The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. To: Region 3 EXCOM From: Joey A. Duvall ? Area 4 (Florida Council) Chair Subject: Florida Council Report, March 2007 2007 Officers The 2007 Executive officers are as follows: Chair - Joey Duvall (j.duvall@ieee.org) Vice-Chair - Quang Tang (q.tang@ieee.org) Treasurer - Joe Juisai (joe.juisai@ieee.org) Secretary - David Eaton (david.eaton@ieee.org) Meetings Our first meeting of the year was held in Orlando on 3 February. Following this, Director George McClure distributed a file with actions and items of interest that serve as a synopsis of the topics discussed; as a recap, I've included this information at the end of this report. There were a number of ideas discussed that will be under consideration for future 'special projects.' All in all, things are operating smoothly within the Council, and we expect active participation at SoutheastCon 2007 in Richmond. Respectfully Submitted, Joey A. Duvall j.duvall@ieee.org Notes from IEEE Florida Council Meeting The notes below are a combination of status reports and action items from the meeting held in Orlando on February 3, 2007. Nine of the twelve sections in the Council were represented. 1. Alias bouncebacks are rampant among student email addresses. Some aliases continue to function after the student membership has expired, and when the graduated student has not signed up for higher grade membership. This indicates a need to police the use of aliases to limit them to active memberships, since the alias is intended as a member benefit. But gmail addresses seem to have features not available from IEEE aliases. 2. There is a need for peer reviewers on papers submitted for wide-ranging topics on conferences. The use of life members has been suggested. This could be a service taking advantage of the broad backgrounds found among life members. Perhaps a database could be assembled of willing volunteers and their technical areas. This could be managed by the Life Member coordinators. 3. One section with two separate centers of membership about an hour?s drive apart is planning the use of an audio/video service for remote meeting webcasting, available through NetZero. The initial focus will be section officer training. Anyone accessing the web site during the program can view and hear the content. Presentations, alternating between the two centers, will be archived on the section website for later replaying by members who may have missed the initial presentation. Costs, for 5 gigabytes/month, appear to be affordable. Sharing the experience, and lessons learned, could be helpful to other sections with similar concerns. Remote meeting capability raises issues about how to get credit for the virtual attendance of members not physically present at the meeting. 4. The same section is innovating to ensure current web site content, by granting change privileges to those who supply content, so that they can update it without waiting for the webmaster. 5. Another section, with about 25% of the Florida Council?s members, is considering an archive of presentations from past meetings to be accessible from its website. 6. There is an annual need for science and engineering fair judges. This year the event will be held on Thursday, April 12, in Ft. Myers. The coordinator seeking volunteers is Karl Lohman, k.l.lohman@att.net. For details, see the links to state science and engineering fair at https://www.ewh.ieee.org/r3/fc/ Karl notes that some members? spouses have the requisite background to serve as judges as well. 7. A beneficial suggestion was that, along with archived minutes of meetings, the Council secretary post the reports provided by sections. This will provide wider exposure to other sections of initiatives by colleagues, serve as a way to circulate information about recommended speakers who may be available for other section/chapter programs, and serve as a means to diffuse ?best practices? by sections and chapters. Knowledge that the reports will be posted to aid others could encourage submission of more complete reports. 8. Full identification of talks already presented will be helpful in these reports, especially if the speaker was well-received and the talk timely. Contact information for the speaker along with any information about his/her known availability, travel restrictions, etc., should be included in the section report of the event to aid other sections/chapters in making use of the same speakers and programs. 9. A Life Member affinity group reported assisting students in choosing a major prior to high school (declaration of a major is a new Florida high school requirement). Some of these students are also benefiting from mentoring teaching writing techniques. The Group has drafted a Mission Statement. 10. For the seventh year, one section conducted a Future Cities competition in 13 schools. It was well-received, with 200 people attending. 11. Volunteerism was identified as a problem by both a section (seeking new officers) and the GOLD group. 12. There are 17 student branches in Florida, with 1,278 members as of Dec. 31, 2006. Region 3 overall has 5,800 student members. 13. There was discussion of a Florida Council newsletter, that could be archived at the website, but no action was taken on it. 14. For conferences hosted in Florida during hurricane season (June 1 ? November 30 https://www.floridadisaster.org/bpr/EMTOOLS/Severe/hurricanes.htm ) there is conference insurance offered through the State of Florida, to indemnify conferences against losses because of forced termination. Those interested should check with Jim Howard (j.howard@ieee.org). 15. A new initiative is being investigated to offer short courses with CEU/PDH credits, but the planners were unaware of the IEEE EAD role in maintaining a registry of such credits. Anyone interested should contact Sharon Strock at Hq., s.strock@ieee.org or 732-562-5485. 16. Several section representatives mentioned a need for training in the use of SAMIEEE at Southeastcon in Richmond. This may be conducted in connection with membership development training there. There was some SAMIEEE training conducted during the Leadership Workshop at the Fall Region meeting in Atlanta. 17. It was noted that sections/chapters have access to distinguished lecturers (DL) from societies that pay most of the expenses; check the society websites for names, topics, and procedures. When inviting a distinguished lecturer, inquire of nearby sections about their need for a program, since DLs are encouraged to include more than one talk on a society-funded trip. A six-month lead time would be helpful for both the DL and coordination with other sections to schedule and publicize additional talks. 18. Only 4 of the 12 sections are showing in the Geographic Roster that their officer listings is current for 2007. Some officers listed there have IEEE aliases, but are not using them for the georoster. Since most aliases are easier to remember than other email addresses, their use is encouraged in the georoster. The Council secretary recommended that the administrative email addresses be used to communicate with sections where the name of the incoming officer is not known. 19. Some attendees confessed that they had forgotten their email aliases. By going to https://www.ieee.org/web/web/accounts/index.html#recover and entering their member number, plus identifying information, they can recover or change their IEEE alias. 20. Region 3 is emphasizing the designation of membership development chairs for all sections. In the Florida Council, 42% lack a reported MD chair, and are encouraged to appoint one, reporting it for the Geographic Roster. Attendance at the monthly MD webinars has been sparse. 21. The best practices archived under #7 will be reviewed for transferability of the ideas, so that other sections in Region 3 can benefit. Region 3 has an initiative on archiving, led by Charles Lord, that will be a pilot for the Institute. 22. Section Support Via Region (SSVR) funds are available from Region 3 for worthy projects. Proposals are solicited. Send them to g.mcclure@ieee.org or w.ratcliff@ieee.org 23. National Engineers? Week was recognized with a resolution in the Congress (H. Res. 59 on January 31 at 11:56 a.m. It was approved 417-0. https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HE00059:@@@D&summ2=m& Dan Lipinski of IL who introduced the bill is a mechanical engineer ? one of only eleven engineers in the Congress. Beginning his second term, he had 27 co-sponsors for this resolution. Several of the representatives speaking for the bill noted that they had started college studying engineering, but found it too hard, and switched to political science. 24. It was noted that sometimes job ads ask for essays on why the application is the best person for an engineering opening. While some think the essays are superfluous, they may be there to verify the communication skills of the applicant. Some are more at ease with equations that with organizing their thoughts in a coherent paragraph. Attention was called to one of the lesser known IEEE societies - the Professional Communication Society, with a goal to aid members in effective technical communications. 25. Awards received attention. A variety of merchandise with IEEE logos is available through Jim Howard. There was discussion of the use of plaques versus certificates, and a mention of the need to consider nominations for service and technical field awards, for which more activity is sought. www.ieee.org/awards 26. Mapping your membership with SAMIEEE and the use of Microsoft Streets and Trips software can be helpful when members are geographically. A presentation on the technique is found at https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/sc/2005/presentations/SAMIEEE%20-%20SC05v3.pdf from the 2005 Sections Congress, and an example is found at https://www.ewh.ieee.org/r3/nwflorida/NWF_IEEE_Dist_small.gifhttps://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/sc/2005/presentations/SAMIEEE%20-%20SC05v3.pdf 27. Finding contact information for a volunteer is possible at www.ieee.org/roster Any volunteer with an office can be searched for there, a handy way to get corr4ect telephone or email contact information, as well as finding what the current IEEE offices/assignments of the volunteer are. 28. This is the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Florida Council. The first chair was Joe Pullara, followed by Ron Wojtasinski. Four past Council chairs were in attendance at this meeting, including the undersigned. George McClure, Director, Region 3 g.mcclure @ ieee.org 1730 Shiloh Ln Winter Park, FL 32789 T 407-647-5092 F 407 644-4076