4.04 Membership Committee Report
Good morning Board and members. This past year, my first as committee chair, has been filed with challenges, but very rewarding. My main goal was to increase members engagement, and to get a true committee together to tackle, what I feel, is a stagnant membership. My chairmanship started with a roundtable discussion attended by members from coast to coast to discuss what they felt was lacking in their membership, and to brainstorm ideas to make that membership better serve their needs. The information gathered proved to be invaluable in guiding the past 12 months for me. My goal of a true Membership Committee has fallen short, as our bi-weekly huddles have lacked any member attendance other than a couple huddles. In order for the membership committee to truly help activate what we can do as an organization, we need engagement. With that, this annual meeting report will serve a "Call to Action" to bring members into the committee and let's work on serving the AIBD and our membership to the best of our abilities.
Guided by the roundtable, my next mission was to form a "Members Helping Members" program to serve as a sounding board, continuing education avenue, and generally using my platform to help my fellows designers get to where they want to be. I have used the Tuesdays @ 2 webinars to start to give back to our membership by offering free training classes for the users of Chief Architect, or for those that are considering using Chief in their design office. These monthly webinars have been very well attended, and have inspired me to add more sessions covering other aspects of our business. Look for these new webinars in the Thursdays @ 3 time slots, and I encourage all of you to take a hard look at what you have to offer.
During my first year as chair, I was also very interested in what I could do to grow our membership, and while we have remained somewhat flat, our retention numbers have increased thanks to hard work of committee member Raven. I was able to work with Chief Architect Software to bring them on board as a new corporate member, and have already worked with Chief and their staff to put together some education opportunities for them. While that is just 1 new corporate member, I will take that win! My goal for the 2025-26 fiscal year is to recruit another corporate, and to work as a committee to add 10% to our membership roles while continuing to retain our current members at or above our current rate. That is a lofty goal, but working as a committee, and getting a few more committee members on board with me, I am sure we can accomplish that goal.
I will conclude my report with a discussion on AREA. As designers we all know very well what AREA is, and why it's important for what we do, but I would ask you to look at AREA in a new way.
Advocate: Promote the value and importance of residential design and the AIBD to represent the interests of designers at local, regional, or national levels. Talk with builders, planning directors, other designers, anyone that will listen about what we do, and why this organization is important to residential design.
Recruit: We all know there are designers in our area that are not members. Invite them to lunch and let them know what the AIBD is doing to protect their business, and invite them to join. Our Compass Club numbers are at an all time low, lets all recruit 2 new members this year.
Engage: Use your knowledge to engage with other members to share what we've learned. While some view other designers as competition for projects, we should be lifting other to greater heights to grow our industry and work towards being recognized by code officials as the true professionals we are. Raise the standards of the profession through excellence, ethics, innovation, and recognition of outstanding work we all do.
Activate: Get active! Join a committee, use our webinar platform to give back as a Member Helping a Member and champion the value of residential designers and ensure their voices are heard in policy, public awareness, and industry conversations.
Guided by the roundtable, my next mission was to form a "Members Helping Members" program to serve as a sounding board, continuing education avenue, and generally using my platform to help my fellows designers get to where they want to be. I have used the Tuesdays @ 2 webinars to start to give back to our membership by offering free training classes for the users of Chief Architect, or for those that are considering using Chief in their design office. These monthly webinars have been very well attended, and have inspired me to add more sessions covering other aspects of our business. Look for these new webinars in the Thursdays @ 3 time slots, and I encourage all of you to take a hard look at what you have to offer.
During my first year as chair, I was also very interested in what I could do to grow our membership, and while we have remained somewhat flat, our retention numbers have increased thanks to hard work of committee member Raven. I was able to work with Chief Architect Software to bring them on board as a new corporate member, and have already worked with Chief and their staff to put together some education opportunities for them. While that is just 1 new corporate member, I will take that win! My goal for the 2025-26 fiscal year is to recruit another corporate, and to work as a committee to add 10% to our membership roles while continuing to retain our current members at or above our current rate. That is a lofty goal, but working as a committee, and getting a few more committee members on board with me, I am sure we can accomplish that goal.
I will conclude my report with a discussion on AREA. As designers we all know very well what AREA is, and why it's important for what we do, but I would ask you to look at AREA in a new way.
Advocate: Promote the value and importance of residential design and the AIBD to represent the interests of designers at local, regional, or national levels. Talk with builders, planning directors, other designers, anyone that will listen about what we do, and why this organization is important to residential design.
Recruit: We all know there are designers in our area that are not members. Invite them to lunch and let them know what the AIBD is doing to protect their business, and invite them to join. Our Compass Club numbers are at an all time low, lets all recruit 2 new members this year.
Engage: Use your knowledge to engage with other members to share what we've learned. While some view other designers as competition for projects, we should be lifting other to greater heights to grow our industry and work towards being recognized by code officials as the true professionals we are. Raise the standards of the profession through excellence, ethics, innovation, and recognition of outstanding work we all do.
Activate: Get active! Join a committee, use our webinar platform to give back as a Member Helping a Member and champion the value of residential designers and ensure their voices are heard in policy, public awareness, and industry conversations.