From: "Bill Harrison" Date: July 4, 2004 8:05:35 AM CDT To: "David Green" , , "Region 3, Sections" Subject: Director's Report Make your plans to attend the Region 3 Meeting 15-17 October 2004. We will meet at the Hilton Atlanta Airport hotel. As my report for the Region 3 ExCom Econference scheduled for 10 July 2004, I would like to share the report I made to the Regional Activities Board (RAB) at the IEEE Board Meeting Series held in Kansas City in June. The text of my report follows in the body of this email for posting on our econference web site. I have also attached the Word files that were sent to RAB for the Board Series. There is a link from the report to a public relations piece on the Egg Drop Contest. The Egg Drop activity was partially supported by Region 3 SSVR (Section Support Via Regions) funds. If you have local section projects and need funding to help make them happen, please send me a request. We still have some money left in the SSVR account for 2004. I will make a report to RAB in November, so let me know of section, chapter and regional activities I can include in my next RAB report. Bill Harrison Region 3 Director TEXT OF REGION 3 RAB REPORT: June 18, 2004 To: Regional Activities Board From: Bill Harrison, Region 3 Director Subject: Region 3 DirectorÕs Report Region 3 started 2004 by hosting the February IEEE Board Series in Savannah, Georgia. In March the IEEE-USA Leadership Workshop was held in Atlanta. In April our Spring Region 3 Meeting took place in Greensboro, North Carolina. In May, we tried to catch up on our non-IEEE work that had gotten behind because of our busy several months of emails, electronic conferences, and face-to-face meetings. As a member of the BoardÕs Ad Hoc Industry Relations Committee, I met with the BoD IR team, and the Walt Disney Epcot team, at Epcot in Orlando to share ideas and develop concepts for that project. Since Sections Congress 2005 will be held in Region 3 next year, the regional director serves on the Sections Congress Steering Committee. We met on June 5/6 in Tampa. Both the Local Organizing Committee and the Program Committee are making good progress and appear to be on track to produce a very successful event. Besides the meeting schedule mentioned above, some of the regionÕs activities and accomplishments so far in 2004 include: - A very successful SoutheastCon 2004 in Greensboro, NC. This student-oriented conference is held annually in conjunction with our Spring Region meeting. It includes Student Competitions in Hardware, Software, Paper Presentations, and T-Shirt Design. - The 2005 Region 3 SoutheastCon will be held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. RAB and BoD members are cordially invited to attend and participate. - We had a well-attended Region Meeting in November of 2003 in Atlanta. We plan to hold our second Regional meeting this year in October, again in Atlanta near the airport. This location is central to the region, economical and convenient for those driving or flying in for the meeting. - Our Region Committees continue to develop tools for using Electronic Conferencing to better communicate with the Sections and other members of the committees. - The Region Officers hold Conference Calls on a regular basis to keep communication at an optimum, while keeping costs down. - In addition to our two Region 3 meetings in 2004, we will hold periodic Region ExCom meetings via Econferencing during 2004. - The Winston-Salem/Forsyth Section, with lots of volunteers, and SSVR funds from Region 3, supported an Egg-Drop Contest to interest kids (of all ages) in science and engineering. Follow this link to see a report on the Egg-Drop Contest. Three Region 3 Sections have anniversaries in 2004: - Atlanta celebrated its 100th birthday in January with a banquet. The R3 Director presented the section its banner. - Savannah celebrated its 50th with a banquet and banner presentation by IEEE President, Arthur Winston, and Region 3 Director, Bill Harrison. - The Alabama Section in Birmingham celebrated its 75th anniversary June 10th with a banquet at the Hoover Country Club. President-elect Cleon Anderson delivered the keynote address. IEEE-USA President John Steadman presented awards to individuals. Region 3 Director Bill Harrison presented the 75th Anniversary banner to the Section Chair. Several regional initiatives and projects are underway and progressing nicely: - Leadership by Developing Others (LDO) teams have been formed and materials are being developed for use later in the year. - The Region 3 Employment Assistance Project continues to provide support to our members at the graduating student and full member levels. The detailed contact database and company research methods enable members to identify and evaluate potential hiring companies. Out next phase is to start linking to key employer job sites for positions that are never posted but are available for our members. Other Regions are interested in our Employment Assistance approach and want to build their own Regional web sites. - Membership Development is an ongoing process in Region 3. We now have 3/4 of our Sections with MD Chairs. These MD Chairs have been provided with the Arrears list and are working those lists to bring back our old members. We do have monthly econf to share information and work issues. Our next step is to build a MD Tool Kit on the Region 3 web site to ensure that all Sections have the resources to support their local MD drives. One issue that we need to work is to encourage the IEEE MD Committee to communicate more often with the Regional MD Chairs. We do need to encourage this integration of resources and ideas. - Industry Relations is making contacts to improve awareness of IEEE to Region 3 companies. Bill Sims has identified key companies in each state and has begun the process of making contact. The Piedmont Section recently hosted an IEEE booth at the Automated Manufacturing 2004 Conference in Greenville, SC. Through that exposure and one-on-one contact, a number of companies said they would support better use of the IEEE by their employees. We hope to use this event as a model that other Sections can use to support events that are local to them.