The quickest and most efficient way to build and retain membership is to make a personal connection with your members. My favorite part about SWE is not the professional development or service activities that it sponsors, but the time I get to spend with my SWEsters!! Most people can’t make a personal connection with others based on meetings once or twice a month- the REAL connection happens through social events where one on one interaction takes place. Next month, try integrating some get-to-know-you events into your calendar. How about a dinner where all there is to do is chit-chat (you may even come up with some discussion sparking questions)? What about a hands-on service activity where women have to work together to accomplish the project? Both of these are ways to get women talking and start those lifetime friendships!! Take some time from now on to focus on feeding the personal needs of your members as well as  the professional needs.

-Lauren Bialoskurski                                                                                                                                                                                                   RCCE

Hello fellow SWE Divas. My name is Allison Tuff and I am this year’s Region D Membership Chair. As active members in SWE we are always looking for ways to recruit more members into our local sections to share in both the benefits of SWE and to extend the reach of our local network and resources.

A section’s membership is what keeps it alive and thriving. The members are ultimately who provide the much needed support for successful events. So thank you SWE members, whether you are helping by offering your leadership skills, planning events, donating supplies, or simply going to meetings and bringing a friend =)

To me, the best method to attract and retain members is though involvement. Sections should entice new comers with the great opportunities they have for members to get involved. I believe that increasing membership involvement will have both a direct and positive influence on recruitment and retention numbers as members begin to take ownership of their local section and feel like they belong.

The University of Central Florida section implemented a great program called SWE Buddies to help recruit and retain new members. SWE Buddies is a mentoring program the section created to provide a support network to help students negotiate the difficulties of their first years in the engineering curriculum by getting to know SWE members that have gone though the same thing. This is a great opportunity for Seniors and Juniors to relay the volumes of information they’ve gathered over the years and make an underclassman fell welcome within the organization. It is a simple and rewarding program that helps get new comers involved!

As Region Membership Chair, one of my primary goals is to see a healthy increase in membership recruitment and retention numbers among all of the region’s local sections and MALs. Monthly membership reports will be posted on the Region D Community, so make sure you check them out. Should you have any questions regarding Membership, please feel free to email me at Allison.M.Tuff@usa-spaceops.com.

Candace Watson joined SWE in the fall semester of 2007, after deciding to pursue a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).  Coming from an architecture background, she felt that it was a great opportunity to get exposed to engineering.  That semester, she was heavily involved with planning activities for the local Girl Scouts to expose them to various engineering fields.  After her first year of involvement, she was convinced to run for the vice president position for 2008/2009 school year.  Having a successful attempt at this position, she continued to improve on the activities that her collegiate section participated in with the local Girls Scouts.  Candace helped organize and plan activities that encouraged more participation from the students at UAB.  This past spring Candace ran for the president position for her section and won, and then was selected as the Region Collegiate Representative for region D.

I hope that everyone starting their school year with enthusiasm and a zeal for learning!  I am Candace Watson the Region Collegiate Representative for Region-D.   I am in charge of Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama sections this year and wanted to let go over some of the goals that I have for this year.  When I ran for this position in the spring at the regional conference, improving communication was my top goal, and is what I will be working on this year.  I believe if there are open lines of communication and a point of contact for collegiate leaders, these leaders can quickly ask questions and receive answers, allowing them to spend more time on what is important, growing SWE membership, exposing more people to SWE and educating the engineering profession why it is important to have a Society of Women Engineers!  Another goal that I have for the year is to advertise some great achievements that each collegiate section has accomplished.  I hope that this will give ideas to those sections that are struggling to get back on their feet and will encourage and give more stabilized sections new ideas to keep the fire going in their sections.  I feel that we have started off to a great beginning this year, and after reading the first submittal of collegiate reports, I believe that this is going to be a great year for SWE!  As a region, we should work together to expand SWE and educate others why it is important to have a Society of Women Engineers!  Please let me know if there is anything that I can do to assist your section with.  Look forward to meeting you at the Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California this October!    

Contact Information:

Email:  cjwatson@uab.edu

Phone:  734.634.5775

The original Hot Topic was “Getting People Out When It’s Cold Out”. This doesn’t normally affect all of Region D, I know that the sections in sunny Florida and sunnier still, in Puerto Rico, don’t have to worry too much, if at all, about the cold. On the other hand, rain… can rain on our parade, literally. So: how do you deal with the weather? How do you get people to come to your activities despite the weather?

(Last week, we went over three checkpoints to consider for a successful activity: promote the activity well, provide incentives to the attendees, and follow up. They hold true no matter what activity or hardship you come across. Read more here.)

One way to combat the weather is to, at least when the weather’s rough (bitter cold, raining), keep your activities indoors for a while. Take this time of year to hold seminars and host company info-sessions.

Since not many people are willing to drive/walk/bike long distances when the weather is harsh, you’ll also want keep your indoor activities local, preferably on campus. UNF’s Bingo-Night is one example; you can also host Karaoke Nights, Talent Shows… what works best on your campus.

You can also use the weather to your advantage. Is it too cold out? Hold a Hot-Cocoa Social! Too hot? Hold an ice-cream social, or plan a trip to the beach.

Not all can be fun and games, though. Sometimes the weather can be cruel, and your local community could be severely affected. Although we all hope this never happens, in the worst-case scenario that it does, it is our duty as an organized group of the community to do whatever we can to help. (Read: service project.)

What does your Section do when the weather’s rough? Let us know: leave a comment. You can also send in suggestions to rcne-d@swe.org.

I’m no expert in Student Organizations, but I pride myself in having actively participated in SWE and Tau Beta Pi for the past four years. Over these years, I’ve taken a number of roles, among them, Vice President, Treasurer, Newsletter Editor and Webmaster. I’ve also been a mere active member in both societies, as well as other societies, so I’ve seen student activities from both sides, as an attendee and as organizer, on many levels. I was recently asked to go over what makes an activity or project a successful one, and I thought I’d share my answer with you.

It’s a tough question; what works for one society may not work for another. Besides, depending on the scope of the activity and the participation of the attendees, your goals and your expectations and how far it is from reality… there are a lot of factors that can affect the success of your activity. However, I’ve noticed three things most of the activities I’ve organized or attended had in common: promotion, incentives, and following-up. Neglecting any one of these key components in an activity will not necessarily result in a disastrous activity, but none of those activities I’ve attended that were deemed a success left them out.

As you plan your activities and projects for this semester, consider the following three tips. Also, if you’ve got tips you’d like to share, don’t forget to comment! Or, send them in to rcne-d@swe.org.

Promote Your Event

Simply put, you can’t expect people to come to your activity if no one knows it’s going to happen. Even if it seems obvious, you cannot expect people will attend your Annual E-week Banquet if you don’t announce it.

Promotion itself has three things to keep in mind: attract as many people as you can, through whichever medium you can, as precisely and concisely as you can.

You want to attract as much attention as possible: be colorful, chalk the sidewalks if you can; put posters everywhere. Make your posters colorful and plentiful… and the greener side of me reminds you to recycle or reuse whatever you can.

People ignore their e-mails, so don’t rely solely on a mailing list. Use Facebook, MySpace or whatever groups you have. There are still a select few students, such as die-hard seniors and naïve freshmen that read every single e-mail; make use of your mailing list. Your Corps of Officers should also spread the word of the activity. If you have a Public Relations Officer, ask her/him to get news of the event on the School Newspaper, Bulletin or even Website; if you’ve got a Webmaster, make sure they announce you event on your own website.

When promoting your event, make sure you give key details, such as the time, date and place, as well as contact information. Do not include minor details, unless they are important, such as: limited to 50 people, must RSVP by next week, formal clothing, etc. Also important: include the name of the activity. As they say in Puerto Rico, eso se cae de la mata, it’s ridiculously obvious, but I’ve received e-mails, at least once a year, telling me “DON’T MISS IT!”, inviting me to eat with professionals, and reminding me that the dress is casual, but I have no idea whatsoever as to what they’re talking about.

Provide Incentives

Everyone goes to an activity expecting to get something out of it. If there’s nothing in there for them, there’s no reason to go. So make sure you have incentives.

The classic incentive, and this rarely ever fails, is to provide food after any event. Free food will attract a lot of people who might not be interested to begin with, but you never know how many people will end up joining your section or recommending the activity (“not only was there free food, but that talk about women in engineering was inspiring!”).

Sometimes the activity is incentive enough. A Women’s Career Fair? A MatLab Seminar? If the activity itself is beneficial, sure, I’ll go. Some people will even pay to go to these things.

But what if it’s a fundraising activity? How do you get people to pay you, attend your event, and come out satisfied? How are you going to convince people that they actually need to take a break and have fun in a Karaoke Bar? If people are paying for it, make sure they get their money’s worth, for one thing. You might want to consider buying things, like gift cards, school supplies and school paraphernalia to raffle off.

Follow-up

After the event is over, you clean up the area, you say good-bye, and record it as successful. And that’s it, right? Not quite. I’ve been to a couple of activities, where I left thinking “things were better last year”. What went wrong? Last time, they didn’t document their best practices, their pitfalls, their mistakes … they didn’t document anything at all. So the next time the same organization tried the event, they were feeling their way through. There are new people in charge, they view things differently, and unless they have a guide to tell them how to do things, they’ll do things differently as well.

You also want to follow-up with the attendees. You want to thank them for coming, remind them of future activities. If anyone left something in the room, or if they didn’t get their certificates, you want to make sure they get these things. Otherwise, they’ll think you stole their jacket, promised a fake certificate, or something else. And bad-news spreads faster than good-news, so make sure you do things right.

Like I said, this isn’t set in stone. You might get a wonderful attendance even if you barely promote the event. People will come to your events without expecting anything in return. But if you’re starting out, or if you’re trying new things, these tips are definitely a starting point for your activities.

Divas! Here’s another section I’ve been anxious to get started: Leadership Profiles, featuring the Divas dedicated to Collegiate Section Improvement, the Region Collegiate Team. There’s a link on the top of the Blog that will take you to a list of their names, but I have to admit I’ve got to put it up to date. Starting today! In the meanwhile, here’s our first Leadership Profile, featuring Pam Androff.

Hello everyone!

My name is Pam Androff, I am the RCMC (Region Collegiate Membership Coordinator) and Gatekeeper/Webmaster for Region D. I spent the last 4 1/2 years with the UCF section, but graduated in December and moved over to the Atlanta professional section to take on my new job!

My SWE positions present different challenges than local SWE roles, because I have to work with people via e-mail and conference calls rather than in person – and sometimes it’s hard to get in touch with people! But I still love being involved on the Region level in SWE because it gives me an opportunity to meet, network, and work with all of the sections in our region. This is my first year on the national Membership Committee (as an RCMC), and my main goal is to meet the membership goals that the committee has set forth for us. My other goal for the year is to give more individualized attention to each section, so that they are getting the best help that we can provide.

I hope everyone has been receiving my monthly Membership Updates; each update comes with a spreadsheet that breaks our monthly goals down by section. Having a 10% increase in membership can mean different things to different sections- for one section that might be 10 new members, but for others it might mean they just need 1. The spreadsheet I’m referring to lists each section with exactly how many members they need to meet our goals. I hope this information has been helpful to you!

What I love most about SWE is getting to meet and work with all different types of people. I really enjoy attending conferences and meeting people that I’ve worked with. Most of all, I love that I am able to help sections succeed.  I can’t wait to meet everyone at Georgia Tech! Don’t forget to register NOW, especially for hotel!!!

Pam Androff
RCMC

Hello, everyone! So much has happened since my last blog (http://regiond.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/meet-a-swefl-ashley-malinowski/). UMiami SWE hosted its second FSWE Welcome Dinner which was a great success. With everyone’s help, we were able to inform the girls about all different kinds of engineering, what college life as an engineering student is like, and what SWE is actually all about. (The food was pretty delicious, too.) The number of high school girls involved in FSWE has increased threefold since last year! The FSWE Welcome Dinner was definitely a success. In March this semester, we’ll also organize an FSWE Shadowing Day so that high school FSWE members from the area can shadow engineering majors on campus.

Additionally, a couple of months ago I had the pleasure of attending our National Conference in Baltimore. It was fantastic. I learned so much, and I got to wear a scarf the entire time! (In Miami, winter attire is a novelty.) It was my first national conference, and I highly recommend the experience to anyone able to go. I’m already excited for next year’s conference in California.

Region D Divas! I’d like to thank all the sections who have submitted their information for the “Better Know a Section” feature. I hope to be posting some sections soon. Some sections haven’t yet responded; other sections have yet to receive the questionnaire. If you want your section to be featured on the Blog, let me know: write me an e-mail to rcne-d@swe.org. You need not be a section officer – as long as you’re interested, you can appear on the Blog.

Also, nominations for Collegiate Senator, Representative and Newsletter Editor are still open (although there are few days left for the Collegiate Senator position); make sure you submit your nomination for the position of your choice before the deadline!

On this Month’s Hot Topic, to be featured as always on the 15^th, we’ll be talking about how to get people out when the weather’s rough. Make sure you send in ideas and leave suggestions as comments on the 15^th! And I hope you enjoyed January’s Hot Topic: Making the Most of Region Conference. If you’ve gone to the Regional Conference before and have suggestions, don’t forget to leave a comment!

While I’m at it, I’d like to take this time to remind you to register for the Region Conference, if you haven’t already. There are more Blog Posts on Regional Conference: just check on the Region Conference Category link (the link is also on the sidebar on the left of this post).

That’s all for now… keep visiting, and I’ll see you all conference! In the meanwhile… leave your comments!

Josuan

I received the winter issue of SWE Magazine two Fridays ago. Never before have I identified myself to as many articles as I have in this one. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy SWE magazine and I agree that the articles are interesting, engaging and informational, but, being the guy that I am, not many articles are meant to speak out to me. Which is fine – this is the Society of Women Engineers, I expect that. However, in the winter issue I’ve found articles that seem to be written directly for me.

First was the “Engineers Week 2009” – it provides information about diverse activities that go on during E-week as well as links to websites dedicated to outreach activities; many of which have resources you can use during your own E-week activities. I’ll be making some of those websites available here on the Blog soon.

I’m a philatelist (I collect stamps)… and I found the article on the USPS Black Heritage commemorative stamp series very interesting. I’ve known about the series for a while, and I own some of them as part of my collection (not many, though – my collection is pretty small), but I had never read about the history of the series per se.

The Conference Highlights article was a nice way to go back to my first conference… and to see some of the things I didn’t have the chance to see, especially the Achievement Award Acceptance Address from Dr. Melanie W. Cole.

It was inspiring and at the same time saddening to read the “In Memoriam” article on Mabel R. Esteves Velazquez, P.E. I get excited when I read about other Puerto Ricans, and it’s saddening to have lost a woman who promoted SWE wherever she went. Mabel is truly an example to follow.

Finally, in the SWE scrapbook section, I found the article on MASWE (Men’s Auxiliary of the Society of Women Engineers) pretty interesting. A bit of history of my gender’s involvement with SWE, and I found that refreshing… especially when I read what MASWE President George Hannan wrote in a letter to members: “When a man applies for membership in MASWE, in a way he is saying, ‘Women engineers are welcome in all field of engineering! I am going to help women engineering students complete and obtain their degree in the field of engineering of their choice!’” That still rings true today, and one of the reasons I’m still in SWE after almost four years.