Region 3 Director's Report
18 August 2006
 
  1. Mark your calendar for the Fall Region 3 meeting in Atlanta, October 27-29. We hope to have all our sections represented.  Candidates for president-elect for both IEEE and IEEE-USA have been invited, so you will have an opportunity to talk with them.  The meeting location will be at Georgia Power Corporation, 241 Ralph McGill Blvd, NE, (near the Atlanta Civic Center) and hotel accommodations have been arranged at the Marriott Fairfield Inn Atlanta Downtown, at 175 Piedmont Ave. NE.  Please make your hotel reservations early, as there is a high school band competition in town that weekend, and space will fill up fast. Both the hotel and the GPC office are within walking distance (approximately 4-5 blocks) of the nearest MARTA station.  The hotel has a roundtrip shuttle service from the airport for $32 pp. Thanks to Sabrina DeJoannis for making the arrangements for us.
  2. Each chair and treasurer of a section or other organizational unit must file a Conflict of Interest Disclosure statement with IEEE, detailing any situation in which their personal interests may be in conflict with their volunteer activities for IEEE.  It is not unusual to have personal activities that could appear to be in conflict should the individual participate in decisions as a volunteer.  Details and the disclosure form are found at https://www.ieee.org/web/geo_activities/rab/scs/Required_Reporting/disclosure-statement.html   Section 9.L of the RAB Operations Manual points out that disclosure statements must be filed with annual section reports. https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/rab/RABOpsMan/section09.pdf#search=22ieee%20required%20%22section%20reporting%22%22
  3. One of the nine new initiatives announced for Region 3 earlier this year is the Help Desk,  a service for sections with new officers seeking guidance, or older officers faced with new problems.  The concept is that the questions can be posted to the Help Desk, where other experienced volunteers will research them and provide answers.  The most often asked questions can be distilled into a FAQ posted for the benefit of section officers.  Anyone interested in volunteering to assist in the implementation is encouraged to contact Bill Marshall, the originator of the concept, at bill.marshall@gtri.gatech.edu  A related topic is compilation of best practices for sections and chapters.  If you have tips on successful operation of your section or its chapters that you would like to share, send them to g.mcclure@ieee.org to be included.  These could ultimately be included in a Web page, available to help sections offer their members the best benefits from membership.  Examples of best practices for membership development are found at https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/section_bp.html
  4. Leadership development and PACE training will be offered at the Fall Region meeting.  See reports by Charles Lord and Adeeb Hamzey for details.
  5. Student Professional Awareness Conferences and Member Professional Awareness Conferences are other benefits of IEEE membership.  For help in organizing a S-PAC contact Jim Howard (j.howard@ieee.org ).  Adeeb Hamzey can assist in development a PACE project plan for a M-PAC (adeeb_hamzey@dom.com ).
  6. For several years, Region 3 has helped fill the gap in mentoring with its program of Leadership by Developing Others (LDO).  The importance of mentoring to members of IEEE was underscored recently when a CEO was quoted as saying there was no time for mentoring in his "lean and mean" organization.  Now, IEEE has announced the Mentoring Connection, a database being developed of potential mentors and mentees, intended to help match partners for a mentoring experience.  See www.ieee.org/mentoring or IEEE SCOOP, August 2006. https://www.ieee.org/web/geo_activities/rab/scs/SCOOP/index_1.html
  7. Several outreach programs are in place to encourage technological literacy for the public, especially to instill an interest in technology in the young (so that they will study the math and science topics in secondary school that could equip them for college studies that could otherwise be foreclosed to them without appropriate background) and to reach opinion-makers with a message about the importance of technology in everyday life.  Region 3 has pioneered with the Teacher In-Service Program, where member volunteers aid school teachers in learning about applications of technology.  This is now an IEEE-wide program, having spread to Regions 1 and 4 through Education Activities.  A related development is a new pre-college brochure developed by IEEE-USA, for use by children's museums.  https://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/committees/pec/Precollege_brochure.pdf#search=%22ieee-usa%20pre-college%20brochure%22   Another is a new Web site,  https://www.tryengineering.org/ that even includes a search engine for finding a university that fits your needs.  Finally, there is a 16-slide PowerPoint presentation in development by IEEE-USA  that can be used by members to describe the role of technology to civic clubs and other groups.  Anyone interested in reviewing the draft can send an email to g.mcclure@ieee.org with "Civic presentation" in the subject line, to receive it.
  8. Finally, congratulations to the Jacksonville section for reaching its 75th anniversary this year.
 
George McClure

George F McClure
g.mcclure@ieee.org
1730 Shiloh Ln
Winter Park, FL 32789
407 647-5092
Fax 407 644-4076
Mobile 407 758-0321