Minutes, May 2000, IEEE Kansas City Section
Minutes of IEEE-KC Executive Committee meeting, 13MAY00
- Meeting began at 0900, with call for quorum, which was present. Attending were Don Wolf
(non-voting), Dale Rummer (Chair Emeritus), Earl Wilcox (Chair PES), Saad Siddiqi
(representing Comm Society), Randy Smischny (Vice Chair), Bob Groh (Treasurer), and Mark
Lamendola (Chair).
- Rummer moved, Wilcox seconded, and Committee approved $100 monthly spending authority
for Treasurer for small reimbursements and expenditures. Treasurer will report
expenditures to the Committee after the fact.
- Rummer moved, Siddiqi seconded, and Committee approved moving to a new Webhost.
- Because Committee was ahead of schedule at this point, we used the extra time for Bob
Groh to cover some off-agenda items. Since Bob had only 20 minutes available for the
meeting, we didn’t wait until the rest of the agenda was complete.
- One thing Bob addressed was the incremental costs of going beyond 2 pages of the NL. The
Post Office doesn’t give us much of a break when going from 4 to 2 pages, so our
incremental costs are not linear. Thus, we can adjust our advertising costs to attract
more advertisers. Mark L. commented about DeVry’s "almost inked" ad
campaign and stated it would best to adjust the prices of smaller ads not larger ones.
- Wilcox moved, Smischny seconded, Committee passed, allowing NL editor to set new rates.
- Another item was the idea of abandoning the paper NL and going 100% electronic. Mark L.
not in favor of this, though other Sections are doing it. Earl suggested what may be an
elegant solution: Produce a single-format NL, which will be available by e-mail, fax, or
snail-mail. Those who want fax or snail mail would need to request such after 6 paper NLs
feature a form for making the request. Mark L. noted the issues are not as simple as they
appear on the surface and tabled the item for later.
- The discussion generated by Bob’s items ran into the next agenda item’s time
slot. That slot was for officer training. Since all of the attending officers have been
through officer training and/or were not up for new offices next year, this went quickly.
A note to all officers: fill out the form "Request for Letter to Employer"
yourself and mail that in.
- We were still behind schedule as we moved on to the Student Activities problem, but
since neither the outgoing nor past Student Activities Chairs were present we didn’t
need the full time.
- To address the Student Activities problem, Randy and Rummer suggested contacting the
Chairs of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science depts. at the four universities
in the area. Mark L. will make contacts, as Chair, and report back with recommendations
and results.
- Back on schedule, we then moved into the next item: Strategic Goals. Here are the ones
we agreed upon for the Strategic Goals form the Section must turn in for 2000:
a. Build complete roster of officers for each chapter (proposed by Earl)
b. Develop G.O.L.D. Chapter (Saad to handle, Earl said he’d join)
c. Make meetings less of a strain, more convenient, more efficient
d. Identify and recruit volunteers (go beyond Sprint!)
e. Build enthusiasm of volunteers
f. Follow up with volunteers who agree but don’t do—coach and encourage
g. Identify speakers and build a stable of them
- For 2001, the goals would be the same, with the addition of:
h. Obtain speakers and funding (available from each Society) from IEEE speakers list.
g. Have meeting reports completed well ahead of the due date. Society officers, here is
your notice! Please get those reports up to date as soon as you can.
- Mark L. commented about speakers for Societies that have fast moving topics. No need to
decide the topic ahead of time. Just get the speaker. "If we got Larry Ellison to
come speak for the Computer Society, do you think anybody would care what his topic
is?" There are key people and companies who are well-recognized in various industries
and we really don’t care what their topic is. We’ve followed this to some
extent, already: Teligent, APC, Jean-Pierre Wolf, Mike Holt, and John DeDad.
- We are supposed to have our program laid out for 2001 very soon. Progress so far is
good—we have the dates and meals decided, and PES has a small stable of speakers to
choose from.
- We discussed bringing a conference to KC. This requires a planning window on the order
of 2 to 4 years. It’s a good way to make money from an existing Conference Group.
Right now, it may be beyond our means to tackle this.
- PES noted the loss of Mike (Secretary) to a job transfer that moves him out of the
Section.
- Meeting ended at the scheduled 0945 time. We went into 15 minutes of
"post-meeting" meeting, which everyone stayed for. Someone remarked about the
poor attendance, despite the fact there was no meeting last month and is no meeting next
month. This led to….
- The next EXCOM meeting will be during the week. Same place—the six story
Sprint building by Home Depot. It will run from 1130 to 1300, and be on 13JUL00. Randy is
looking into what we’ll do about meals. The three people who must travel the longest
distances—Don, Earl, and Dale—have no problem with this meeting time. Nearly
everyone else is in O.P. Randy or someone will send out more details later. One thing this
will overcome is the security problem—right now, you must arrive no later than a
couple of minutes before the meeting—or you can’t get in without calling
Randy’s cellphone (that number went out on a prior e-mail).
- On the next agenda (so far):
a. Treasurer items (NOT a report—that will come out ahead of time)
b. Student activities decisions
c. Action items decisions
d. Newsletter decisions
e. Conferences
Contact the Webmaster (Mark Lamendola) at writer @ ieee.org. If you would like to be the Webmaster, I am looking for someone to replace me. Please contact me if you're interested.
This is an association Website. Do not phone us about link exchanges, SEO services, marketing services, or other commercial services or products.
Last updated July 09, 2008.
