Re: AIAS dilema

>forwarded to design list. . .h.
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>"once upon a time" I was very involved in the former incarnation of AIAS,
>when it was known as ASCAIA...  I was president for one year of the Ball
>State Chapter, then Tri-States Regional Director, (at that time all
>regional directors were on the national board), for two terms...  Keeping
>membership up has always been a problem.  From my point of view, getting
>people involved is quite simple... In school, just as for practicing
>professionals, no one has any free time.  If they do, they want to kick
>back and get their minds off of architecture.  You cannot get them
>interested in coming to meetings if all you do is "have meetings".  When
>you have them, the "business" part should be as brief as possible, with
>the majority of the time going to a function that gives them a reason to
>attend...  From my experience, students got involved in the Chapter for 2
>reasons... to put it on their resume to supposedly help get a job... and
>to attend functions where there were architects... potential employers.
>Think of ways to have events that are actually interesting and useful...
>Get a local architect to host an open house where they give a tour of
>their office and discuss their work and their practice.  Get a local
>computer rendering guru to give a computer-based gee-whiz rendering and
>modeling presentation... and invite BOTH students AND area professionals.
>Get local computer consultants that work with CAD software and modeling
>programs to give demo's in various programs, (again, invite area
>professionals).  At Ball State, we had a big annual event at the end of
>the year, the day after final juries, that was an all-day soccer
>tournament/beer bash/bar-b-Q blow-out that attracted not only the majority
>of the student body and college staff, but area professionals and alumns
>from all around...  All this of course, takes a good deal of thought and
>planning effort, but it does pay off.

>Joseph Vance, AIA