Happy Fall, DC Chapter!

After an excellent summer, where we hosted a bowling/bocce event, and a Night at National's Park, we are back on schedule with our Lunch & Learn events for the end of the year! 

As you know, our goals for this year are transparency, communication, and compliance with IAEE HQ. Here is an update: 

Communication: In this current world of GDPR and email firewalls, we understand that it's not always easy to communicate with you. The DC Chapter hosts over 2200 members, and we are only able to engage with 10-15% of you. As a reminder, we have a submission form on the website for you, our members, to provide the board with feedback and suggestions. Please help us to provide the education and services that you as a member most need. We want to design the best programs, events, and tools with your help. 

Transparency: Our Chapter Vice Chair, Paula Herz, and I were able to attend the IAEE Chapter Leaders Forum in Miami in early August. It is always such a fantastic experience to meet with other chapter leadership and brainstorm with each other. Not to mention, have a face to face with HQ really helps shape our agenda and goals. We held a BOD meeting on August 21st. 

• At our BOD meeting, we sat down and identified our stake holders:

  • Tradeshow Planners

  • Suppliers (GSC, A/V, Tech)

  • Meeting Planners

  • CVBs 

  • Marketing Professionals

  • Sales Professionals

  • Membership Professionals

  • IT/Technology Professionals

  • Association C-Suite

  • For-Profit and Independent Show Organizers

If you feel that we have left chapter stakeholders off of this list, please contact us! 

• We will be adding a Membership Director position to the BOD. We hope to fill the role directly with a member of the National Membership Engagement Committee. We hope that this role will lead us in creating better membership knowledge, communication, and be able to lead us in better cultivating our engagement with you all. 

• We will no longer be hosting a chapter reception at the Women's Leadership Forum. It is prohibitively costly and not well attended by non WLF attendees. 

• We will be reviewing all of our special events and will be surveying membership to provide events that best suit everyone's needs. 

Compliance: Again, in accordance with National HQ, we will be hosting our first Annual Meeting at the October Luncheon. We will be providing a chapter update and a forum for questions. David DuBois is the scheduled speaker. The October Luncheon will be held at the Carlyle Club in Alexandria, VA. Additionally, we will be circulating some By-Law Changes to vote on along with our BOD slate in the next few months. Our chapter slate needs to be approved by membership vote and submitted to National HQ by November 15th. 

On a personal note, it was great attending Chapter Leaders with our future Chair, Paula Herz. I'm very proud of where the chapter is headed, and I am extremely honored to continue to serve as your leader. Meeting with our peers, the IAEE National BOD, and the KLI attendees is such a privilege that is both mentally and emotionally invigorating. It really helps to ignite the passion for our industry and for our volunteerism. I am fired up for this fall and for next year under Paula's leadership!

I am so grateful for your continued support. We are truly trying to create a best practice organization, and develop better member engagement and your help! Thank you!

Sincere Regards,

Mary Higham, CEM
Chair IAEE DC Chapter 2019