• Mary Walter Midkiff thanked Mary Saily for her hard work on completing the 2006 speaker calendar.
• Wendy Mack will be contacting all speakers prior to their presentation to let them know about our audience and what's worked (and not worked) in the past.
• Steve Mack will look at our microphone equipment to determine what, if any, is usable. Amy Lourenco mentioned that she has an overhead projector that belongs to the Chapter, and suggests that it be donated to charity.
• We have enough speaker gifts to last until August. Tiffany crystal items have been given in the past, but different gifts are being considered.
• The Committee's primary focus will be on sponsors. They will be presenting a formal proposal at a future meeting, but are looking at a variety of issues. Their goal is to increase the number of organizations that want to sponsor us as well as make them easier to locate (by targeting different types of companies, etc.). They have been researching what other DC Metro chapters are doing in terms of sponsorship. Some chapters don't have any sponsorship opportunities (and we wondered if they had higher dues and/or meeting costs). However, most chapters reviewed have different types (levels) of sponsorship as well as more incentives to become a sponsor.
• Items being considered include: more prominent place for sponsors on the website; potential sponsor kits (like those sent by WTPF); more free attendance included in sponsorship (either at sponsored event or over time); sponsor info posted for a longer time on website; attendee and/or membership lists being provided to sponsors [terms and conditions were discussed around this item, especially a prohibition on phone calls].
• Mary Walter Midkiff reminded us that national SHRM does sell their membership list.
• Sponsor targets were discussed, including grocery, insurance, retail, etc. Joseph Gregory suggested also focusing on vendors who would provide more of a two-way relationship like caterers, party planners, etc.
• We discussed other revenue-generating ideas such as a recommended (advertiser) vendor list on our site (like NOVA's sourcing section) as well as the ability for member companies to purchase links to their home page.
• Pricing is an issue -- we almost never have non-member sponsors, so we might as well reduce that rate. Because it is currently twice that of a member, folks always join.
• We may ask Wendy Mack (and the Committee) to also "coach" sponsors insofar as the terms & conditions of that relationship.
• Kurt Cowles reminded us that there is a non-solicitation policy in our ByLaws.
• Chas Sumser has submitted the first five (5) programs to HRCI for credit approval. They now require more information than they had in the past.

• Nidhi Kanungo spoke of increasing student membership. The discussion morphed into the real goal of increasing student attendance at meetings, which will in turn lead to increased future membership (since there is no additional discount for student members at meetings).
• Most students go to NOVA, in particular because they have a very solid mentoring program. She discussed the desire to start mentoring and/or job shadowing programs. We discussed the pros and cons of these programs, in particular focusing on the difficulty of getting a good mentoring program off the ground. Judy Perrault talked about an effort in prior years to start a program (not just for students), but no one was really willing to commit to the hours needed.
• Kimberly Esch discussed a (fee-based) program she had attended at the Women's Center in Vienna where she had informational interviews with three high-level HR professionals.
• Joseph Gregory talked about the importance of marketing our chapter (and SHRM as a whole) to graduate students through professors. It was suggested that perhaps we hold special orientations for professors and/or student appreciation meetings.
• NOVA had run a program where they talked to George Mason students about to graduate.
• We discussed the actual purpose of the Student Liaison position - "young" minds/folks just starting out versus individuals who might already be working in HR (while attending graduate school, etc.).
• The pros and cons of focusing on student chapters versus students through programs/professors was discussed.

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