[Chapters-l] Chapter Best Practices Summary

[Wallace, Amy]

Hi All

 

Thank you for sending me a summary of your best practices.  There are
some great ideas here and hopefully we can use them to learn from each
other.  I have listed the practices in the order received by chapter and
placed a chapter contact name and email at the bottom of each entry.

 

Indiana:

 

*	In Indiana, we conducted our last chapter business meeting via
videoconference from four different sites around the state, saving us
all a lot of travel time.

 

*	We're also extending use of videoconferencing with our
tri-chapter (IN, MI, Chicago) summer event.  We hope to broadcast the
event to at least two remote student chapters, one at Wayne State, and
one in either Indiana or Chicago.  The student chapter gets charged a
nominal fee to cover teleconference costs, and then they get to keep all
the proceeds for the event as a fundraiser for their chapter.

 

Pascal V. Calarco, I-ASIST Chair-Elect, pcalarco at nd.edu

 

 

New England:

 

*	Beatrice suggests doing a blog for the annual conference.  She
blogged for PLA during ALA's midwinter in Boston and I think the people
who can't get to conferences appreciate knowing what happens.  It seems
like we go to our conference and there's no info sharing back to the
profession at large.  I've met a couple of people since I've been living
in Providence who told me that they would have enjoyed going to the
conference IF they'd even known about it (more of a marketing thing I
know, but still interesting). We're ASIST, we should have another avenue
for outreach besides the Proceedings, IMHO.

 

Beatrice, NEASIST Chair-Elect, bpulliam at postoffice.providence.edu

 

 

Northern Ohio:

 

*	How about our collaboration with other local professional
organizations such 
	as SLA Cleveland Chapter to co-sponsor successful events, in
particular, 
	career night?  We invite them to come to our planning meeting to
coordinate 
	joint events.

 

*	Our involvement with other organizations.  We have a
representative to The Cleveland Technical Societies Council (CTSC) and
to Ohio Council of Libraries and Information Services (OCLIS).  CTSC
meets almost monthly.  We have a collaboration meeting where societies
get together and share ideas for upcoming meetings. OCLIS meets in
Columbus about 3 times per year. All 3 Ohio chapters are involved. 

 

*	We usually send a member or two annually to judge in the
Northeastern Ohio Science and Engineering Fair

 

Beth Cline, NORASIST Chair, e.w.cline at csuohio.edu

 

 

Los Angeles:

 

*	Joint program/event with another local professional
organization. For several years our chapter has joined with the local
chapter of the Special Library Association to organize a holiday
program.  By divvying up the responsibilities we have been able to
benefit from the expertise of both chapters - identifying venues and
speakers, publicizing to a wider audience, and landing sponsorship from
additional sources.  Not without some challenge (trying to meet the
expectations of both groups), overall this has been a successful
arrangement.  

 

*	Joint program/event with another chapter.  We did a very
successful joint virtual program with NEASIST.  

 

*	Host a program with a cultural / ethnic twist.  As our
geographic area boasts a large Vietnamese-American community, our
chapter organized a dinner program highlighting this population and
their unique information resources and archives.  We invited a faculty
member to share his research within the Vietnamese-American community
and the archivist from a Southeast Asian collection to showcase their
digital archives project.  We hosted the program at an authentic
Vietnamese restaurant which served traditional food.  Several people
attended this program as a first-timer to a LACASIS event because of the
nature of the content.  Probably the only challenge was identifying a
restaurant venue to accommodate our group but with a little footwork
(and field testing) we found an excellent restaurant.  

 

*	Post card mailers.  Publicity efforts can be challenging -
especially on a small budget.  Of course electronic publicity via
listservs and membership email lists are terrific but a simple postcard
advertisement may reach those who too quickly delete mass emails.  With
a little elbow effort, you can create and send a postcard to over 200
people for under $100.  Buy the perforated cards and address labels at
Office Depot, purchase postcard stamps (23 cents), create the text in MS
Word and using the MailMerge feature, you can have these in the mailbox
in about 3 hours (less if you have a helper).  

 

*	New board member - organize one event.  If you are soliciting a
potential board member, ask if they would be interested in taking on the
responsibility of organizing one program.  Depending upon their time
availability, this could be a fairly small event.  With the support of
all the officers, let the new board member coordinate the venue, speaker
and publicity efforts.  This "immersion" approach will quickly allow the
member to interact with all the board members and get a feel for "how
things work".  Encourage the member to be the emcee at the event as they
will deserve the recognition.  

 

*	Hold regular board meetings.  Getting together for a
face-to-face meeting each month helps create a sense of belonging which
will foster involvement.  If you can set a regular time and place (or
meet in members' homes) then people get used to the routine.  Naturally
everyone may not make it to every meeting, but the routine helps set a
pace for development and accomplishing tasks.  

 

Rachael Clemens, LACASIS Chair, rclemens at fullerton.edu

 

 

 

 

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