Chapter &amp; DL News

All Section officers and Chapter/Affinity Group chairs will be contacted with a reminder that the following annual reports are required to be eligible for a rebate:

Upcoming Distinguish Lectures - December

December 2015

Chapter	Dates	Distinguished Lecturer	Lecture Details
Singapore	December 1, 2015	Akihiko (Ken) Sugiyama (NEC Corp., Japan)	Lecture topic: "25 Years of Audio Coding". Contact chapter chair Stefan Winkler for more information.
Uttar Pradesh

2015 Member-Driven Initiatives – Funding Available

Overview

The Board of Governors of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) has allocated $40,000 for Member-Driven Initiatives for the 2015 calendar year. The funding is open to all Signal Processing Society members, Chapters and Committees. However, all proposals must include the involvement of the local Chapter. Allocation of funds will be competitive.

Access the application here.

Funding Priorities

Upcoming Distinguished Lectures

Chapter	Dates	Distinguished Lecturer	Lecture Details
South Brazil (Sao Paolo)	November 3-4, 2015	Akihiko (Ken) Sugiyama (NEC Corp., Japan)

MGA Operations Manual changes: Rebate Schedule added; reporting date change to 15 March

At its 20 June 2015 meeting, the IEEE Member and Geographic Activities (MGA) Board approved adding the rebate schedule to Section 9.0.E of the MGA Operations Manual. Including the rebate schedule in the MGA Operations Manual will ensure members and volunteers have direct access to the official MGA approved rebate definition, eligibility requirements, and schedule.

MGA Operations Manual changes: Term limits for officers

At its 20 June 2015 meeting, the MGA Board approved revisions to Section 9 of the MGA Operations Manual, regarding term limits for Section, Chapter, and Affinity Group officers. These revisions are reflected in Sections 9.4.F.7, 9.6.D.5, and 9.9.D.6 and are to be in effect for all elections for terms of office starting 1 January 2016.

Use vTools.Voting for your upcoming unit elections; updated Section Vitality Dashboard

October 2015

vTools.Voting

Just in time for 2016 officer elections, the vTools team has made some improvements to vTools.Voting to reduce confusion and enhance the user experience. Without listing every change, URLs have been corrected, date fields will be validated, more help text has been added, a sample email message has been provided, and the dashboard has been streamlined and sorted.

Sections, Chapters, and Affinity groups can expect a 15-50% response rate, which gives you greater insight as to what your members want.

Announcing updates to geographic unit formation petition forms

October 2015

The forms to petition MGA and other organizational units for the approval of new geographic units have recently been updated.

The forms are used to propose the formation of a Section, Subsection, Geographic Council, Chapter, Affinity Group, Student Branch, Student Branch Chapter, or Student Branch Affinity Group. Updates to the forms include making the signature form page one, clarification and emphasis on the eligibility requirements, and updated resource links for when a petition organizer needs additional information.

Upcoming Distinguished Lectures

October 2015

Chapter	Dates	Distinguished Lecturer	Lecture Details
New Zealand/Central/North/South	October 2, 2015	Akihiko Sugiyama(NEC Corp., Japan)

SPS Distinguished Lectures

September 2015