Past Director's Report

1. The slate of nominees for Director-Elect for 2010-2011 has been prepared
for consideration by the Region 3 Excom. It will be an action item for the
e-Conference on January 12.

2. Past experience from Region 3, 2006-2007, on encouraging volunteerism,
will form a resource for a session at the IEEE-USA annual meeting in Salt
Lake City, 27-29 Feb. 2009, entitled "How to Recruit and Keep Members".
Experience has shown that active volunteers and higher grade members are
the ones with the highest membership renewal rates.

3. As before, inputs for the Section/Chapter Best Practices compilation are
solicited from all members of the Excom as well as from Region 3 sections.
   * What has worked well for your sections in planning and offering
meetings?
   * Do you find that plant visits are a strong attractant for meeting
attendance?
   * Do you include your employers' engineering managers and human resource
departments on mailings for your section newsletters?
   * Have you been successful in garnering employer support in your section?
   * Have you reached out to life members in your section to assist your
Excom?
   * Does your geography affect meeting attendance?
   * Have you experimented with using TV to archive meetings on your web
site, and or use webinars?
   * What time of day and day of week is most successful for holding
meetings?
   * Are lunch or dinner meetings more popular than meetings without food?
Which does your section/chapter prefer?
   * Do you advertise meetings through free listings in the business section
of the local newspaper? 
   * Does each chair presiding at a IEEE meeting start off with an "elevator
speech" (a minute or less) about the advantages of IEEE membership? Are
there membership materials at all meetings, for visitors to use?
   * Do you advertise open volunteer positions in your section
newsletters/web sites?

Your comments are solicited.

George McClure