Chapter Starter Kit:
Communications
Introduction
Communication, as usual, is key. Not just within your group, but also with SEDS national. You will find that a person who doesn’t check voicemails and won’t reply to emails is probably not a good idea for a leader in your group. Not that you should avoid these people, but like I said - for a successful organization, communication is key.
SEDS-USA CONTACT INFO
Each chapter receives a copy of the SEDS Newsletter, NOVA, published by the SEDS Director of Publicity. In addition, your chapter representative will be required to maintain some form of regular contact with (at the very least) the Director of Chapter Affairs.
Web Site: http://www.seds.org/
Mailing Address:
SEDS-USA
MIT Room W20-445
77 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
Email:
- Space Questions/Educational Materials/Outreach: outreach@seds.org
- Website Inquiries: webmaster@seds.org
- Financial Affairs: finance@seds.org
- Chapter Affairs: chapter-affairs@seds.org
- Expansion: expansion@seds.org
- Publications (NOVA): publications@seds.org
- Miscellaneous: seds@seds.org
Always, always, always, always maintain contact with your members. If you’re not offering them new things to do, you should just say "Hi". Made possible through the wonderful world of e-mail and the web, this is much easier than this used to be.
One of your first priorities should be to set up a regularly-updated web site. Information on how to set up a web site can be found in many places online. This is an excellent piece of information to pass out to people in advertising. I would suggest appointing a webmaster in order to take a load off your own shoulders. Regularly updating a web site can prove extremely difficult and can very easily take a back-seat priority on a busy day. Web space can be offered on seds.org, but it is strongly suggested that space is found on your host’s web site. Nearly all universities and institutions offer free web space for their activities. If not, space can be found very easily on host web sites.
I believe you’ll find that the success of your group will be directly proportional to how often you email people in it. Once you have a list of members and their emails, set up some sort of listserv so that any member can easily contact the entire group. One for the whole group would be a good way to send out announcements and such. Another good idea is to set up a smaller listserv for each of your subcommittees. This will make life easier for your helpers. These should be regularly updated and checked.
Another very efficient way to communicate is to set up some space for web forums. SEDS.ORG offers a forums web site (http://forums.seds.org/). Feel free to set up your own tread just for your chapter. These can be accessed from anywhere and are great for letting the whole group know information. A setback of forums, however, is that they rely on the persistent checking of the whole group. Assuming email is regularly checked, I would stick with it for important announcements.
The telephone, although rather archaic, can be extremely effective. People can easily ignore an email. If you decide to collect phone numbers at the first meeting, I would suggest using them. They do not need to be used if your group is very email responsive, but are very good if contact is difficult.
Postal mail is also a very effective method. This is considerably slow considering our modern potential, and should be reserved for newsletters (which you should feel free to initiate amongst your group) and future event notices. It also can considerably drive up operation costs. However, if you are able to provide all your members with a flyer rather than an email notice about an event, you will likely have a better turn out. Some universities offer free "within the campus" mailing.
Direct communication is the best way, of course, to communicate. A firm handshake, a warm smile, (insert cliche here), whatever. Talk to your members and watch how effective your words become.
