StarChapter of March: Duval County Medical Society

Know your prospects and members and effectively communicate their needs. How many times did you read this advice from experts? Meet Duval County Medical Society, the local Floridian medical society that learned how to successfully know their members is now The StarChapter of The Month. We spoke with the Dr. Mobeen H. Rathore, Duval County Medical Society’s Immediate Past President to learn more about their success story.

1. What was Duval County Medical Society’s strategy for engaging new members in 2014?  

We wanted to be sure that we are meeting the professional needs of physicians in Duval County. We want to impress upon them the importance of organized medicine. We strongly believe that ongoing communication is the key to successful and effective activity.

2. Can you tell me about a successful event/meeting that you organized in the past year?

Last year we organized The Annual Meeting, which was a great success with record attendance and record exhibitors.

3. Duval County Medical Society grew in the last few months. Can you share some secrets of running such a successful chapter?  

Our board engaged the physicians in Duval County by first understanding what they need and then responding to their needs in a timely and effective manner. The board also put in place several governance changes that were very valuable.

4. Was your board inspired by other associations or chapters?

We have a very engaged and motivated board and that is what made us successful.

5. Do you have any time-saving tips to share with other board members? 

Find out what is important to you and organize your time to volunteer to help with that. Allow the leaders in your board to know what is important to you and offer your perspective, input and help if needed. Be proactive not reactive.

6. What is in stored for Duval County Medical Society members in 2015?

Our members should expect bigger and better things. The society is fiscally strong and membership is increasing.  We are in a position to create additional programs that will be valuable to our members. 

7. How did StarChapter help you run the chapter and reach your goals?

StarChapter helped a LOT with linking our content to social media channels and attracting our member physicians and prospects.

StarChapter of February: Columbia SHRM

Connecting with more prospects, reducing expenses, turning non-members to members, and automating the tasks of running the chapter: these are just a handful of achievements that turned SHRM Columbia into one of the most successful chapters last year and our StarChapter of The Month. 

We spoke with the board to learn more about their success story. 

1. What was SHRM Columbia’s strategy for engaging new members in 2014?
Our membership chair really felt that new members or people seeking information about membership have been able to reach her much more easily than in previous years. Her contact information being listed on the site allowed for members to directly contact her and get questions answered immediately. She also mentioned that the automatic alerts she received about membership that is expiring really helped her to engage members so that they could keep their membership. Also since adding secure net via StarChapter, members have been able to pay for membership and events with great ease, making it a breeze for new members to join.

2. Can you elaborate on a main event/meeting that you organized in the past year?
During the 2014 year most all of our events were general meetings. They were all about the same size/type of meeting. We were able to use the attendance capability to easily track how many members signed up to attend each event. That made it really easy to communicate to the site vendor how many attendees to expect so that lunch or breakfast could be prepared accordingly.

3. SHRM Columbia has experienced a sharp growth in 2014 and had a great rate of show-ups in chapter meetings and dues collection. Can you share some secrets of running such a successful chapter?
Our chapter strives to keep our content compelling and relevant to the needs of our members. Our membership uses the Columbia SHRM chapter to stay on top of changes in the HR field and want meetings that are important to their company’s needs. StarChapter has allowed our members to receive more communication and easily access information regarding upcoming topics and connect with other members or presenters to get more information. We have also been able to utilize the survey feature to allow for members to give feedback and suggest topics for future meetings.

4. Was the SHRM Columbia board inspired by other SHRM chapters?
Initially we were very inspired when looking at other chapter sites since the information and pictures are so clear and easy to navigate. We are still able to view their sites to help get ideas about how we might use our site to get more participation and have information listed so that our members are able to easily see what events are coming up.

5. Do you have any time-saving tips to share with other board members?
As with any new technology, there is a certain amount of poking around that will help you learn to create, change, or delete items within the system. If you find reasons to perform tasks you can develop confidence at the various sections within StarChapter. Because the system allows you to work in a draft mode you can easily delete any sections you don’t wish to publish and you are much less likely to publish your mistakes. The site features on the website also allow us to easily track attendance and look for trends to better plan for future programs.

6. What is in store for SHRM Columbia members in 2015?
We are very excited to host our annual big all day legal seminar. This will be the first time this event has been announced, paid for, and registered through StarChapter. We will be collecting a fee for vendors and meeting attendees and getting feedback from out attendees regarding their thoughts and suggestions for meetings as we generally do.

7. How did StarChapter help you run your chapter and reach your goals?
StarChapter allowed our board to easily manage our membership database and reduce the amount of billable hours with our association management firm. We were also able to move several manual and paper processes, which allowed for meeting registration and tracking being more efficient.