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Norman D. Miller |
How valuable is your membership in the Oceanic Engineering Society to you? Do you feel that you are gaining something from being a member of the Society? Each year in IEEE Membership runs a "terminator" program to purge the rolls of those members who haven't paid their dues for the new year. The news for OES was not good this year. Our membership at the end of April had declined to 1582 members world wide. Our membership has continued to decline inspite of the recruitment efforts that we have at the Offshore Technology Conferene, the OCEANS Conference, and the smaller conferences and workshops. For the past two years we have had special financial membership incentives at our Undersea Technology Conference, Offshore Technology Conference, and OCEANS Conferences. The statistics are rather interesting.
At UT 98 we offered a year free membership. We signed up 47 new members. At the end of April 2000, 18 were still members.
OTC 98 we offered 1/2 price or 1/2 year. We signed up 21 new members. Three were still members at the end of April 2000
OCEANS 98 we offered 1/2 price for a year. We signed up 11 new members. Ten were still members at the end of April 2000
OTC 98 we offered 1/2 price or 1/2 year. We signed up 12 new members. None of them renewed at the end of that time.
During this time period we had signed up 90 new members and have retained 31 members. At OCEANS 99 we offered half price memberships and gained 8 new members. It will be interesting to see how many we retain. It should be noted that the members we recruited were also new to IEEE membership as well as to the Society. It is also interesting to note that the majority of people who attend out conferences are not IEEE or OES members. They are interested in the undersea technologies and find what we have to offer at our conferences of value to them. It is hoped that our members also feel that our Conferences offer something of value also.
Are there any conclusions that we can draw from the membership data? Yes and no. We had hoped that a financial incentive would prove of value in recruiting new members. Obviously it does to a point, but the data would suggest that two thirds of those we sign up just enjoyed the free ride for the period. Should be continue this type of recruiting? We have had a long standing policy that the registration fee differential between members and nonmembers could be applied to dues to join IEEE and OES. MTS has this policy also and so we will retain this incentive. There are a number of IEEE members that belong to other IEEE societies that also show interest in out technologies. These are potential recruits. We have sent invitations to the TIP list in past years, but this has not been a large source of new members. There are no easy answers to the membership problem and it is not unique to OES or to IEEE. The one key to membership retention is that the members need to feel that they are getting something for their money.
There are two other membership categories that are vital to our survival, student members, and GOLD members. At the end of April we had 175 student members. 61 student members live in the USA or Canada. The other 114 live in regions 8 - 10. There are no large concentration of students in any given area. We need to provide them incentive to convert to full membership when their student membership term ends. Similarly we have 220 members worldwide that are GOLD members (Graduates of the Last Decade). These are younger members and it is vital to the society and to IEEE that we retain their membership. We need to involve them in the society operations. Currently we have three GOLD members on the AdCom and they are playing active roles in the society.
Membership in many ways is every members problem. We need all members to promote membership in the society. We need members to attend our conferences and workshops, and above all we need members willing to commit their time and talents to working on conferences and workshops and in leadership roles in the society. If you have ideas for membership recruitment, please pass them on to the Membership Coordinator, Dr. Jim Collins at j.s.collins@ieee.org. If you want to volunteer for other jobs, please contact me, Norman D. Miller, VP Professional Activites at n.miller@ieee.org.
Do you have a Personnal IEEE Email Alias? This is an excellent way to show your association with a Professional Society and establish a e-mail address that can stay with you regardless of your Internet Service Provider. IEEE allows all member to have an IEEE Personal Email Alias. You can sign up for it online. To do so just check www.ieee.org/eleccomm. It is easy to sign on and to update at any time. A great advantage of the IEEE alias is that all attachments pass through virus scanning software that is updated weekly. Sign up today!
To encourage OES Student Members to get involved with the Society, OES will pay to Conference Registration fee for OES Student Members that wish to attend OCEANS 2000 MTS/IEEE. One Wednesday morning September 13, 2000 OES will sponsor a Student Breakfast for all Student Members at the Conference. This will be an opportunity for the student members to meet other student members as well as members of the OES Administrative Committee. OES has 175 Student Members. 61 Student Members live in the USA and Canada. Few have ever attended and OCEANS Conference. This an excellent opportunity for student members to see what an OCEANS Conference is all about. Student Members interested in taking advantage of this opportunity are urged to contact Norman D. Miller at n.miller@ieee.org to arrange for the complimentary conference registration.
Norman D. Miller, P.E.
VP Professional Activities
IEEE/OES