WWA Membership Committee
Meeting Minutes
May 13, 2014 at 10:00 AM
Attendees
Paul Boersma, Steve Kluesner, Steve Schultz, Kelly Zylstra, Katie Karow
1. Calling 2013 New Members
Paul asked for each committee member to report on status of contacting new members. Each went through contacts made to date. A surprising theme was there are a large number of new members that did not know they were members.
It was discussed how to follow up with individuals. A follow up on those already contacted but not successfully made needs to be done. It was also suggested to attempt to follow up with more senior individuals at a company to keep their staff as members. Specifically Energenecs and The Water Council were discussed.
Our goal is to have two-thirds of new members renew. Based on our responses so far to our new member contacting we are on track for about one-half. Extra diligence needs to be spent on new members that do not know much about WWA and were not aware they were members.
A side discussion was noted about an individual member at the Green Bay Water Utility being a dropped member. It appears we are losing some individual members because staff of utilities can attend seminars/conferences at a reduced rate through their Utility membership. Appears trends are tracking towards finding value for the cost of membership.
Action:
All committee members to finish contacting new members and follow up with members where contact was attempted but not made. Report contacts in spreadsheet and send to Paul by the end of May.
Paul to contact Energenecs and Katie to contact The Water Coucil to further discuss memberships.
Katie to contact Green Bay Water Utility to discuss Utility membership versus individual membership.
Paul will review data from spreadsheet and prepare a committee and board report.
2. Newsletter
a. Deadline for the next newsletter article is May 19th.
b. The ideas presented at the last meeting were discussed further as noted below.
· Prepare a short 2 to 3 sentence bio on new members. It was agreed this was a good idea for the newsletter.
· Include noteworthy information or project for Utility members. This could be a spotlight on Utility members. Committee members thought was a good idea, however needed to be done regularly which would be a lot of effort for the committee and the selected utilities. The committee should focus effort in other areas for now.
Another option to the general Utility spotlight was discussed. Selection of a Utility to spotlight based on an important milestone anniversary with AWWA. This will occur less often, provide a sound reason to be spotlighting that specific utility, and allow us to plan for this article spotlight well in advance. This idea will be considered for future newsletters.
Kelly also indicated she would like to include the quarterly update on membership reports in the newsletter that will update information from the previous newsletter. Kelly would like this to be a continual inclusion in the newsletter.
Kelly also mentioned that the previous newsletter included a map of the WWA membership distribution across Wisconsin. This was a neat way to present the information and could be updated once per year.
Action:
Paul to prepare the list of individual new members to include in the newsletter. Paul to prepare this information by May 19th.
Katie to prepare an update to the membership reports to include new data from March 1st through June 1st. Katie will provide Kelly this updated report by June 3rd.
Katie to review the Utility member database and identify Utilities with upcoming anniversary milestones for the committee to discuss at future meetings.
3. AWWA 2014 Membership Goals
a. 14 ~ 2013 new members have renewed so far this year. Our goal is 46 new member renewals.
b. 819 total members. Our goal is to grow membership to 833 total members by the end of 2014. Currently membership is down 6 members year to date.
Action:
None.
4. WWA Conference
a. Paul mentioned the WWA conference and wants us all to include on our schedule. We will discuss the conference further this summer.
b. Will have booth and AWWA membership person attend again.
Action:
None.
5. Late Member and New Member Follow Up
The current late member report has many new members included. Paul asked Steve K. to highlight the individuals on the new member contact report that are also on the late member report and send that out to the committee members.
Steve K. will continue to contact individuals on the late member report.
Steve S. has been sending welcome letters to new members as they happen. This will continue as he gets the list from Paul.
Action:
Steve K. to send out the new member contact spreadsheet to committee members with the individuals highlighted that are also on the late member report.
Steve K. to continue to contact late members.
Steve S. to continue to send out new member welcome letters.
6. Next Meeting
Next Meeting - Tuesday, June 10, 2014, 10:00 AM.
Prepared and respectfully submitted by Steve Kluesner.