The advantage in having chapters lies in keeping a section's technical activities vital. Additionally, the IEEE compensates sections with an extra $180 US per chapter. However, there is no need to have separate one-society chapters. I believe there is a great opportunity to increase IEEE Canada's exposure to the funds available within the societies by creating joint chapters. For example, joint chapters still only need to hold two meetings per year to qualify for these funds. However now the section can draw upon multiple distinguished lecturer or visitor lists. This is one of the major benefits of having a joint chapter.

Financial Help Available from Societies

Here is a partial list of the societies offering financial help to their chapters. Society benefits are indicated for information only - please contact each society for their latest funding possibilities:

• COM - Communications Society www.comsoc.org
• C - Computer Society www.computer.org
• ED - Electron Devices Society www.ieee.org/organizations/society/eds/
• EMB - Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society www.embs.org
• GRS - Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society ewh.ieee.org/soc/grss/
• SP - Signal Processing Society www.ieee.org/organizations/society/sp/index.html
• PE - Power Engineering Society www.ieee.org/organizations/society/power/

• COM - up to $500 US funding per year per chapter; one distinguished lecturer tour approved per region per year; one chapter chair meeting per year.
• C - $150 US rebate on top of the IEEE's $180 chapter rebate; society pays up to $750 US per distinguished lecturers visit to a chapter; chapter tutorial program pays for travel for a 1-day short course by a DL speaker up to $1000 US (not used very much).
• ED - up $1000 US funding per year per chapter; DL program with limitations.
• EMB - up to $1000 US in matching funds in a 2:1 ratio (i.e., need to raise $500 US from section, chapter or other source) for DL visit.
• GRS - up to $400 US per chapter per year for a DL speaker.
• SP - up to $1750 US per chapter per year for distinguished lecturers (DL) and up to an additional $1750 US per chapter per year for pre-approved speakers not on the DL list.
• PE - financial support on a per project basis and DL visitors' travel subsidised; one chapter chair meeting per year.

Chapter Formation Opportunities

For single chapters the best opportunities are in Hamilton and London. Perhaps it would be good to form chapters in those sections to revitalize them. The key obviously is finding some volunteers. This might involve first creating a super-chapter encompassing five or more societies and splitting it at a later time. Other opportunities include: Montreal (EM, CS, RA, PEL), Kitchener-Waterloo (PE, IA), Ottawa (CPMT), Quebec (PE), Toronto (CE, IT, IE, EMB, CS, RA, IA, PEL, LEO), Southern Alberta (SP, CAS, CS), and Vancouver (SP, CAS, EMB, RA, SSC). These represent the best potential cases (approx. 3 times the required number of members) for section ExCom's to pursue if they are interested.

I see an opportunity to create joint chapters in the following sections for various society combinations (i.e., either creating a new joint chapter or attaching new society chapters to existing single society chapters). Creating a new single or joint chapter requires submission of a petition while transforming a single chapter into a joint chapter just requires a letter to RAB (see rules outlined below). The joint chapters could link 2 societies or more in the list provided as appropriate for each section (i.e., these are potential combinations that I feel would work well together):

• Canadian Atlantic: OE-SP
• Kingston: SP-EMB
• Kitchener-Waterloo: SP-EMB-GRS, COM-VT-IT-BT, CAS-ED-SSC, MTT-AP, C-RA-CS-SMC, PE-IA
• Montreal: CS-RA, SP-GRS
• North Saskatchewan: CS-RA-IA, C-COM-SP
• Northern Canada: SP-EMB, CAS-ED-SSC,
• Ottawa: SP-GRS, IA-PEL
• Peterborough: C-PE
• South Saskatchewan: C-COM
• Southern Alberta: SP-EMB-GRS, MTT-AP, CAS-SSC, COM-VT, RA-CS
• Toronto: SP-EMB, COM-IT-BT, CS-RA
• Vancouver: SP-EMB-GRS-OE, CAS-ED-SSC, AP-MTT, COM-IT-BT, CS-RA
• Victoria: C-COM-SP
• Winnipeg: C-COM-SP or EMB-SP

Joint-chapters are usually approved if they cover related societies (i.e., within the same division). However, there are cases in Region 8 where a chapter may span multiple divisions, which means if a section wants to have a chapter with many different societies they usually can.

Sections need to identify the chapters they would like to form and I will help them with the paper work. I cannot find the volunteers but I can certainly help in bringing more resources to sections by helping identify which societies could be represented in an existing chapter and putting a good case for creating the joint chapter.

To create a joint chapter starting from a single chapter, one does NOT need to obtain a petition. It is only necessary to have enough members of the particular society in the section (12 - for full chapter, 6 - for joint chapter). The rules are listed as follows:

To Change the Status of an Existing Chapter

The status of an existing Chapter may be changed from single to joint, or vice-versa, or from one joint combination to another without submission of a petition. The change in status will become effective following approval of the change by the Regional Director, the Society Presidents and the involved Section Executive Committee(s).

1. The written request, with full details on the proposed change in Chapter status, shall be submitted by the Section Executive Committee. This request should include the name and address of the Organizer of the restructured Chapter who will act as its Chairman, and be faxed to: 1 732 463 9359 or mailed to: IEEE Regional Activities Department, Section/Chapter Support, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08855 USA (Email: sec-chap-support@ieee.org)
2. Action will be taken by Regional Activities staff to obtain approval of the change in status by those concerned.
3. When the necessary approvals have been received, the Section Chairman, the Chapter Organizer, the Regional Director and the Presidents of the Societies concerned will be notified.
4. The Chapter formation will be noted in the Report of the Managing Director at the next meeting of the Regional Activities Board.

Furthermore, sections should avoid disbanding chapters altogether and rather should merge inactive chapters into existing active chapters as volunteers might be found later on to run that particular chapter.

GOLD Affinity Groups - Advantage for Chapter Management

Finally, I would urge every section to create a GOLD affinity group. This can be done even with just the signatures of the section ExCom once a willing volunteer is found to run this group. Establishing a GOLD Group can be a very effective volunteer recruitment tool for finding people to run technical chapters. There are many young engineers, when asked to participate, that would gladly do so but they are often not aware of the possibilities. All sections have more than 6 GOLD members which means that they can all form GOLD groups.

Furthermore, the data seems to indicate that all sections, where chapters could be created, have GOLD members in the disciplines covered by the chapters (see the table at the end *). Furthermore, each section can identify through the member database (ask Cathie Lowell for more information) the actual name and email address of these GOLD members - should you want to ask them to chair the chapter/joint chapter.

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