West Area Chair Report Oct. 16-17 Marriot O'Hare, Chicago Illinois Presenter: Hamid Vakilzadian

1. West Area Chair Report Oct. 16-17 Marriot O'Hare, Chicago Illinois Presenter: Hamid Vakilzadian West Area Chair

2. Role • to support the sections/subsections in West Area of R4. • Arrowhead, Cedar Rapids, Central Iowa, Coulee, Iowa Illinois, Missouri Slope, Nebraska, Red River Valley, Siouxland, Southern Minnesota, and Twin Cities

3. Status of the Sections • All Sections and subsections were very active. • Provided more services for the local membership • Local conferences • Local daylong/half-a-day workshops • Technical/social meetings • Evident by: • West Area Section Reports • Participation of the Sections in the R4 meetings • Jan. Meeting 100% participation from 11 sections/subsections • Oct., 2004 Meeting 91% participation (10/11) • Had a chance to visit twin cities section and the student project contest • Organized a Leadership Skills Workshop for Nebraska Section

4. West Area Section Participation • Arrowhead Cedar Rapids Central Iowa Schwalbe, WilliamRosen, Morris • Coulee Subsection Iowa Illinois Missouri Slopes Ulland, PaulChowdhury, AliSpilman, Timothy Pedersen, Karen Serre, William • Nebraska Red River Valley Siousland Haskins, Joel Lien, Kenneth Bernard       White, Jeffrey      Pierce Carpenter • Southern Minnesota Twin Cities Clegg, Jason           Moon, Jon          

5. Held a Telecon Meeting (June 23, 2004) • Attendees: Coulee Subsection, Iowa-Illinois Section, Siouxland Section, Twin Cities Section, and Nebraska Section • Items of Discussion: • Section/Subsection Activiies • Student Branch Activities • Workshop presenters and satisfaction of the participants for use by other sections • Neighboring Section Communication and Holding Some Joint Meetings: • Problems: Sections are sparsely located , participation is difficult • Sections may alert their members on the activities of their neighboring sections, if they know it ahead of time • implementation status of a program to poll the R4 sections on their monthly activities and provide the info to the neighboring sections.

6. Attracting New Members from a Local Organization • Search SAMIEE on the number of members in the organizations in your section. • Get in touch with those members to hold a meeting in that organization or a close by location during the lunch or early evening hour. You may want to serve free pizza and pop. • The selected meeting/seminar topic must be worthwhile for the organization and the IEEE members working there.

7. Issues for Attention: • Elections • Plan Activities for next year at least for the first quarter (better ½ yr to a yr) • Vision for Future (new chapters, affinity groups) • Membership Motivation • More local activities • More membership benefits • More polling of your membership for new ideas to serve better • Make them see that the benefits they get worth more than dues they pay • Nonmember fee • Provide a report of your activities to the new board Please give me the first name and last name of your section chair and vice chair to contact as soon as your election is over!!