Bronx membership in slow steady decline - and our demographics not encouraging for future.
Don't have the state or national statistics - but anecdotal evidence is of similar trend
Bronx Chapter can get very good turnout with an interesting program - and our offer for free admission to pdh sessions for non-members if they sign up and pay for a one year membership has been productive - at least a dozen during past two years - problem is getting new members to stay and getting more members - old and new - to be more active.
Another Bronx Chapter approach to improve turnout for our educational events is to reach out to Manhattan College engineering students - tactics have included free food, contacts with leaders of student engineering organizations, and coordinating programs with the faculty. We have run well attended "Why be a PE?" and ethics programs. A lecture by Commissioner Miele "History of NYC Water Supply System" was standing room only with huge turnout of MC students plus member and non-member PE's. Problem again - we can get them to attend but we have not found the right motivation to get them to stay and be active.
Proposal to organize a large scale event utilizing combined resources of five NYC chapters could be successful in recruiting some new members. I would support such an effort. We certainly can use an immediate boost to membership. The bigger question is whether such event(s) can reverse the long term trend? My experience says NO. We can get a turnout. We can even sign up new members. The problem is retaining the new members and getting more active involvement from all members.
Is there a way to possibly reverse the trend?
My feeling is that it may be possible but would require re-defining what we hope to achieve with this organization. Currently, our mission and goals are quite idealistic. No one can argue with ethics and professionalism. But what I'm hearing back from the engineering community is "We are very glad someone is thinking about ethics and professionalism, keep up the good work but don't ask me - I have no time to get involved".
How can we change that? Some possibilities:
1. Learn to play politics. At the last meeting, when I asked why we lost the DoB lawsuit when we were so confident that we were in the right, everyone responded "Politics!" We have to learn to play by their rules. Some suggestions: Don't wait until we need something from a politician, approach them offering to help them. I understand we use to have a lobby day in Albany. I would suggest something simpler. Following each election, write a letter of congratulations to politicians at all levels - from US senator to Boro Pres to City Councilmembers - congratulate them, introduce ourselves as constituents and as Professional Engineers and members of NSPE, and offer to help out when any issues come before them where they may feel the input of an engineer would be helpful. These letters may be form written but must come from constituents of the particular politician. At some point when an issue that is important to us arises, we will not be strangers. Once we can demonstrate that we have some political pull, important players will want to be part of the game. And when important players come, the followers will follow. Obviously oversimplified. But let's start somewhere.
2. Learn to play the P/R game. Create a talent pool of engineering experts who look good and can talk the talk. When relevant major news stories break, offer our subject matter experts as consultants to the major news organizations. Solicit representatives from major engineering firms willing to be in front of the camera. Convince these firms that they want their experts to be the ones in the news. Use some money to hire a good technical p/r firm. Again overly simplified. But we need to get out there in front of the public. The public generally thinks highly of engineers - lets use it to our advantage
3. Become more inclusive of the entire engineering community. Instead of representing ethics and professionalism, lets represent "Engineering"! Again I don't have the statistics but PE's account for a tiny percentage of the total engineering community. It will still be a struggle to sign up and retain members and get members to be more active but the pool of potential members has now increased many, many fold. With greater membership - hopefully many, many fold increase - will come political clout of its own.
4. Identify pocketbook issues and niche concerns. For myself, one such issue would be group health insurance. It is a non-engineering issue that is a major concern for myself. My understanding is that state law prohibits associations from sponsoring group health plans. But then why is the BBB and the Freelancers able to offer it? Why is a freelance computer artist able to take advantage of the economy of a group but a consulting engineer is not? (unless he declares himself a freelancer)
5....
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