[Vacets] Questions for Candidates

[Tran, Ban (TYSONS CORNER, VA)]

Dear cac anh,

See below for my responses.

Ban

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1) Membership fee: Should we institute a membership fee for VACETS? why
or why not?

-  Institute a membership fee is important to VACETS as an organization
with two main objectives - to cover on going administrative cost and to
show commitment/support from its members.  There should be two tiers of
membership fee (professionals and students).  Suggested yearly fee
should be in the range of $5 to $10 for students and $20-$40/year range
for professionals.  Compared to other associations, this is in the low
range which can help attract new members, thus increase membership base
in the long run.


2) How to encourage others to participate in VACETS activities? Most
members of VACETS (may be except student members) are accomplished
professional with busy work and family life's, what can VACETS do to
attract and keep them involved and interested? And how do we start?

-  First, one has to oneself as to why anyone would want to join VACETS
in particular.  First, it's the only national and international
Vietnamese American Technical Professional organization currently known
out there.   Its founders, board, and advisory members consist of a
number of prominent and accomplished scientists and professionals who
have been recognized not only by our own community, but by the community
at large.   Secondly, one would want to join VACETS or any organization
for three main reasons - 1) improve knowledge, 2) networking, 3)
exchange ideas.  Personally, I like the VTIC format of having a
gathering of accomplished professionals in one place to foster
professional friendship among Vietnamese Americans.    The Chinese,
Indians, Japanese have done it.  Why not us?

- To market VACETS and its activities start with the local chapter.
Quarterly seminars, informal networking events, and joint-functions with
other technical organizations are a few examples to build awareness of
the organization.   As a the first step, I would recommend revamping our
website to reflect the true mission of our organization, and to make it
news worthy with interesting contents such as achievements, awards,
publications, promotions, job listings, to name a few.  Listing key
names in the Advisory Committee is another way to show case our
organization.  


3) VACETS is mostly an Internet organization, and for that to work, we
need a better presence on the Internet. In the past we have our website
and the many forums (fora ?). Most of the time the website is out of
date (and the look is kind of boring) because we don't have dedicate
resource to maintain and support it. Most of the forums are also dormant
because of lack of interest or lack of resource to keep it interesting.
How would you propose we correct this?

-  There has been a number of conference calls and communications among
core members to set this as a priority.    Changes are in the work as we
speak.   Our website is an important marketing tool to potential new
members and sponsors.  Also, it can be used as a communication piece
through newsletters to be broadcasted to its members.  Given the limited
resource, I would recommend first highlighting the VTIC event in SJ as
the most recent successful activity put together by VACETS.


4) No funding source: without a membership fee or any other source of
funding we have been struggling to organize any activity (e.g. VTIC &
Technical Journal) and have been depending on volunteers and hit/miss
corporate sponsorships. What are your plan for future activities and how
do we pay for them?

-  We have been running on a very thin budget in the past years enough
to cover any administrative cost, and still have some excess.  The
biggest expense has been the VTIC event which is always covered through
sponsorship dollars.   This strategy has been successful and will not
change in the future.   The proposed institution of membership fee will
give us additional reserve to help cover any unplanned administrative
cost.   We will explore other fund raising sources such as grant,
advertisement, corporate foundations, etc.   This can only be done once
we have some track record to show to potential funders.

5) Marketing: Most of Vietnamese professionals do not know VACETS. We
have been recruiting them mostly by words of mouth. It is a chicken and
egg problem: without a good membership we will not be known but if we
are not known then it's difficult to attract the membership. How do you
propose we break this cycle?

-  To successfully market VACETS would require time and effort.   One of
my recommended strategies is to organize events at local universities
whether it be done once a quarter or twice a year.   One of the
organization goals is to encourage participation of the younger
engineers/scientists and the newly graduated.  Therefore, our first
marketing effort should be focus on those target markets (i.e. local VSA
student organization).  We had great media exposure in Northern CA
including the national publication of Nha' magazine covering the last
VTIC event.  With that momentum on our side, I would recommend having
another small event in SJ to introduce new board members, and to renew
interest in VACETS among local students and professionals.


_____________________

1.  What do you think should be short-term (6-mo or so) objectives for
Vacets?  
What steps should be taken for us to get there?  Please be specific.

-  Continue to recruit new board members and volunteers with specific
skills set
-  Develop core group with new and old board members
-  Revise website
-  Build membership
-  Identify local members who help organize 4th quarter activity (SJ,
LA, DC)
-  Establish a working agenda and task assignment

2.  How would you go about recruiting new members considering Vacets'
limited resource? Some brought it up and rightfully so that we need to
attract college students etc.  
In your view, what do we have to offer them?

-  same answer as above question #2 & #5

3.  Vacets has noble cause but good cause alone can't move an
organization.  We need means for participation. Besides tech
conferences, what other programs or activities on or off line do you
think can attract interest of, if not galvanize, geographically diverse
(and busy) members?

- same answer as in above question #2 & #5 
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