Membership Committee
The following membership Committee Reports are available. Starting with Orlando (8/02) the reports jump to the page with Board reports for that meeting. So to get back here, you need to hit the [back] key on your browser from there.
Fall 2011 Spring 2011 Fall 2010
Spring 2007 Spring 2006 Fall 2005 Spring 2005
Fall 2004 Fall 2003 Spring 2003 Fall 2002
Spring 2002 Fall 2001 Spring 2001 Spring 2000
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Spring 2002
Membership E. Martin, H. N. Cheng
The Membership Committee currently consists of 11 members. They are: Erica Martin (Rohm and Haas, Chair), H. N. Cheng (Hercules, Member-at-Large), Dan Knauss (Colorado School of Mines), Pal Arjunan (Exxon-Mobil), Nozar Sachinvala (USDA), Garrett Poe (Univ. of Southern Mississippi), Tim Herod (Essilor), Alan Hopkins (Aerospace Corp), Ana Pla-Dalmau and the recent additions of Charissa Detwiler (YTC America) and Maneesh Bahadur (Dow Corning). Work is ongoing in four different areas: member recruitment, retention, recognition, and communication.
Member Recruitment
a. ACS attendees at national ACS meetings
We organized the first "Member-Get-A-Member" campaign at the Chicago ACS meeting. A raffle was held for all new members as well as the POLY members who recruited them; the winner received a DVD player. A different "Member-Get-A-Member" event will be held at every Fall ACS meeting.
b. Attendees at the POLY poster session
The Membership and the Publicity Committees jointly staffed a membership table at the Sunday poster session in Chicago. The aim was to acquaint our members with the two committees and to recruit new members.
c. Polymer journal initiative
We made contact with a number of journals to offer to display their journals at meetings in exchange for placement of our ads in their journals for free. Several journals are cooperating with us and will be on display in Orlando at the POLY table (J. Polym Sci., J of Appl. Polym. Sci (both Wiley Journals), Radtech, ComPlexUs, Rapra Rev., Polymer Plastics Tech (Marcell Deker) and Materials Today).
d. Participants in POLY symposia at national ACS meetings
Email messages were sent to the participants in Chicago symposia who were not yet members of POLY, inviting them to join. Prior to each meeting, email messages were sent to all POLY symposium organizers and presiders, reminding them to show the "Join POLY" slides at the beginning of their symposia.
Member Retention: The POLY membership database has been very helpful in our member retention efforts. The database indicates that the first two years are critical to retention. Roughly 1/3 of the members drop out within two years. As a result, we targeted our effort to first-year and second-year members just prior to membership renewal. Email messages were sent to first- and second-year POLY members in October 2001, reminding them to renew their POLY membership. A total of 1792 messages were sent.
Member Recognition: Last year we had recognized 30+-year members. This year we began the annual Spring Recognition Event where we are recognizing members achieving 5, 10, 20, and 30 years of service. Each member being recognized has gotten a letter from POLY and a special POLY lapel pin as the recognition gift. These members were recognized publicly on Sunday April 7th during the POLY award reception at the Orlando ACS meeting.
Communication: One of the goals of the Membership Committee is to enhance communication between members and POLY committees. Three "projects" are being worked on in this area:
a. POLY Suggestion Center: An electronic Membership Suggestion Center has been set up on the web (thanks to Ken Carter). The purpose here is to elicit input on POLY services, operations, and membership, and to serve as a connection to the POLY Division leadership. Alan Hopkins will be maintaining this site and forwarding concerns/comments to the appropriate POLY board member(s). In addition, Ken has also set up a POLY Member Center on the web, where POLY members can post scientific questions and hold discussions on topics of interest. This site is accessible to all POLY members as a benefit of membership and we encourage its use.
b. Contact with ACS Local Sections: Membership and Publicity Committees are working together on this new, important initiative. The purposes are to promote polymer science at the local level, to publicize our activities, and to recruit appropriate people to join the division or to become active in POLY. We have divided the local sections among the committee members and are in the process of contacting them. The membership committee members will become the POLY "go to" person for each of these sections as we begin to form a collaborative relationship.
c. Member Survey: In conjunction with the recognition pins and letters, each of the 5-, 10-, 20- and 30-year members also gets a stamped/addressed postcard survey. We have been receiving great feedback and the final results will be tabulated and shared. This has proven to be an EXCELLENT means of receiving feedback from the membership and we will enclose the same postcard survey in every Spring mailing of recognition gifts.
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Fall 2001
Membership H.-N. Cheng, S. Pollack
The Membership Committee has continued its efforts vis-a-vis member recruiting, retention, and recognition. The committee coordinates its activities through monthly teleconferences and email messages. The committee members are Cheng (Hercules, Co-Chair), Pollack (Howard, Co-Chair), Erica Martin (Rohm and Haas), Dan Knauss (Colorado School of Mines), Pal Arjunan (Exxon-Mobil), Nozar Sachinvala (USDA), Garrett Poe (Univ. of Southern Mississippi), and Ken Carter (IBM, Member-At-Large).
1. Member Recruitment
The initiatives in this area since April include:
a. Target: ACS attendees in Chicago
To encourage more people to sign up as POLY members, we had a "Member-Get-Member" campaign in Chicago. A raffle was held for all new members as well as the POLY members who recruit them.
b. Target: Attendees at the POLY poster session
As in the past two ACS meetings, the Membership and the Publicity Committees jointly staffed a membership table at the Sunday poster session. The aim was to acquaint our members with the two committees and to recruit new members.
c. Target: Subscribers and users of polymer journals
Following a tip from MRS, we made calls to a number of journals to offer to display their journals at meetings and (in return) place our ads in their journals for free. We had some initial disappointments, but then John Wiley agreed to work with us. The arrangement includes the following Wiley journals:
Biopolymers
Advances in Polymer Technology
Journal of Polymer Science
Journal of Applied Polymer Science
More contacts will be made with other relevant journals.
2. Member Retention
The targets in this area are the "at risk" members. One category of "at risk" members include those people who received free membership in POLY due to their attendance in POLY workshops or courses. Neta has provided us with the names of these people and contact information. We have sent each of them a letter of welcome. The purpose is to open a channel of communication so that later (hopefully) we shall have a better reception when we remind them to renew their memberships.
The membership database indicates that 1/3 of the members drops out within two years. We shall send letters electronically to both first- and second-year members in late September to encourage them to renew.
3. Member Recognition
The activities since April comprise two items:
a. Recognition awards to 30+-year members
Requests have been received and compiled from the 30+-year members on their choice of awards. The awards have been sent to them, thanks to the Business Office staff.
b. Recognition of POLY members who achieve major anniversaries (5, 10, 20, 30 years). We are moving ahead with this action item. The plan is to have this as an annual event, the first to take place in April 2002 at Orlando. The members being recognized will also get a letter from POLY and a lapel pin as the recognition gift.
4. Electronic Communication
Our experience is that database and electronic communication are critical to the functions of this committee. It is fortunate that Steve is very skilled in computers. To facilitate similar activities in the future, Steve is in the process of putting the POLY membership database on the web and providing access to the members of this committee. We are also discussing possible ways whereby some of the procedures might be partly automated.
5. Other Items
The committee was looking at the possibility of 12-month rolling division membership. As it turned out, the National ACS instituted the 12-month rolling membership society-wide. Any new or reinstated members will now have a rolling start on both national and division dues. However, an existing member who joins a new division will have the same term as the national term.
Circulation F. R. Dammont
I am pleased to report that with the Fall Preprints issue (42-2,) we have successfully overcome the initial trauma of transition to the added CD-ROM format. We have now a reliable printer-mailer service and we do not expect any future unusual problems.
Including the six accounts ordering CD-ROM we have shipped to library subscribers a total of 383 copies, 277 copies via the printers and 106 copies from Newark to addresses requiring special handling (UPS shipments, late payments, etc.)
With the help of the ACS HQ office, we have also established contact with Deutsche Post Global Mailing, (DPGM,) who will carry the Preprints to all our overseas subscribers at the ACS high-volume discount rates. They will provide a guaranteed delivery service at a rate competitive with the uneven US Postal Service. This will eliminate all cost of satisfying non-delivery claims. Considering the monstrous rate increases of postal charges it will allow us significant savings.
The arrangement stipulates that the cost of all overseas and Canadian hard copy mailing, both, initiated at the printers and the ones sent from Newark will be charged directly to our DPGM account, to be settled by us, bypassing all intermediaries.
Overseas charges for mailing tripled from what we have been paying last year, and, therfore, we strongly recommend to impose an at least $25.00 surcharge for all foreign hard copy deliveries for the year 2002. The rates of domestic mail delivery remain temporarily unchanged.
Regrettably, we must also report that there is a staggering number of non-receipt claims for Vol. 42-1 (Spring 2001,) all from addresses serviced by the printers - there are no claims for books shipped from Newark. The claims result undisputably from the negligence of the printers of this issue, whose services were, to the best of our understanding, cancelled after the first issue. Since we have a standard 10 months claim policy, we are unable, yet, to predict the number of copies which will be claimed to expiration. At present, about 20% of all library accounts copies, serviced by the printers were already claimed. We have a reserve of about 150 books to handle all future single-issue sales and claims.
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Spring 2001
Membership H.-N. Cheng, S. Pollack
The Membership Committee has been active in the past several months. Current members of the committee are: H.-N. Cheng (Hercules, Co-Chair), Steve Pollack (Howard, Co-Chair), Erica Martin (Rohm and Haas), Dan Knauss (Colorado School of Mines), Pal Arjunan (Exxon), Nozar Sachinvala (USDA), Garrett Poe (Univ. of Southern Mississippi), and Ken Carter (IBM, Member-At-Large). The committee members coordinate their activities through monthly teleconferences and email messages. We also meet in person at National ACS meetings.
1. Strategic Direction
With the successful completion of the 2000 X 2000 campaign, we have formulated a "Beyond 2000" program. The plan consists of an equal emphasis on member recruitment and retention. Additional action items are designed to provide member recognition and enhanced communication.
2. Membership Statistics
The year-end membership statistics from the ACS are given below.
POLY 97 Year-end 7549
POLY 98 Year-end 8069
POLY 99 Year-end 8158
POLY 00 Year-end 8573
The 2000 statistic includes 7808 members, 712 division affiliates, and 53 national affiliates.
3. Member Recruitment
a. Target: Polymer faculty members and their students. Steve has sent email messages to 137 polymer faculty members in the ACS Directory. There are 20 faculty members whose email addresses are not in the database. Pal Arjunan will write to them by regular mail.
b. Target: ACS attendees at the POLY poster session. During the Washington ACS meeting, the Membership and the Publicity Committees jointly staffed a membership table. We decided to do this again in the San Diego meeting. A membership table will be set up on Sunday night during the poster session, and attempts will be made to recruit new members.
c. Target: Participants of POLY symposia. Erica and Garrett have sent email messages to POLY presenters in San Diego who are not POLY members. However, a large number of them (300) did not disclose their email addresses. We are trying to find the best way to access these people.
Erica has sent an email to all POLY symposium organizers and presiders, reminding them to show the "Join POLY" slides at the beginning of their symposia.
d. Target: Members of other professional organizations. Contacts have been made with a number of professional organizations. Most of them are cooperative and are amenable to swapping membership ads with us. Already the "Join POLY" ad has appeared in the newsletters of several of these organizations. More contacts are still to be made.
4. Member Retention. Since October last year, Steve has been able to access and mine the POLY membership database. The database has a wealth of information and is very useful with respect to member retention. The database indicates that the first two years are critical to retention. Roughly 1/3 of the members drops out within two years. Interestingly, there does not appear to be a corresponding retention problem with student members.
a. Target: People who resigned from POLY in 2000. In January Steve has sent email messages to the 231 people who resigned from POLY membership in 2000. Early indications are that some of them did re-join, some had changed jobs (and not interested in POLY), and some email messages were undelivered.
b. Target: First-year members just prior to membership renewal. Ken drafted a letter and Steve sent the letters electronically to 650 first-year members in October (the month during which the members receive their renewal forms). As it turned out, 100 email addresses were found to be invalid. Steve then forwarded the postal addresses of these 100 people to Neta Byerly, who sent the letters via postal mail to these people.
Steve has received feedback from some of these people. Some replied that they appreciated the reminder, and they had renewed their membership. Interestingly, some people did not even know that they are POLY members, and they were surprised to receive the letters.
5. Member Recognition and Reception at ACS Meetings
a. Recognition Awards
After a fair amount of discussion, the committee decided to provide recognition awards to POLY members who have completed 30 or more years of service. They will receive a gift (lunch bag or mug) with the POLY logo. The members are notified in two ways. For those with email addresses (150 members), Steve has sent email messages to them. A web page has been produced for them to select their awards. About 200 members do not have email addresses and need to be notified by mail. Erica has written a cover letter (with scanned images of the awards), and Neta will mail out the letters. The members can either use the web to select the awards or send their choice by mail to H.-N.
b. Recognition during the National ACS Meeting
During the ACS meeting we shall print out the names of these members and insert the list in the POLY Monday afternoon award program. An announcement will be made, calling attention to the list during the award ceremony. In addition, all 30+-year members are eligible for free drinks at the Monday reception.
6. Other Action Items
a. Free ad in journals. When Erica talked to MRS, they provided a useful tip. They made deals with some journals such that they display these journals at meetings and in return get free ads in the journals. We believe this is a good idea, and we would like the Board to consider this option.
b. 12-month rolling membership. One of the items on our "Beyond 2000" plan is to explore the possibility of a 12-month rolling membership as a means to stimulate POLY membership growth. This should make it easier to recruit and to renew members. For example, if we sign people up at National ACS meetings in April, they can renew their membership at the April meeting the following year. H.-N. checked with a number of people and with the ACS. There appears to be no problem with this change. We would like the Board to approve this new policy.
c. "Beyond 2000" Plan. We would appreciate the assistance of Board members and committee chairs in the implementation of the plan. Any suggestions are welcome.
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Contribution to POLY Newsletter, Spring 2000
Membership H. N. Cheng, S. Pollack
Since January 2000 the POLY Membership Committee has been reorganized with H. N. Cheng (Hercules) and Steve Pollack (Howard University) as Co-Chairs. The committee now consists of seven members: Ken Carter (IBM, Member-At-Large), Cheng, Pollack, Dan Knauss (Colorado School of Mines) , Erica Martin (Morton), Pal Arjunan (Exxon), and Garrett Poe (University of Southern Mississippi, as Student Membership Chair). The committee coordinates its activities through monthly teleconferences. We also met at the National ACS meeting in San Francisco. Working together, we have formulated a work plan for 2000. The plan consists of four parts:
1. Take ownership and manage membership data
2. Enhance membership value
3. Recruit and retain members
4. Serve as a conduit between members and POLY board
A particular mission is to institutionalize the best practices of the 2000 ´ 2000 program that has been successful in recruiting new members. The detailed work plan will soon be posted on the POLY web site.
Efforts have already been started to implement this plan. Using the electronic information available, Pollack has sent invitation letters (via email) to authors who presented papers in POLY symposia in ACS meetings and who were not yet POLY members. At the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco, we worked with Dennis Smith to publicize the 2000 ´ 2000 membership drive. To assist with recruiting, we also provided demo of Polymer Preprint on CD. In a related matter, late last year Carter, Pollack, and Cheng had updated the Membership Committee portion of the POLY operations manual to reflect the new thrust.
In order to carry out the many activities that are planned, we are looking for more volunteers. If you are interested, please let one of us know. Also, please give us your thoughts on what you feel the membership committee should be focussing its efforts on. We can be reached via email: Arjunan (pal.arjunan@exxon.com), Carter (kcarter@almaden.ibm.com), Cheng (hcheng@herc.com), Knauss (dknauss@mines.edu), Martin (emartin@morton.com), Poe (garrett.poe@usm.edu), Pollack (spollack@howard.edu).
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