Director-Elect Report for January 2005 Excom Declining membership continues to be a pressing problem. Region 3 lost 1.7 percent of its members in the year through November 2004. Final figures for 2004 won't be available until the Terminator program is run at the end of February 2005. Promoting member activities is a way to help convince members at renewal time that they are getting value from their IEEE membership. Meetings of sections and chapters are good opportunities for networking, in addition to the technical information interchange. To this end, it is worth publicizing the Web page for Best Practices for both sections and chapters -- distillations of ideas and activities that have worked for others, found at https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/bestpractices.html Sections should be aware that societies often offer chapter support -- either in establishing a chapter, in keeping running, and in stipends provided for program activity. This support is often described at the society's Web site, frequently under chapter best practices. In exchange for the support, the chapters report changes in officers and send L-31 meeting report copies to the society. Sections are reminded of the bonus for timely year-end reporting. All Sections whose reporting (financial, meeting and officer) is postmarked by 25 February 2005 will receive a 10% bonus of the total rebate (excluding activity bonuses). Full details on the rebate schedule is found at https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/scs/Required_Reporting/rebateschedule. ht ml Units submitting reports later than 30 June 2005 will not receive rebate payment for 2004 activity. https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/scs/Required_Reporting/index.html Some sections are experiencing a dearth of volunteers, even though IEEE program/project experience is a nice addition to a resume. A volunteer recruiting toolkit is found at https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/scs/volunteer/index.htm including a 20-slide presentation on recruiting, nurturing and retaining volunteers; and a trifold brochure that can be printed out for section use. Expressing gratitude to volunteers for their efforts is one way to motivate them. Some sections award their past-years' officers plaques or certificates of appreciation for their service. George McClure, Region 3 Director-Elect George F McClure g.mcclure@ieee.org 1730 Shiloh Ln Winter Park, FL 32789 407 647-5092 Fax 407 644-4076 Mobile 407 758-0321 ----Addition ----- Mike Binder has provided 5-year retention rates for the ten regions, 2000-2004. In total retention (students plus higher grades) Region 3 lags the average for the six U.S. regions for all five years: Year Reg. 3 All 6 2000 86.2% 87.3% 2001 86.0 86.7 2002 85.3 86.4 2003 84.2 85.1 2004 84.8 86.3 For 2000-2002, Region 3 student renewals were slightly higher than the 6-region average but fell below in 2003-2004. I can provide the spreadsheet to anyone interested. This underscores our need to emphasize the value proposition of IEEE membership to our members to raise the retention rate. George F McClure g.mcclure@ieee.org 1730 Shiloh Ln Winter Park, FL 32789 407 647-5092 Fax 407 644-4076 Mobile 407 758-0321