Page 58 - Fall 2006

Early in the formation of a Regional Chapter, the organ- izing group should become familiar with the make-up of the potential chapter members. Questions that you may ask yourself are—is there enough critical mass to support a Regional Chapter? Are the potential members tightly con- centrated to minimize their travel distance to the meetings? What are their acoustics fields of interest? How enthusiastic would they be in attending local acoustics meetings? What else could attract ASA and non-ASA members to the meet- ings? Would they prefer to meet at a restaurant or in a con- ference room in a local business organization, college or uni- versity? Would they attend tours to local acoustics facilities or concert halls? How often should the meetings be held?
To answer these questions a survey of local ASA mem- bers can be conducted. A survey may be as simple as ques- tions in a text e-mail message or as a web form that sends the answers in the form of an e-mail message when submitted. A web form survey that was used by the Washington, DC Regional Chapter is available to use as a template at: asachap- terdc.org/survey/webform.htm. Feel free to download and modify it at will. E-mail broadcast is also available to distrib- ute the survey or to announce the chapter organizing meet- ings. To broadcast the survey to local members, the coordi- nator should contact the ASA office manager, Elaine Moran (elaine@aip.org), requesting that the broadcast be distributed to local members. You may furnish, for example, a number of relevant zip codes or request the broadcast be sent to members in the entire state. The number of submitted forms is a good indicator of interested regional members. Survey questions could also include preferences of meeting days of the week, time, and duration. The survey also serves to obtain the buy-in of local members to attend the meetings that they may wish to influence and to increase member involvement.
Follow-up yearly surveys of the chapter members may provide additional feedback to assess what is working and what needs to change. Ask them to suggest speakers who might attract them to the next meeting. They might also have good ideas on other possible venues. Documents explaining how to draft a meeting announcement and how to prepare for a meeting are available to download from the ASA Chapter resource webpage.
Regional Chapters tools and support
The Regional Chapters Internet presence has become the most useful communication tool for some chapters. Pertinent information that can be found in these pages includes contact information of the chapter officers and announcements of chapter meetings. Another example of Internet presence is the formation of a chapter newsgroup where members can broadcast messages to the entire group on topics related to acoustics. The Washington DC chapter formed a newsgroup (http://groups.yahoo.com/~asachapterdc) of more than 200 members where future chapter meetings are announced and where their monthly electronic newsletter (Acoustics Update) is distributed. Acoustics Update contains acoustics-related news with links to the news sources for the full stories. Even though this newsgroup was originally intended for Regional
Chapter members, it currently includes a significant number of members from other states and countries that find the newsgroup to be very useful in keeping them informed of the latest developments. As another example of a communication tool, the Mexico City Regional Chapter publishes its own newsletter and makes hardcopies available to its members.
Chapter monetary support from the ASA is multifaceted. Newly approved Regional Chapters receive a start-up fund of one thousand dollars to cover their expenses during their ini- tial year of activities. During subsequent years, each chapter obtains a reimbursement of five hundred dollars per year plus five dollars per meeting-attendee during that entire cal- endar year. Hence, sign-in sheets are paramount for the financial support of the chapters. The chapters are also encouraged to conduct student-outreach efforts and reim- bursements of two hundred dollars per year are offered for talks and demonstrations at local schools. Another two hun- dred dollars per year is reimbursed for science fair student awards and an additional two hundred dollars per year for university student participation awards. The Madras-India chapter, for example, is very active and focuses their efforts on high school events. Chapters may also offer honoraria to invited speakers. Eighty percent of these funds are reim- bursed up to $500 per year.
The Regional Chapters program also benefits from the support of organizations and individual contributors. For example, Larry and Julia Royster, long-time champions of the Regional Chapters program, started and have generously funded the Royster Student Scholarship Award Program through a grant to the ASA. This competition is held every year by one or two Regional Chapters that want to hold the competition and are approved by the CRC at the spring ASA meeting. A scholarship award can be as much as five thou- sand dollars. Each poster must be on a topic related to hear- ing conservation or noise control such as education, sound surveys, hearing protection, audiometric evaluations engi- neering and administrative controls. Additional details for this competition may be found on the chapter resources web- page. The North Carolina chapter has already conducted sev- eral competitions and they include additional awards based on donations collected from local organizations.
Some chapters charge yearly membership fees or a nom- inal meeting registration fee to supplement the support from the ASA. These extra funds may be used to pay for banquets or catering during the meetings. Other chapters are thriftier and do not charge a fee for meeting attendance. Their objec- tive is to attract students and non-ASA members that might be interested in the talks. Each chapter is free to decide how to arrange its finances. However, the ASA requires a yearly financial report and limits the reimbursement if the chapter’s balance is above two thousand dollars unless prior arrange- ments have been made.
Identifying potential chapters
There are currently 17 active Regional Chapters, three of which are student chapters, and two are international chap- ters; one in Madras, India, and the other in Mexico City, Mexico. The number of chapters is growing thanks to the
56 Acoustics Today, October 2006