Western North Carolina Section Report October 2006
 
Section Officers:
 
Chair:          Jim Erickson
Vice Chair:     Jim Corr
Secretary:      AJ Burke
Treasurer:      Fred Orland
 
We have had a successful year so far for 2006. Our section was honored
by one of our members, Dr. Perry Spawls, receiving an IEEE Education
Activities Board award from IEEE USA in the New Orleans conference this
year. We also conducted our first strategic planning session earlier
this year and developed a tentative schedule in conjunction with input
from the officers, the universities and some of the membership.
 
Student Activities:
 
Our university student activities programs have been very effective and
we are repeating them this fall and plan to do so next year. They
include:
 
1. Engineering Career Round Table meetings at WCU and UNCA. 
2. Preliminary and Final Student Project design reviews, section members
   are the review team.
3. Student Project idea brainstorming sessions.
4. Student branches have been very active and growing. We have excellent
   Student Branch Advisors.
5. Continued activities to help get the TISP program started in the
   regional public secondary school systems.
6. IEEE WNC and UNCA's Mechantronics program sponsored a local
   Pre-college Summer Robotics Workshop (Sumo-Bot Competition) this summer
   in conjunction with the state-wide NC State Summer Programs for high
   school students interested in the Mechatronics/Robotics area. In all
   there where about 36 students involved in the programs that now have a
   resident and non-resident format.
7. We are looking at sponsoring a regional robotics competition to
   complement the Summer Programs with year-round activities for students
   here in WNC in conjunction with the staff at UNCA.
 
Other activities:
 
1. Continued publication of a section newsletter.
2. Continued development of a Local Consultants Network (LCN) including
   outside speakers on tax issues, legal issues and sales/marketing issues
   for small business and professionals.
3. Using the USPS mailing services for non-email members continues to
   provide those not on the Internet with very cost and labor effective
   communications method.
4. Continued development of the IEEE WNC website including addition of
   the LCN pages has enhanced our visibility and communications within the
  membership and community
 
We have had 6 technical meetings, regular EXCOM meetings and several project planning work session committee meetings, a new annual strategic planning meeting and more than a dozen LCN Professional meetings and presentations this year.
 
Attended: R3 EXCOM meeting
 
Officer elections will take place in November in conjunction with our annual awards social event.
 
Our challenges are:
1.    Increasing membership, especially with student chapters with the new EE programs at WCU and increased enrollment in Mechatronics at UNCA, increasing meeting attendance and volunteerism among the membership.
2.    Finding good technical programs for section meetings.
3.    Increasing services and interest in the LCN component of the IEEE WNC program.
 
 
Needs:
Continued IEEE USA support to provide packaged technical tutorials for presentation at the section level. We are examining the use of IEEE Expert Now and other materials like the eBooks and look forward to more of these offerings.
 
Submitted by,
 
AJ Burke
Consultant, IEEE WNC LCN
Secretary, IEEE WNC
email: ajburke@ieee.org
phone: 828-230-3985
fax: 828-667-4999
web: https://www.ewh.ieee.org/r3/wnc/