneath.
  • Home holds the club's own information: About BARC, Officers & Coordinators, Bylaws, Past Membership Meetings (with Meeting Minutes under it), the Communication Center, Other Club Documents, and the Privacy Policy.
  • Events & Programs has two columns: On the Air (Field Day, Parks on the Air, Digital Radio, Hamfests, Public Service & EmComm) and Club Programs (Tech Night, Presentations, Educational Programs, Other Area Clubs).
  • Repeaters & Nets and Contesting/QSOs/QSL/DX go straight to their own pages.
  • The amber items — Newsletter, Calendar and Ham News! — change most often.
  • Most pages have a left-hand sidebar with related pages. Breadcrumbs above each title ("Home › Page") show where you are.
  • On phones and tablets the menu folds into the ☰ button in the upper right.

News, Newsletter & Documents

Ham News!
  • Headlines shows the latest stories from ARRL News, Amateur Radio Weekly, DXZone, SDR & Digital Radio, the Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Amateur Radio Newsline. Each list updates by itself; click a headline to read the full story on the source's site.
  • DX Section shows live DX cluster spots, updated every minute. Pick a band or mode, or tick Hide US & Canada for real DX. Click a call sign to look it up on QRZ.
Newsletter (Full Quieting)

The Newsletter page shows the current issue at the top and every issue from this year under Recent Issues — new issues appear automatically. Older issues are in the Archive by year. Each issue has Read Online (opens the PDF) and Download. The sidebar's Article Index lists every article that has run in Full Quieting.

Presentations

The Presentations page (Events & Programs › Club Programs) is a searchable library of past club presentations. Search by title or presenter, click a category to open it, and use the PDF button to view a file. Have a topic idea? Use Submit a Topic in its sidebar.

Meetings, Minutes & Club Documents

Home › Past Membership Meetings lists past meeting presentations by year, with Meeting Minutes beneath it. Bylaws and other official documents are under the same Home menu.

Members: Logging In & Out

  • Open Members › Member Login and sign in with your username and password. If your account was set up from the club roster, your username is your first initial + last name, all lowercase (for example jadams).
  • First time, or forgot your password? Use Members › Reset Password and enter the email address the club has on file. A link to set a new password arrives by email — check your spam folder if you don't see it.
  • Once you're logged in, the Members menu shows Member Portal, My Profile, Member Directory and Log out.
  • When you're finished, choose Members › Log out — especially on a shared or public computer.

Members: Portal, Profile & Directory

Member Portal is your members-only home page: a welcome with your membership status, the What's New box, meeting minutes, forms and documents, net-control resources, and the officers.

My Profile is your club record. Keep your contact details, call sign, license class and expiration, ARRL membership and interests up to date, change your password in the Account card (which also shows your username), and click Save profile. The Membership Details section is kept by the Membership Coordinator — contact them if anything there looks wrong.

Member Directory lists current members with call sign, license class, member type, email, phone and city. You can hide your email, phone or city — or leave the directory entirely — in the Member Directory card on My Profile. Only logged-in, current members can see the directory.

The badge next to your name shows your status:

  • Active — paid up for this year
  • Pending approval — a new application waiting for the Membership Coordinator
  • Renewal due — January and February, when last year's membership has ended; renew by March 1
  • Expired — not renewed by March 1; members-only pages are closed until you renew

Joining & Renewing

Join: choose Members › Join BARC. Dues are $15 individual or $18 family (your whole household). Membership runs January through December; join after July and dues are half price. Newly licensed hams can choose a free first year or a low-cost handheld radio.

Renew: dues for the coming year can be paid from November and must be paid by March 1. Pay at a monthly meeting, by PayPal (Friends & Family) to treasurer@bellbrookarc.org, or mail a check made out to BARC to BARC Treasurer, P.O. Box 73, Bellbrook, OH 45305. Your status updates once the Membership Coordinator records the payment.

Officers: Creating a Post

  1. Log in at bellbrookarc.org/wp/wp-admin, then choose Posts → Add New.
  2. Add a title and your text. Use + → Image for photos; select words and press Ctrl+K to add a link.
  3. On the right, pick a Category (tick What's New to show it on the Member Portal), set a Featured Image, and write a short Excerpt — that's the summary shown in post lists.
  4. Preview, then Publish (or Schedule for a later date). Edit later from Posts → All Posts.

Membership Coordinators

You see this section because you manage membership. Members don't.

Members › Membership Dashboard is your workspace:

  • Tiles at the top count members by status (Active, Renewal due, Pending, Expired and so on). Click one to list those members. Search always looks through every member, by name, call sign, email or phone.
  • New applicants arrive as Pending. Use Approve or Reject. Approving opens the members-only pages to them and emails them a welcome.
  • Open any member by clicking their name. You can edit everything, including the Membership Details card: paid-through year, member type, household link, approval status, notes and payment history.
  • Record a payment from the member's record. The rates box shows $15 / $18 and the half-price rule after July. Payments made in November or December count toward the next year. A household payment renews every linked family member.
  • Families: each person has their own record. Anyone with their own email gets their own login; others are linked to the household's primary member.
How status is worked out
  • Active through December 31 of the paid-through year · Renewal due January–February · Expired from March 1 · Life members never expire.
Reports

The Reports tab has nine reports — Current Active Members, Inactive/Expired, New Members, Members by Type, Renewals/Expiration, Contact List, Membership History, Members Missing Information and Membership Counts. Each one can be printed or downloaded as a CSV for Excel. The dashboard's roster CSV exports every member and field — a good monthly backup.

The Contact List shows details members have hidden in the directory. Keep printouts and CSV files private.

Site Administrators

Only administrators see this section. Before any big change, take a WPvivid backup.
Everyday jobs
  • Newsletter: upload each issue to the /newsletter/ folder with File Manager, named Full_Quieting_MonthYear.pdf (e.g. Full_Quieting_November2026.pdf). It appears automatically. In December, add the year's issues to the Archive widget.
  • Ham News feeds: add a feed in Aggregator › Sources, then a Display for it (5 items, no pagination), and paste its shortcode into a new card in the Ham News Shortcode widget.
  • After editing a page: click Update, then LiteSpeed Cache › Purge All, and check it in a private window.
  • Roster import (CSV) is at the bottom of the Membership Dashboard, visible to admins only.
Page-building rules
  • Standard page: Container 1 (title bar + styles), Container 2 row with a 210px sidebar and a content column set to Size: Default — never Grow.
  • Shortcodes go in Shortcode widgets, never HTML widgets. Internal links use /wp/page-slug/ with the trailing slash.
  • Members-only pages: edit the page, set Simple WP Membership Protection to Yes, tick all levels.
Security & settings
  • Wordfence: two-factor login is required for administrators. Locked-out users are unblocked under Wordfence › Tools › Blocking.
  • Email Hold snippet: while active, no email reaches members. Blocked messages are listed under Tools › BARC Email Hold. Deactivate it to send member email.
  • Keep your admin login separate from your member login — never give an admin account a membership level.

Something not working? Let us know — no detail is too small.
Email the webmaster — webmaster@bellbrookarc.org

BARC Election Info

The BARC Nomination and Election process for 2026 is underway.  We are currently soliciting nominations for the following seats:

FOUR (4) OFFICER SEATS:
President
Vice President
Treasurer
Secretary

ONE (1) MEMBER-AT-LARGE SEAT:
Junior Director (2 year commitment)

The Junior Director consents to a 2 year commitment, as the Senior Director seat for an upcoming year is assumed by current year Junior Director.  This year’s (2025) Junior Director, Don Macon KE8WVJ, will assume the Senior Director seat for 2026.

A listing of the duties of each office/seat can be found in the appendix following this email.

Nomination Form

To be eligible, an Officer or Member-at-Large must be an adult Full Member of the club in good standing (no lapse in valid membership per the Treasurer’s records) for a minimum of one (1) year prior to their election.
(Note:  A Full Member, as defined by the BARC Constitution and By-Laws, is one who holds a valid FCC amateur radio operator’s license.)
Associate Members (those with no license/call sign), or Full Members who have not reached their first membership anniversary by BARC’s election day (18 December 2025), are not eligible to run.

To nominate eligible BARC members for any of the seats above you may:
1) Send the name, call sign and associated seat for a nomination via email to one of the Nomination Committee members listed below.  Please use subject line:  “BARC 2026 NOMINATION” and format your nomination as in the following example:
      President:  BOB BARCER K9DOG
      Treasurer:  BILL PAYER W0BAL 

2) Write the name, call sign on a pre-printed nomination form available at October 16, 2025 General Membership Meeting.  You may also pre-print the PDF form attached to this email, write in the nominee information and bring it to the meeting.

3) You may also leave a completed form in the new BARC clubhouse room any time before the November General Membership Meeting.  The new clubhouse is located within the
St. Pierre Education Center
3757 Upper Bellbrook Rd.
Bellbrook, OH 45305
We will ask the BARC construction crew to identify a conspicuous and safe spot to leave the forms within the new clubhouse – so please standby for this information.

A few additional details to note:
-You may nominate yourself to run for a seat.
-Nominations are to close with the passing of an appropriate motion at the BARC 2025 November General Membership Meeting.
-The Nominations Committee can and will handle verifications of eligibility, and seek the consent of the submitted nominees.
-A consenting nominee, if nominated for multiple seats, will be asked to choose only one for the election.
-Please direct any questions to the Nominating Committee (see below).

All verifications of eligibility must be completed, and consent of the nominees must be obtained in time for inclusion of the final slate in BARC’s December 2025 Full Quieting newsletter.  Any eligible nominee who has not consented by that time will be dropped from the slate.  This will ensure BARC members have  ample time to consider their vote prior to the club elections to be held at the December General Membership Meeting, Thursday, 18 December, 2025. 

Newly Elected Officers, the Junior Director, and the transitioned Senior Director will assume their office/seat effective 1 January 2025.

Thank You and 73,

BARC Nominating Committee
Steve Siwecki KD8NUC
KD8NUC@Outlook.com

Don Parker KB8PSL
dparker28@att.net

James Lusk KC8EFD
jlusk1947@gmail.com             

APPENDIX
(from the BARC Constitution and By-Laws)
2.4.7 Duties of Officers and Members-at-Large

2.4.7.1 Duties of the Club President
The President shall:

  • Preside at all general, special, planning and executive meetings
  • Conduct all meetings in accordance with this Constitution and By-Laws
  • Perform all other duties usually pertaining to the office of the President

2.4.7.2 Duties of the Club Vice-President
The Vice President shall:

  • Assist the President
  • Preside in the President’s absence
  • Perform all other duties usually pertaining to the office of Vice President

2.4.7.3 Duties of the Club Secretary
The Secretary shall:

  • Record and retain accurate minutes of all general Club meetings
  • Execute all Club correspondence as necessary
  • Retain the Club Constitution and By-Laws, Policies and Procedures and other Club documents, and have the same available at every meeting for consultation upon request
  • Update the Club Constitution and by-laws to reflect amendments, revisions, and additions approved by the Club
  • Abide by section 6.1 Succession of Office

2.4.7.4 Duties of the Club Treasurer
The Treasurer shall:

  • Receive all monies of the Club
  • Keep an accurate account of all receipts and expenditures
  • Submit a budget for the following calendar year to the planning committee no later than the October meeting
  • Submit annual IRS 501(c3) reports as required by law
  • Prepare a monthly financial report for each regular general membership meeting
  • Maintain an accurate membership roster
  • Present club financial records annually to the Auditing Committee
  • Submit the Auditing Committee report to the Club Secretary
  • Recommend to the Executive Committee, for approval, a Deputy Treasurer who:
    o Is a Full member in good standing
    o Will have the authority to make purchases for the Club in the absence of the Treasurer
    o Will NOT have voting authority on the Executive Committee.
  • Abide by section 6.1 Succession of Office

2.4.7.5 Duties of the Junior and Senior Directors
The Junior and Senior Directors Shall:

  • Be aware of concerns and opinions of the general membership
  • Serve as a voice for the general membership at Executive and Planning Committee meetings
  • Additionally, the incoming Senior Director shall serve on the Auditing Committee as described in Para. 3.2