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Critical information for Chapter chairs

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Below is the critical information that the Technical Chapter Chairs must be aware and follow. This information will be updated annually to reflect the new decisions of the IEEE WA Section and the information of the relevant role holders.

A. Officer reporting

• All Chapter Chairs must report the names of the volunteers in their Chapter committees (especially the Chair, vice-chair, Secretary) urgently via IEEE vTools Officers (https://officers.vtools.ieee.org). Please use the following steps urgently if you have not reported your Committee Officers from this online tool:
1. Click on “Manage officers”.
2. Log in using your IEEE account username/password.
3. Type “Western Australia” to see and click on the name of your technical chapter.
4. Click on “Select Organisational unit”.
5. Select the icon on the left side of the position.
6. Click on “End Term” if the named officer’s term has been ended. The correct end-date should be the end of December.
7. Then, click on “Add officer” at the bottom of the page and add the new officer for January 1st to the end of December. You need the IEEE membership number of the new officer.
• If you don’t have access to the portal, this is because you have never been added as an authority in the past. Seek help from the past Chair/Secretary/Vice-chair to do this on your behalf, or email the WA Section Secretary with your IEEE membership number.
• Failure to comply with the minimum reporting requirement will automatically put the Technical Chapter on probation on the following year and the Technical Chapter will not receive their annual rebates from IEEE.

B. Two Annual Technical Events

• It is an IEEE requirement that all technical Chapters conduct at least 2 technical events in every calendar year in their geographic area and immediately report it via IEEE vTools events https://events.vtools.ieee.org/. Non-reported activities do not count. The steps to reporting an event in IEEE vTools events are as below:
  1. Click on “Event/Report Administration” at the bottom of the page.
  2. Click on “File a Report for a Past Event” on the left side of the page.
  3. Click on “My event is not yet in the system”.
  4. Enter the title of the event (e.g. “WA IES Chapter Technical event -1”).
  5. Category = Technical (please note that Chapter administrative meetings or social events can be recorded in a similar way but the event category should be recorded appropriately. IEEE’s requirement is at least 2 technical events (social and administrative events do not count).
  6. The “Primary Host Organizational Unit” must be your chapter’s name.
  7. The speaker’s name, title, organisation, Bio and the talk’s title and abstract should be reported on the “Speaker” tab.
  8. Please record the number of attended IEEE and non-IEEE members on the “Report and Attendance” tab.

C. Contacting the IEEE WA Section roles

The IEEE WA Section has four unchanging emails to contact various roles of the committee:

• r10auwa-chair{at}listserv.ieee.org - chair
• r10auwa-executive{at}listserv.ieee.org - executive portion of committee: chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer
• r10auwa-secretary{at}listserv.ieee.org - secretary
• r10auwa-treasurer{at}listserv.ieee.org - treasurer
• r10auwa-enotice{at}listserv.ieee.org - communication approval team
• r10auwa-committee{at}listserv.ieee.org - entire IEEE WA Section committee

Note: you must be a member of the committee to email r10auwa-committee{at}listserv.ieee.org .

Note: emails to all of the above are archived and available to members of the above lists .

Common tasks:

• Contact the Section chair: email: r10auwa-chair{at}listserv.ieee.org
• Contact the Section executive: email: r10auwa-executive{at}listserv.ieee.org
• Contact the Section secretary: email: r10auwa-secretary{at}listserv.ieee.org
• General enquiry: email: r10auwa-executive{at}listserv.ieee.org
• Request a funds reimbursement: email: r10auwa-treasurer{at}listserv.ieee.org
• Request an eNotice be sent to the entire WA Section: email: r10auwa-enotice{at}listserv.ieee.org
• Request additions to social media account(s): email: r10auwa-enotice{at}listserv.ieee.org
• Contact the entire IEEE WA Section committee: email: r10auwa-committee{at}listserv.ieee.org

When replying to emails sent from these lists you have two choices:

• Reply only to the sender: use your email programme's "Reply To" function
• Reply to everyone who received the email (e.g. the executive portion of the committee): use your email programme's "Reply to Mailing List" or manually set the "To:" field of your reply to the role you wish to reply to all members of (e.g. r10auwa-executive{at}listserv.ieee.org).

D. Using Section eNotice and Social media

• One of the essences of a Technical Chapter is arranging technical events for knowledge-sharing to the members of the Society that the chapter is representing in that geographic area. All Technical events should be properly publicised to attract as many as possible members using IEEE e-notice mailing system. The meetings should be also arranged at a time that is most suitable for more members to attend (e.g., after hours).
• The Technical Chapters may use their own IEEE e-notice emailing system (https://enotice.vtools.ieee.org), which will send emails to the Chapter members.
• To increase the email outreach, all Technical Chapters are welcomed to use the WA Section’s e-notice emailing system to reach to 600+ members in WA. To this end, the Chair of the Technical Chapter should fill out and submit an e-notice request template via email to the WA Section communication approval team. The communication approval team will then either approve the request or may reject it because of missing, or incorrect information/template.
• When attendees will be charged a registration fee for an event, an online payment portal (e.g. IEEE vTools event registration link, EventBrite, etc.) is highly recommended to reduce the risk of any probable legal issues for the payments. Otherwise, the Chapters may find using a suitable registration webpage convenient.
• The Chapter Chairs can also prepare a flyer (photo in jpg format) for their events and email it to the communication approval team, to be shared via the WA Section LinkedIn and Facebook pages.

Download eNotice templates:
• Technical events
• Awards
• Administrative meetings

E. New initiatives for the WA Technical Chapters in 2021

1. IEEE WA Section will be awarding $500 pro-rata amongst the Technical Chapters with positive membership growth in the last membership year. In addition, IEEE WA Section will be awarding $500 pro-rata amongst the Technical Chapters with at least 3 reported technical activities in the last calendar year. All technical chapters with at least 2 reported technical events in the last calendar year are eligible for these awards. The awarded Technical Chapters will be announced during the IEEE Day networking event. The funds will be available for the Technical Chapters to be spent for their Chapter activities until mid next year. The unspent fund will be returned to the WA Section.
2. IEEE WA Section is encouraging all Technical Chapters to recognise the technical contributions of their Chapter members. IEEE WA Section is inviting the Technical Chapters to plan and execute one technical award to at least one member (any IEEE membership level including student members) of the Society that the Technical Chapter represents. The call for the award should be announced via Section E-notice to all IEEE members across the Section. The Technical Chapter may decide on:
   • the award name (e.g., UG student award, PG student award, Young/early-career researcher/engineer, Researcher/engineer, etc.),
   • the number of the awards,
   • the award type (certificate only/cash/both),
   • award evaluation guideline,
   • responsible people (Award Chair, Chapter Chair, Chapter Vice-chair, etc.),
   • Award call times and evaluation process, etc.,
   as far as they are reasonable and do not violate IEEE bylaws and procedures.
   

   The award winners can be notified privately by the Chapter; however, the award winners will be publicly introduced and receive the award during the Section’s end-of-year networking dinner. The printed and ready certificate will be prepared by the Chapter and handed over to the WA Section Awards Coordinator before the dinner.

   
   

   If the award is cash, the cash should be provided from the Chapter funds or from external sources. The IEEE WA Section will not cover the award cash. Each Technical Chapter that executes a technical award and follows all of the above mentioned steps will receive a bonus of $50 from the WA Section after the AGM.

F. Succession Plan

• Any officer (including Chair, vice-chair, Secretary, Treasurer) of a Technical Chapter cannot hold an office in that Technical Chapter for more than 4 consecutive years, or more than 6 years in total. It is essential that the Technical Chapter Chairs have a succession plan to attract and train eligible volunteers to take officer roles in the following years through an election. This will be observed by the WA Section.

G. Attending WA Section Committee Meeting

• If the Chair (or a representative) of the Technical Chapter has not submitted the WA Section Committee Nomination form during the election but would like to attend the WA Section Committee meetings should contact the WA Section Secretary.

H. Finance and Reimbursement

• The IEEE WA Section is the financial custodian of the Technical Chapters. The Chapters can access their funds by submitting the reimbursement form, that has been signed by two of their Chapter’s officers (Chair, vice-chair, Secretary, or Treasurer), along with the expenses receipts, to the WA Section Treasurer.

Below is the required information to receive a fund or income to a Chapter:


• From Australia:
  

  Bank name: NAB

  Bank account name: IEEE WA

  BSB: 086006

  Account number: 251424852



• From overseas:
  

  Bank name: NAB

  Swift code: NATAAU3303M

  Account name: IEEE WA

  BSB: 086006

  Account number: 251424852

  Currency: Australian Dollars

  Account type: Business account internet banking

  
  

  Note:

  • To avoid problems with whether the 3rd last character is a zero or an ‘oh’ it can be safer to copy and paste from the web on the basis of NAB Swift code search.
  • International transfers should be specified as being delivered to the specified NAB IEEE WA Section account in Australian dollars.

H. Tools and Training

• IEEE vTools Events
• IEEE OU Analytics
• IEEE vTools Officer Reporting
• IEEE vTools E-notice
• IEEE vTools Voting

Please watch the below videos and read the below manual on how to use the IEEE vTools. Please also find more information at https://kb.ieee.org/mga/vtools/.


• vTools Tutorial - Event Scheduling, eNotice, Officer Reporting, Voting Tools (2021-06-09)
• Transcript: vTools Tutorial - Event Scheduling, eNotice, Officer Reporting, Voting Tools (2021-06-09)


• OU Analytics Tutorial - Find and Use Your Section's Member Data (2021-06-03)
• Transcript: OU Analytics Tutorial - Find and Use Your Section's Member Data (2021-06-03)


• vTools overview - 9th June 2021

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