Region 3, In preparing for tomorrow night's Region 3 ExCom, I needed to sum up the current state of Membership in Region 3 and the IEEE. A recent email by Ned Sauthoff, IEEE-USA Membership Development Chair, does an excellent job. I have attached it as part of my report. ****************************************** From: Ned Sauthoff Sent: Aug 20, 2006 7:02 PM To: IEEE-USA_Regional_Directors_2006 Subject: Latest Regional Membership data Greetings, US Regional Directors! On behalf of the IEEE-USA Membership Development Committee, I'd like to make sure that you are aware of the latest membership data for the US regions. According to the July 2006 report, the following are the percentage changes in regional membership from July 2005 to July 2006: Region 1: Higher Grade -2.9%, Student +2.8%, Total -2.3% Region 2: Higher Grade -2.6%, Student -1.8%, Total -2.5% Region 3: Higher Grade -1.5%, Student -2.5%, Total -1.7% Region 4: Higher Grade -1.8%, Student -2.1%, Total -1.9% Region 5: Higher Grade -1.1%, Student -4.5%, Total -1.6% Region 6: Higher Grade -1.7%, Student -6.1%, Total -2.2% As you can see, although we have expended significant effort and implemented new programs to recruit and retain members, we are still slipping -- NOT growing. You might also be interested in the statistics on the percentages of the sections that have Membership Development officers identified in the IEEE systems: Region 1: 77% Region 2: 59% Region 3: 58% Region 4: 39% Region 5: 50% Region 6: 35% If we are really taking seriously the challenge to grow the US membership by 5% (as we agreed earlier in the year), then we have to increase the magnitude or effectiveness of our activity. Key to that initiative is the engagement of section MD chairs. Lee Stogner has implemented a really active program to address the membership challenge; WE need to provide to him the contact persons to spread the information and to implement the programs at the section level. We invite you to increase the fraction of sections in your region that have MD chairs and to emphasize to all that membership is a key objective of IEEE-USA. Growing the IEEE membership should one of your primary priorities, as we agreed early this year. In addition, please try to identify and groom next year's MD chairs. Seek out members who share our passion for growing the IEEE membership and who have a talent and commitment to work in this "sales" activity to bring IEEE's value to more of our peers. Ned Sauthoff IEEE-USA Membership Development Chair ********************************************* We still have time to turn things around during 2006 if we can work together as a team. To make the "team" work, we need to complete the process of finding a MD Chair in every Section. This person needs to be outgoing and willing to reach out to prospective Members. To help both old and new MD Chairs, we are about to ship a box of Membership material to every Section on the planet. These boxes will contain the latest brochures along with copies of the brand new IEEE Membership Development Manual. With this manual in the hands of every Section, you will finally have a reference that will provide guidance in growing your local Membership. Please use these materials and let us know how we can improve them for next year. Recently we sent out an e-notice to every Member in Region 3 promoting the Senior Member upgrade contest. Please promote this activity in your Section meetings and Section communications. We need to recognize our deserving fellow Members and encourage them to help in the overall Membership campaign. Thanks for your help this year. But if we don't get the IEEE back on the growth curve, we will have a very different IEEE in just a few years. Lee Stogner Region 3 Membership Development Chair l.stogner@ieee.org P.S. I would like to provide one-on-one training for every Region 3 MD Chair. If you think your Section could benefit from such training, ask your Section ExCom and the Region 3 Director to provide expense support. I'll do my part if you can get them to do theirs.