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Last weekend we lost Matt Atwood to cancer. I want to take a moment to pass this on to the club and share some thoughts about Matt.
Matt WE1H:
Matt was an avid ham for many years and engaged with the hobby at a very high level. He created a web site with details about his experiences and it is worth visiting. His Ham history can be found at https://www.we1h.com/
Matt and NARS:
Matt joined the club around 4 years ago and became more active and engaged in the past 2 years. I noticed his participation in club activities outside of regular membership meetings beginning with Field Day in 2022. Since then, Matt continually stepped up and volunteered or enthusiastically accepted recruitment for many club activities. Here is a list of many of that Matt contributed to:
- Summer Field Day Participant
- Tech Night Presenter for Field Day
- Winter Field Day Planning Team
- Ham Expo Volunteer
- Volunteer Examiner
- Repeater Net Control Operator and 10 meter Early Bird net NCO
- SOTA/POTA Tiger Team and participant
Based on Matt’s strong support for the club and his committed engagement with the above activities I approached him to see if I could recruit him for a role on the Executive Committee. He agreed to become the Membership Chair and was elected to that role in 2022. Matt applied his business skills to the role and created upgrades and enhancements on how the club tracks membership info and the processes for member retention and follow-up. This will help all future Membership Chairs to make their job easier and the club is better for it.
Matt and Cancer:
Matt shared his cancer journey on his website here: https://www.we1h.com/articles/journey.html. He provides details of his experience, and it is worth reading. It is also noteworthy that the contributions to our club described above were made while Matt was in the midst of his cancer journey. All of us who knew him, even just a little bit, know of his positive, upbeat, good-humored attitude and eagerness to help share the fun of Ham radio or anything else with everyone.
My friend Matt:
Once I engaged with Matt on club activities, I found we had very similar attitudes and sense of humor. Sometimes you just click with someone, and I did with Matt. I expected we would have a lifelong friendship and am very sorry it was so short. The depth of our friendship grew after I was diagnosed with cancer myself, last August. Matt became my “Cancer Sherpa”. Our experiences overlapped by 70% or so. My specific details and his were not the same, but we had many experiences in common. Matt shared some useful practical advice with me, like to shave a 4″ circle around the chemo port before going for chemo since they use lots of tape around it and that releases painlessly if shaved beforehand. Think “40-Year-old Virgin”! Matt and I are both reality-based people and our outlook on life and attitudes are similar. His being a few years further down a road I was newly on myself, gave him many insights into my own experience and our conversations about it helped me and my wife greatly. After I was diagnosed, I decided to enter the Pan-Mass Bike Challenge to raise funds for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I discussed this with Matt, and he encouraged me to go for it and not to wait until next year. The event is the first weekend in August, and I am registered for the 25-mile ride from Wellesley to Foxboro. I discussed this with Matt’s wife Dina and will dedicate my ride to Matt. I have a little more than 7 months to train for the ride I will do this year. Maybe the year after I can participate on one of the longer rides.
I am blessed to have known Matt and will miss him. I will feel the influence he had on my life way out of proportion to the time we spent together. I hope you had a chance to know Matt as well.
Please feel free to respond to this post or to contact me directly.
Matt’s picture is from 1/18/24
Jon AC1EV
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