Chapter Chair Meetings

Chapter Chairs Meetings

Chapter meetings are extremely important to develop your Chapter. Here you can interact with colleagues, network with academics and industry leader s, contribute your own knowledge, and benefit from the experience and expertise of others.

Putting together a successful meeting involves:

• Selecting a subject: The obvious choice of subject for a group of SPS engineers is SPS engineering. However, many topics may be of greater interest than others. In choosing the topic, you should consider the mission of local industrial groups, university programs and government laboratories. It may also be useful to scan articles in the most recent copies of IEEE SPS Publications for ideas of timely subjects.
• Selecting a format: Formats that you might consider include:
  • formal lectures
  • dinner meetings with an after dinner speaker
  • breakfast or lunch meetings with a speaker
  • tutorial sessions
  • social events (picnics, pizza parties, etc.)
  • workshops, mini symposia (table top events/colloquia)
  • joint sessions with chapters of other societies
  • Conferences and Symposia
• Meetings or lectures can transition to a fully virtual event. Platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and WebEx can bolster your interaction and connection with your members while also accommodating different types of events.

The amount of effort required to organize each of these various types of meetings varies significantly. A formal lecture requires only that a speaker and room be found and that the meeting be publicized. In contrast, an all-day workshop or mini symposia can involve months or of planning. A major Conference may take years of work.

Typically, the meeting format that requires the greatest effort also stimulates the most professional interest. A mix of meetings using different formats is suggested.

Finding a good speaker: There are a number of sources of good speakers for an SPS chapter meeting. You might consider:

• Local industry leaders speaking on their view of future trends within the engineering industry.
• Local engineers, faculty or graduate students discussing recently published outstanding works, or explaining some engineering tool; i.e. Matlab SP Tools or DSP technology.
• Co-workers who are working on or have completed a major research project.
• Visiting engineers/consultants who are experts on any important topic.
• One source of outstanding speakers available to your chapter is the SP Society Distinguished Lecturers (DLs) Program or the Distinguished Industry Speaker (DIS) Program.
• Members of the SPS Boards, who travel often and are encouraged to visit chapters in their destinations. Refer to current list of Board members.

Publicizing the meeting: Without appropriate publicity, your meetings cannot be successful. A significant portion of your chapter's efforts (and possibly budget) should be directed at providing publicity for your meetings. Some ways of publicizing meetings in advance include:

• Make use of vTools
  • vTools Events can be used to collect registration and report Chapter events to the MGA
  • vTools eNotice can generate messages to all eligible Chapter members, or any other IEEE Member population, you would like to advertise the event. Using the vTools eNotice system ensure that your communications adhere to GDPR and IEEE regulations
• Printed flyers circulated and posted wherever interested individuals might see them.
• Announcements in your local IEEE Section Newsletter.
• Letters or announcements sent directly to local IEEE members by Society affiliation through a local mailing list developed by previous meeting attendance sign-in sheet.
• Advertising in local newspapers.
• Web pages announcements and postings.
• The SP Society Newsletter will also publicize your table top and mini conference/colloquium.

To learn more about your Chapter’s membership demographics, you can access the OU Analytics tool: which will get you into the system: Your IEEE Web Account login information will be required. To learn more about the OU Analytics system, please visit the OU Analytics Training Materials page.