The ITE web site Leadership Tools provides a library of available resources.
A list of your sections/chapters membership can be obtained from ITE Headquarters. These lists are available only to the elected leadership of the section/chapter for the purposes of official ITE activity (newsletters, elections, ….). Contact the Senior Director of Membership Strategies and Operations.
First, many thanks for volunteering to serve our profession. We have developed orientation documents for Section Officers and Section Representatives to the Western District Board to provide valuable information for new officers. In addition, ITE International has leadership tools on their website that can provide additional guidance. Finally, ITE provides a set of seminars you may want to consider in setting up your local technical programs.
Guidance and background organizing material regarding Western District Annual Meetings can be found here. Attendance at typical meeting can range from 250 to 500 (or more) attendees depending upon location.
Based upon Federal tax law, it would probably be best to have ITE HQ house the funds that would be used for the scholarship since they have non-profit status and can best address any tax filing consequences. Also by having ITE HQ handle the funding, donors are able to obtain tax deductions for their contributions. Local sections/chapters can retain the selection activities and the fund raising organization tasks. Sections that have followed this approach include Washington, SF Bay Area and Southern California (feel free to contact these sections for input and ideas).
You can go to ITE’s website and enter your user name and password and update any of your contact information. These changes are input every week and become available to the membership on the web membership directory immediately. When you make this change, it changes the list that Western District uses to update their mailing list for WesternITE.
Depending upon the venue of your meeting and their requirements, you may be asked to provide liability insurance. For lunch meetings, this is unlikely. However, when you begin to undertake larger events – all day meetings with over 100 to 200 attendees and/or host meetings where liquor is served as part of the event, this may become requirement of your meeting site/hotel. The insurance that HQ and Western District have is not transferable to sections – based upon industry standards (ie. your home insurance would not cover a relatives house in another town). Liability insurance can cost around $500 per year for the type that Western District carries (from The Hartford).
Information about District awards can be found on our website. For information about ITE International awards, visit their Awards webpage.
Papers prepared by members are their work. For ITE to publish them or allow their presentation at annual meetings requires ITE to seek a waiver of copyright to avoid the potential for copyright infringement from the author. Works by others that are published by any Section or Chapter should also follow these laws. Therefore, if a photo, graphic, text or article is copied for distribution to the membership, you should have obtained copyright waivers to protect yourselves and ITE.
Probably the number one area of assistance that ITE can provide to Sections/Chapters is in negotiating with hotels for the venue of our meeting. The larger meetings (over 100-200 attendees) can sometimes require complicated contracts or agreements that can be very costly if not properly reviewed (clauses such as penalties). Since officers at local Sections/District change over frequently, ITE HQ is a good source of assistance for this help. Contact the Senior Director of Meetings.
ITE Technical Councils provide members an opportunity to explore areas of technical development more actively. All ITE membership can join a council by simply checking a box on their annual dues form. The true value of council involvement is your participation. The Coordinating Council oversees all the individual Technical Councils, providing oversight, direction, resources (if needed) and focus. Coordinating Council involvement is a “next step” after Technical Council involvement.
These are various technical reports produced by ITE members and technical committees that range from information to standards of the profession. The best description of these documents is provided on the ITE web site along with the guidelines for preparation of these documents (if you are contemplating forming a committee).
