HEADQUARTERS REPORT 7/1/04 – 10/31/04
MEMBERSHIP

RETENTION

	2004 Paid	2003 Paid
Total Invoiced	7,085/8,437 = 84.0%	7,036/8,426 = 83.5%
-Regular	6,145/6,787 = 90.6%	6,086/6,824 = 89.2%
-Student/Preprofessional	940/1,656 = 56.8%	950/1,602 = 59.3%

INVOICING

	Dues Year 2005	Dues Year 2004
Total Members Invoiced in October	8,359	8,437
-Regular	6,875	6,781
-Student/Preprofessional	1,484	1,656

Sections
Visits were made to the Quad Cities, Pacific Northwest, Nebraska and Iowa sections by Society leaders and the executive vice-president. We are also finding that the name change issue continues to be a hot topic of discussion across all section meetings.

An attempt is being made to reactivate the Michiana section.

Online Mentoring Program
Great strides have been made toward the development of the online mentoring program for students and members under age 35. Webmaster Chuck Knebl is currently working with Mark Crossley and Travis Tsunemori to get the interactive module online. It is anticipated that we will begin populating the mentor side shortly after the New Year with rollout to the mentee side within the first quarter of 2005.

Member Outreach to Seniors & Graduate Students
With the restructuring of dues for members aged 65+, making them more affordable, we did a specifically targeted mailing to all former members in this age category who dropped their memberships over the last five years announcing the new rates. We have had good response and have reinstated 30+ former senior members.

We have also seen good response to the new Graduate Student membership category with numerous student members transferring to this category as well as new members joining. As with the senior members, we also are targeting existing student members with four or more years of consecutive student membership announcing this new, more reflective membership category.

Nurturing the District Representative (DR)/Section Chair Relationship
At the Section Steering Committee (SSC) meeting held in Ottawa, it was made clear that a number of section chairs a) did not know they had a DR and b) if they did know, they had little idea what they did. This told me that ASAE has not done a very good job of spreading the word about the DRs and their relationship to sections within their districts. A mechanism is now in place to alert new section chairs who their DR is (among other things) when they take office. DRs in turn have been encouraged to communicate with section chairs within their district on more regular basis, including sending a welcome message when new chairs take office. We will also be experimenting with setting up semi-annual conference calls between DRs and their section chairs to keep everyone more connected.