Strategies to increase meeting attend...

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Author Message David G. Axt, CDT, CCS, CSI, SCIP Senior Member Username: david_axt Post Number: 1972 Registered: 03-2002 Posted on Friday, November 11, 2022 - 01:02 pm:    What topics or strategies has your chapter found that increases in-person meeting attendance? Thanks. David G. Axt, CDT, CCS, CSI, SCIP Specifications Consultant Axt Consulting LLC Nathan Woods, RA, CSI, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 899 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Friday, November 11, 2022 - 01:15 pm:    My Pre-Pandemic observations for my local chapter are the following: - Meeting location - Topics - Membership composition To expand on that, the meeting locations and times for my chapter seem to be convenient for product reps, but less so for design professionals. We have famously bad traffic, and where the hub of design firms tend to be, is located on the other end of town from the more industrial locations where the meetings were held. This led to a preponderance of product reps being in attendance, and very few design professionals. This in turn led to a series of programs and topics that simply wasn't of much interest to design professionals. For a short time, I was a board member and strongly advocated changing the locations and topics, but I was ineffective at producing this change. I have stopped being very engaged since that time. Now, post-pandemic, I think the location has changed to be a bit closer to the design community, but since many design professionals are still enjoying working from home, I haven't put forth the effort to go out and join them. Next year we will be returning to (new) offices, and that will be an incentive for me to swing by the meetings on my way home, assuming I can get offwork early enough to get there in time. Phil Kabza Senior Member Username: phil_kabza Post Number: 735 Registered: 12-2002 Posted on Friday, November 11, 2022 - 02:47 pm:    When I was involved with Charlotte chapter leadership, we did two things: 1. We took a large wall map and pinned the office addresses and home addresses of the design professional members. We located a meeting place on the way home for late afternoon meetings. The reps will come if the design professionals come. It helped. 2. We appointed a bright county employee as program chair. He knew the people in the county making things happen. They presented on upcoming projects and community planning. The programs were interesting to everyone, not just design professionals. It was a great couple of years with meeting attendance at 45 - 55 out of 140 members. There are no magic or automatic answers. They depend on the makeup of your community and wilingness to try new things until you see some success. Phil Kabza FCSI CCS AIA SpecGuy Specifications Consultants www.SpecGuy.com phil@specguy.com Lynn Javoroski FCSI CCS LEEDŽ AP SCIP Affiliate Senior Member Username: lynn_javoroski Post Number: 2298 Registered: 07-2002 Posted on Friday, November 11, 2022 - 03:41 pm:    Planning meetings to showcase events and things happening in the area that will impact everyone is a good way to go. What highway projects are upcoming? How will that impact everyone's commute? What new buildings are planned? What old ones are being demoed? What do the utilities want/need to do? Construction, both vertical and horizontal, effects everyone.