I have moved this comment to begin a new thread. Thanks to Lori Reed for great insight and making her concerns known to the AIGA Upstate community.

Bill Klingensmith, Membership

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As probably the newest member to the upstate NY AIGA chapter, and a past member of several chapters over the years including in NYC, SF, SD and most recently NOLA, I have heard similar concerns regardless of city/chapter…HOW DO YOU GET MEMBERS MORE INVOLVED IN THE CHAPTER? Because an active chapter is a more successful one, and being involved and active in your organization can help you as an individual become more successful by yielding meaningful connections, providing inspiration, furthering your education in the design field, and reiterating how great it is to have chosen an engaging, creative line of work.

I think it is fantastic that this letter from the President has opened the lines of communication and provided a place where members can easily express their concerns and people are actually participating and responding! AIGA’s mission is, afterall, about the exchange of ideas and information.

As you can imagine AIGA New Orleans, where I just relocated from, faced similar challenges being the only chapter in the entire state, covering all of Louisiana and parts of the Gulf South as well. Plus we also had a bit of a storm that set us back when it scattered many of our members across the country for months and months. But together we were able to reach out and unite our membership and rally our volunteers in order to continue to provide valuable programming that was mostly well attended even facing the most difficult of circumstances. We were able to turn around what was once one of the poorest smallest chapters in the nation, with weak participation and low membership numbers, to being a thriving chapter with a solid bank account, active members, engaging programming across the state, strong leadership and one of the biggest student chapters in the country. BUT it was a collaboration… a group effort requiring active participation of our members, not a select few, being willing to be creative in their thinking, and excited about volunteering to make the chapter be one that had exactly what they wanted out of a professional association and one to which they were proud to belong.

The way I see it is this…

PROBLEM:

Lack of membership participation effecting chapter programming and overall morale

POSSIBLE SOLUTION:

1. Have members get INDIVIDUALLY involved to help bring one effective, engaging programming event–that is important to them as an individual and in line with AIGA’s overall mission–to a location close to them, and consider how it could be shared with the rest of the membership remotely
2. Have members plan to attend one large annual event held in one of NYs major cities to which they could plan in advance for time off, carpooling, lodging arrangements, budgeting, etc

HOW:

SPEAK UP! Members provide proposal to local board to bring an event to their area. What if you never have done this? It’s easy, just:

1. Think up an idea of what you want to see happen here in the upstate NY AIGA chapter
2. Pull together an email to submit to the board for review and start giving thought to the details such as:
   what you would call the event; what function it serves; which city would it be held in; which venue would be suitable for it; what date would be appropriate; how could it be shared with people not in attendance; what type of people would be likely to attend…members only (professionals, associates, students) or members plus the community; and most importantly, your name and contact information as a volunteer to help make this event reality
3. Email the proposal to a board member and be prepared to help bring your idea to life

AIGA is made up by the members for the members..every voice counts! It’s the way to make sure what YOU want is happening on a local level. Are you not satisfied with what’s going on locally? Then be a part of the solution to fix it. Take action. Get involved. Participate.

I feel confident that if Upstate NY members volunteer their time to help implement some of the many great suggestions listed in past postings and brainstorm additional ones, then this region can reap the benefits of an active membership enjoying valuable programming that addresses the concerns of the members.

I am happy to help in any way I can, be it sharing specifics about how the NOLA chapter went about solving similar challenges, or helping provide support to innovative approaches specific to this chapter.

Tags: Membership

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