Vision Statement:
Positioning ASPRS as the organization for anyone interested in learning more about mapping sciences as practitioners of the three practice areas from both the core technologies and applications side.

Mission Statement
The mission of the Membership Committee is to develop new and innovative ways to attract new members as well as retain current membership.

Niche Statement

  • Review membership statistics and trends in membership (including statistics for new membership membership renewal for all member categories and student membership conversion upon graduation/professional employment.
  • Establish new membership categories as needed
  • Review and recommend new member services
  • Identify potential new sources for membership
  • Identify mechanisms for membership retention and promotion

Goals and Tactical Actions

Goal 1: Strengthen Interactions between ASPRS Regions and Membership Committee members.

Tactics:

  • Establish a membership sub-committee. This sub-committee would be comprised of membership liaisons for each of the regions and/or region newsletter editors who would interact with the Membership Committee. These liaisons would participate in the membership hotsheet (see below).
  • Establish a member hotsheet for regions and membership liaisons to share ideas about what works for attracting new and retaining current members in THEIR regions.

Goal 2: To have regions actively pursue new members.

Tactic:

  • Suggest that regions offer registration for regional meetings at a member and non-member price and encourage the non-members attending to fill out a membership application and turn it in before the close of the technical session. The inflated non-member registration fee can be used to pay a portion of the membership cost with the region paying the balance.

Goal 3: To have regions actively participate in membership retention

Tactics:

  • Encourage region secretaries or membership liaisons to send “Welcome Letters” to new members and special meeting notices encouraging them to participate in regional activities.
  • Encourage member retention by offering registration price breaks for members to attend workshops and technical sessions.
  • Encourage regions to send “friendly” dues reminder letters to those members in arrears.
  • Encourage regions to reward members for their individual efforts in attracting new members (For example – presenting coffee mugs at regional banquets to those members who have introduced x new members to the Society that year).

Goal 4: Increase the involvement of student members in regional activities. Most student members do not have the means/opportunity to attend the national meetings so participation in the regional activities is very important.

Tactics:

  • Establish student liaisons for each of the student chapters and invite them to attend the Region Board of Directors’ Meetings so that they can report region activities to their chapter.
  • Reduce registration fees for students at regional meetings. (In the Florida Region for example student registration is $10 versus the full registration fee of $75.00).
  • Establish a “job board” at regional meetings and invite students to post their resumes.
  • Organize a student session at the technical meetings and invite students to present their papers.
  • Establish “travel scholarships” to allow students to attend the national meetings in order to present a paper/poster.
  • Make extra social function tickets available to students. (In the Florida Region for example include banquet tickets in full registration fee. They often find that several members who have paid full registration do not plan on attending the banquet. They simply make an announcement during the technical session and request that people who do not plan to attend the banquet turn in their tickets to make them available to students. This has worked very well – members want to help the students the students feel like the group is on their side (hence promoting loyalty to the Society) AND they have probably already paid for the meal as they had to guarantee so many plates to the caterer).

Goal 5: Encourage the conversion from student membership to active membership.

Tactics:

  • Develop a local relationship with students early on so that they see the benefits of society membership. (See above goal).
  • Develop a mechanism to track student members and convert them to active members shortly after their graduation/professional employment. Consider adding a field for “anticipated graduation date” on the application form and tracking it through the system.