OpComm
| Start Time: | 19:00 MDT |
| End Time: | 20:56 MDT |
| Next Meeting: | 22 June 2012 Engineering Shakespeare Event |
Attendees: Elisa Barney Smith, Region Chair
Sean Collison, Section Treasurer
Aaron Edwards, Student Chapter Treasurer
Jaydep Goswami, Newsletter Editor
Chris Gunning, Computer Society Chapter Secretary
Kristen Hopper, Section Secretary
Nick Luong, Student Chapter Chair
Joe Rekiere, Computer Society Chapter Chair
Randy Wolff, Section Chair
Manjunath Bhuyar, PACE Chair
Agenda
- Maker Faire Update (Randy)
- NE Area Spring Meeting Report (Randy, Elisa)
- PACE update (Manjunath) – Proposal for STEM funding, other activities?
- Membership Development update (Duane)
- Affinity Groups and Chapter Updates
- GOLD (Katie) – Shakespeare event
- EDS (Shyam or Jaydip)
- BCS (Joe)
- PEIAS (Mark)
- New Chapters/Life Member affinity group formations update (Elisa)
- Boise Section 50th Anniversary – what should we do?
Maker Faire Update
Event has been postponed from September 2012 to May 2013 due to slowness of national organization to sign contracts so that they could get a venue agreement put together. Discussion ensued that the section should decide whether we want to be co-sponsors and take a larger role or simply provide a donation.
| Action Item: | Randy to find out when Maker Faire wants to start getting sponsorship and whether a section member would be able to sit on the planning committee |
NE Area Spring Meeting Report (Randy, Elisa)
Randy, Elisa and Arlin attended the meeting held April 21st. Region Director provided various IEEE websites of interest such as electric vehicle, life sciences, cloud computing, etc. Membership development was a major topic of discussion since membership numbers in the US are slowing decreasing. One suggestion was to send out a list of members in arrears to try to contact them and ask why they didn’t renew.
Region Meeting will be Sept 21-22 in Portland. Area meeting Sept. 15th in Salt Lake.
Area Awards Update
Boise Section received two North East area awards
- Outstanding Engineer: Perry Lea
- Outstanding Corporate Service: Hewlett Packard Boise
PACE Update (Manjunath)
Manjunath reported that he and Chris discussed on the following project ideas.
First Half of the Year
- FIRST Robotics: $600 donation; half from Boise Section, second half from PACE (up to $500 per application)
- Math Counts fundraiser: golf scramble event on June 22nd at Purple Sage golf course in Caldwell. Meeting attendees agreed that if we do not get 10 people to sign up for the tournament, then we give the money we would have sponsored up to $325 to Math Counts.
- Professional Development Seminars
- Idaho teach Engineering to children
- Discover Engineering Day @ BSU
- FIRST Lego League
- Future City
Second Half of the Year
| Action Item: | Manjunath to submit two applications: one for the $300 for FIRST Robotics and other for Math Counts. Must be submitted by June 30th. |
Membership Development Update (Duane)
Duane reported via e-mail to Randy that from the member upgrade efforts at WMED, eight people have applied for or are in the process of applying for Senior Membership.
| Action Item: | Randy will work with Duane about getting list of members in recently in arrears and distribute to OpComm and guidance about contacting members. |
| Action Item: | Kristen will contact Jaydip Guha about L31 report for WMED |
Affinity Groups and Chapter Updates
Boise Computer Society (Joe)
Last month Sean Collison presented. Dan Isla is scheduled to speak in the fall.
Signal Processing Chapter/Solid State Circuits Chapter/Life Members Affinity Group
Even though there was a notice in the newsletter article, Elisa said no one had contacted her about these chapters and groups. She nonetheless believes there will be enough people to start these chapters and group by the end of the year.
Boise Section 50th Anniversary
Attendees discussed having a social event with a long-term member willing to talk about IEEE and technology from 50 years ago. Members suggested having the event a few weeks after the annual picnic.
IEEE Annual Picnic
| Action Item: | Randy to select and reserve picnic site at Municipal Park on a Friday that the covered venue is available and when there is no BSU football game. |
Potential Website Updates (Mark)
No update.
Next Meetings
20 June 2012 Engineering Shakespeare
http://coen.boisestate.edu/bobhay/engineeringshakespeare/
6-9 August 2012 (Exact Date TBD)
Agenda Items:
- Picnic Planning
- Newsletter Planning

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