Region 1 Breakout Session

(Meeting started 2/27/09 at 5:36pm in the 'Sundance' Meeting Room)

The purpose of the Friday night regional breakout session is for the PACE coordinators from all 6 regions to hold a face-to-face meeting with the other attendees from their region and provide PACE training, address their concerns, answer any questions, and otherwise share their visions for the upcoming year.

Al Reinhart, the chair of the Worcester County section and Region 1 PACE Coordinator, started off the meeting by actively addressing administrative concerns that stem from the Annual Meeting before they turn into administrative issues. He consistently stressed that all sections will be reimbursed up to $500 to send a delegate and NOT half of the expenses as is the case when organizing PACE projects. All approved GOLD members that received the OP-COM approved funding to attend the meeting must keep track of all their expenses and turn in the required expense form to their sections by 4/09 for reimbursement. The sections will then be reimbursed by the region.

*PACE Issues:

All the Region 1 PACE money for 2009 has already been allocated therefore any member heading a project that needs funding must check with Roger Allen to see if there is money remaining in the Section Partnership budget. Realize that many of the projects you want to do at a sectional level can become a divisional project, at which point the maximum funding amount become $1000, all of which MUST then be matched by the section to the same amount. There is still money left in the Professional Development Seminar Budget as well for those that are looking to organize one(see Al for more info).

*Funding:

There was an overwhelming concern that IEEE-USA provides inadequate funding for Region 1 delegates to attend the Annual Meeting each year. A question was asked about how sections feel about spending $1200-$1300 for certain individuals to attend the meeting each year. Some delegates said that their sections were very supportive while others were asked by their sections to find sources of funding elsewhere. The prementioned question was then modified by Al Reinhart to inquire about how supportive sections would be when sending their members to a meeting that is PACE-focused as opposed to one that is the premiere annual event for all of IEEE-USA. Needless to say the response was not positive. Howard Michel, the Region 1 Director, stressed that having sections send delegates to the Annual Meeting is not as good of a use of regional/sectional money as having a regional meeting. Even with this being said, it's important to not that there are plans to cut the number of sectional attendees to the 2010 summer meeting from 7 delegates to 6 max (note that sections send 4 members on average). Sections Congress is also a large expense to the region and alternate sources to send delegates there must again be found. Sections Congress 2011 is going to be in San Francisco, which obviously means that it will again be expensive.

An alternate money-saving idea was raised by Charlie Rubenstein to have some type of 1-day area-wide event separate from the Annual Meeting where all PACE people will meet to receive training. While not completely ruled out for 2009, this idea is more likely to become a reality in 2010. This is not to say that Region 1 would stop sending people to the Annual Meeting but the region leadership would likely need to become more selective in their choice of delegates. The process to select the appropriate delegates has not been outlined as of yet but would need to be actively discussed during meetings of the leadership. Part of the process, as mentioned by Charlie, would be informing people about what would be expected of them in order to become a delegate.

While talking about the Annual Meeting, an idea was brought up to allocate a certain amount of money (perhaps 20%) from the overall PACE budget specifically for projects that are proposed as a result of the Annual Meeting. The rationale is that the members are all hyped-up after meeting with their peers and willing to experiment with new activities using their newfound skills. Being unable to receive funding for another year will obviously dampen enthusiasm and could adversely affect the creativity of our new leaders.

*Employment Information:

A sectional delegate mentioned that a company in his region was looking for potential employees but cannot find any. A suggestion was made to send the job description to Don Herres (d.herres@ieee.org), the Employment Activities Chair.

*Poster Session at Summer Meeting:

Charlie Rubenstein requested that the Region 1 posters be shipped back to the Northeast so that they can be displayed during the next Summer Meeting. Dave Kasper will be looking into this.

*Region 1 has two awardees for IEEE-USA awards:

->Rich Kolodziejczyk of the Berkshire Section was awarded the 'Divisional Professional Leadership Award' for his efforts in developing and implementing tutorials for the joint chapter of the IEEE Computer and Control Systems Societies as well as promoting the educational and professional advancement of engineers.

->Martin Izaak of the New York Section was awarded the 'Professional Achievement for Individuals Award' for his efforts in establishing and chairing the Consultants Network in the New York Section.

While Region 1 is proud of both Kolodziejczyk and Izaak for their accomplishments, we are disappointed that awardees do not get travel expenses paid for by IEEE-USA. Rubenstein intends to look into this.