July 2002 - National UPA Conference
Chapter Roundtable minutes
A HUGE thanks to all of you who had the opportunity to attend the conference reception and work meeting (we missed those of you who weren't able to...)!
It was such an energizer for me to see you all, and to benefit from your experiences and ideas first hand!
Here's a brief write-up from the work meeting, and a few words on what's happening now.
Things discussed at the work meeting:
- Diane Wilson (conference chair for the 2003 conference) led a discussion on how chapters could support the effort of attracting more international submissions to the conference. Diane took note of all ideas, and will follow up on them.
- Cindy of the management office pointed out that it's important to understand the different chapters objectives in order to support them properly. She will make an effort to compile information on this over the next months.
- We concluded that cooperation between chapters is important, but that lack of time is a serious constraint. As a first step to simplify cooperation and exchange of idea, a list serve for officers will be set up. By now, you should all have received an invitation to join this list! All chapter reps also agreed to share phone numbers to simplify getting in touch. Could you please all mail your current phone numbers to Cindy at cclark@bostrom.com?
- A common resource for list serves was requested, and it was agreed that a recommendation by the UPA would be sufficient as a first step. There is a list serve available on the Voice - this should at least be highlighted.
- Chapters should be more visibly represented at the conference. Next year, we'll aim at having a poster session on chapters, and to set up a table with chapters information.
- It was agreed that having local job lists sent to all is a good thing...
- It's hard to make the case for joining international associations... Diana Demarco suggested a way of recruiting members by giving immediate benefits: i.e. the only way to come to meetings is to be a member... The Boston chapter tried this model very successfully at the local conference they arranged earlier this year, and Diana has promised to do a brief write-up on this event.
- We need to highlight the fact that chapters' are beneficial to the association (and not just the other way around). That was in short what we discussed (feel free to disagree or complement :-)
Right now, we're following up on the suggestions from the meeting, and we're also working on getting a more efficient organization for and administration of the chapters. We're aiming at making it as simple and straight-forward as possible, and will definately user test it with you all :-)