News Room
Announcement
Committee Chair Report - Communications and Membership Committee
Our committee has been very active in the last 60 days. We’ve focused on two major initiatives: launching the CASHE web site, and completing the latest edition of the quarterly newsletter. Additionally, we’ve enlarged our focus by folding membership objectives into the communications-related goals and bringing the membership leaders into our now shared committee. Special thanks go out to Marlene Clark and ZAK Companies, for her year presiding as the Communications Committee Chairperson. Marlene was instrumental in fortifying the committee with membership goals and participants.
Everyone on our committee recognizes the tireless work produced this year by Mark Barkenbush to assemble, finesse, and send out the CASHE newsletters. This is no small effort, and on behalf of the entire membership, we thank Mark for his incredible energy, his tenacity in getting the work completed, and his dedication to make certain we are informed. Mark also created and launched the CASHE Annual Membership Survey, which has generated stellar first-time results. Again, we want to express our deepest appreciation to Mark.
As its first priority, our committee envisions a great web site for members to become informed of chapter events and happenings, and to get involved in all things CASHE. Ashif Jahan of Orcutt Winslow has led a team of web designers to create this site, and the output is exciting. Content has come from a variety of sources and Ashif’s team has constructed a fully-functioning site with substantial potential to grow. As committee chair, I’d like to personally thank Ashif Jahan for this effort, as well as express strong appreciation to Jerry Ufnal from APS and Mark Barkenbush from Banner Health, both of whom shared collaborative web concepts and content.
The Annual Membership Survey saw participation in excess of 50% of all members, an excellent rate of return. The board plans to share the findings and its strategies (with all CASHE members) for the coming year when analysis is complete. Thanks go to all members who participated in sharing your candor and vision for a continually-improved CASHE chapter!
Working closely with board members, we have been looking at membership challenges from a variety of angles. We want to ensure that all members are satisfied with the value they receive from participation in CASHE. The key to this understanding is found by segmenting our ever-growing membership. We know that each person seeks to satisfy a unique set of needs. Therefore, we are analyzing the findings from the member survey to examine how differences in roles, age, and background contribute to different kinds of responses. These findings will help the board grow the right mix of facility people and the affiliates who serve them, plus define event success criteria, and chapter outreach.
The Communications and Membership Committee has also been charged with recommending solutions to the challenge of members who RSVP for events, who then don’t show. With the wonderful assistance of Marlene Clark, we’ve tracked these events since the chapter inception, and are able to show an unfortunate pattern of cost and waste. Until now, the chapter has absorbed this cost.
As I mentioned earlier, membership initiatives and leaders have been merged with Communications. I am very fortunate and pleased to announce that our committee brings two Membership co-chairs, including Gabi Mink of J.E. Dunn and Denise Steiger from Turner Design Group. In our first meeting we realized how connected the objectives of Communications and Membership are, and hope to foster ongoing goodwill with the rest of the leadership steering the CASHE ship.
A final note of thanks goes to all committee and ad-hoc participants who gave of themselves to make 2008 a great year for CASHE. As a new team of leaders prepares to make 2009 an even greater year, we join together to share our sincere appreciation to those who made this past year a tremendous inaugural year for CASHE.
In service,
Michael HarrisCASHE Communications and Membership Chairperson