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Norman D. Miller |
The IEEE held a Chapter Coordinators Retreat in New Orleans 7-9 February 2000. This was a first time event in bringing the Chapter Coordinators from the Societies and the Regions together. 26 Societies and 6 Regional representatives attended the retreat. It was a great success and all who attended were in favor of continuing the program.
One of the things that was of importance to all who attended was defining the purposes of Chapters and the requirements for a Chapter. The TAB Bylaws define a chapter as "A Chapter is a technical subunit of one or more Sections, or a Regional Council, constituted by a minimum of 12 members of a Society ....concerned to represent and fulfill the needs of the members and the mission of IEEE". Further, "A Chapter is a technically-oriented organizational unit formed to promote the interests of Section Members in a specific technical area associated with one or more of the IEEE Societies."
A minimum of 12 members of a Society are required to form a Chapter and they must hold two meetings a year as a minimum.
The first part of the retreat focused on Chapter "Best Practices". Several of the larger societies reported on the things their chapters were doing that enhanced their meetings and maintained the interest of the members in participating in the chapter activities. This session offered many activities that could be used by all societies. Two of the must successful ideas were recognition of individuals and chapters. Several of the societies had practice of giving awards on an annual basis to members of the chapter in recognition of their work and support to the chapter. They also gave awards to the Outstanding Chapter of the Year at their annual meetings. Many of the chapters cited the Distinguished Lecturer program as a big draw for attendance at meetings. A common theme was to have some "activity" for the members of the chapter to participate in during the year.
It was interesting to note that the societies with the most active chapters were the larger societies that had large numbers of members in a given city or area. The smaller societies had fewer chapters and less chapter activities. Also chapters that are in areas with a large academic population are stronger than those in industrial areas. This is certainly true in the case of the Oceanic Engineering Society. Our two most active chapters, Tokyo and Norway, are associated with universities. Another common thread was to have chapters where two technical societies can interchange meetings. This is the case in Seattle where the Seattle chapter regularly holds meetings with the Marine Technology Section.
The Retreat also dealt with the problem of forming chapters and maintaining interest. Another common thread to all societies was that you needed inspired leadership. You need persons who are interesting in organizing and holding meetings. No matter how much the AdCom may want chapters, unless you can find a dedicated leader in an area, you cannot form and run a successful chapter. This also relates to the problem of few members with a common interest in a given region. As an example, we have considered forming a chapter in the Gulf of Mexico area for several years. We recently did a survey of membership in the Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana area. We found that we had approximately 40 OES members. However, they were scattered over a wide geographic region. We had members in the Gulfport/Biloxi area, in the New Orleans area, and in the Shreveport area. There was no central place where meetings could be held with less than an hour to an hour and a half drive for the members. Further, while all were members of the OES, they did not a have a common work interest. The members in the Biloxi area were oriented towards the Navy Oceanographic offices at Stennis, the members in the Shreveport area were oriented towards U.S. Army Corps of Engineers river projects, while those members in the New Orleans area were oriented towards the offshore oil industry. This presents a challenge in providing speakers at a meeting that would draw members.
The Retreat did provide a lot of resources for all of the Coordinators that attended the meeting. All were amazed at how much work IEEE has done in promoting chapters and yet somewhat dismayed at how little of the information available has been disseminated to those on the working level that need it.
In the wrap-up session of the retreat all of the working groups came up with a common need - A Chapter Leadership Manual! This will be a focus for the coming year.
Submitted by,
Norman D. Miller
IEEE/OES Chapter Coordinator