To: Region 3 ExCom Cc: Region 3 Section Chairs Sb: Director Report for February 2012 Thanks to all who have agreed to help our sections improve member engagement this year as part of your service to Region 3. I look forward to rolling out these efforts at SoutheastCon 2012. Bill Ratcliff and Mary Ellen Randall are planning a workshop that, with your help, will start us down that path. There will much to do in following up after the face-to-face event and I thank you in advance for your efforts. This is important and the Region uses a good percentage of its yearly budget on this meeting so let's all work to make it as valuable as we can. The Spring Region 3 Meeting will be held in conjunction with SoutheastCon 2012. We will have activities from about 5pm Friday (16 March) through noon Sunday (18 March) in Orlando, FL. We will discuss the schedule further during the ExCom meeting. You should have received details on who is funded to attend the meeting from our secretary. If you don't know if you are funded, have a question, or need to make arrangements that differ from this policy, please contact our Treasurer, Don Hill before making arrangements. If you are attending, please complete your reservation, registration, and travel plans so that we keep costs as low as possible and help our planners know who is coming. Thanks to all who have prepared their biographical sketches. Looking at our online directory (https://ewh.ieee.org/reg/3/excom/private), I see that 14 members have submitted their bios. If you have not already done so, please take a moment and send your BIO to our secretary. I would also suggest browsing this directory to see what a rich experience base the ExCom has. I have made several appointments since the January meeting: * Anastasia Davis as Women in Engineering Liaison * Jeffrey Dowdell as Area 1 Chair * Mary Lynn Smith as SPAC Coordinator * Ralph Russell as IEEE-USA K-12 STEM Literacy Committee Representative I implied it at the January meeting but to be clear, I have continued the Conference Task Force convened by now Past Director Stogner. The committee continues to be chaired by Jim Conrad and continues with the same members. I have endorsed George McClure's recommendations Region 3 representatives to IEEE USA policy committees * Medical Technology Policy - William Harrison, Bill Williams * Energy Policy - Percy (Butch) Shadwell, Thomas Bellarmine * Critical Infrastructure Policy - George McClure * R&D Policy - Percy (Butch) Shadwell, Lee Stogner * Career & Workforce Policy - George McClure, Lee Stogner * Intellectual Property - David Flinchbaugh * Communications Policy - Grayson Randall * Transportation & Aerospace Policy - George McClure * Government Relations Council - Lee Stogner, George McClure I want to strongly encourage all ExCom members to file a written report for each meeting. Please start organizing your thoughts for the March report. I would like to see 100% reporting from our ExCom members prior to when we meet the section leaders in Orlando. Thanks for your help on this. There will be suggestions on report content on the website soon for both ExCom and Section leaders. We are in the Geo Unit reporting period where all of our units need to file financial and other reports with IEEE. We will soon be receiving status information from the Operations Center to let us know how things are going. Please help out by inquiring of problems, assisting where you can, and making sure problems are escalated when necessary to make sure we complete this work with a minimum of hassle for our volunteers. I realize this is a challenging year with a new financial reporting system that is having start up pains but let's help work through this and then work to improve the system for the future. Thanks to our Newsletter Editor Bill Labelle and his team of writers who produced and distributed a nice looking newsletter to our members. It includes information about upcoming conferences in Region 3 such as 2012 IEEE International Electric Vehicle Conference, 4-8 March 2012 2012 Southeastern Symposium on System Theory, 11-13 March 2012 SoutheastCon 2012, 15-18 March 2012 2012 IEEE/PES T&D Conference, 7-10 May 2012 Our use of conference bridge ends with this meeting. The company has decided to discontinue the product offering. The Communications Committee will recommend a path forward tonight. Special thanks to Bill Tiedemann for his work exploring the options. Kudos also to our webmaster who has been busy putting a facelift on our website. Check it out! I join him in thanking everyone who was responsive to his queries as he worked through the new design. This is a living website so please send suggestions to Eric so that we will continue to a useful website for IEEE Region 3. Major Activities since last report ---------------------------------- * Participated in IEEE Governance Committee * Participated in IEEE IT Advisory Committee * Participated in IEEE Brand Ambassador Activities * Participated in IEEE-USA Member Engagement Ad Hoc Committee * Participated in meeting with Area 1 Section Chairs * Participated in MGA Finance Committee Meeting