Chicago ACM news
Previous meeting topics updated
I'm trying a new format for the previous meeting topics. Mostly what is there is the meetings we've had since we moved to Google Sites for the website. I hope to bring in some older meetings later. -Greg |
New website pages: Other Organizations & Other Events
Other EventsWe often get requests to use our mailing list to promote other events. We do limit the number of non-Chicago ACM business on the announcement list. To strike a balance, we have added a page on our website to post selected events, and may promote them briefly at the end of other chapter announcement e-mails.Find the new page here: http://www.chicagoacm.org/other-events If you know of an event that should be posted here, send info to acm@chicagoacm.org Other OrganizationsThere are many other computing related organizations in the Chicagoland area. Many of these have promoted our ACM meetings at their own gatherings. A new page lists other groups of which we are aware:http://www.chicagoacm.org/other-organizations If you know an organization that should be posted here, send info to acm@chicagoacm.org You could also encourage them to link back to chicagoacm.org! |
Important message regarding Chapter Membership & Benefits, Election of Officers
This important message is for everyone interested in the Chicago
Chapter of the ACM. Please read to learn about how you can help
the chapter by becoming a member and reap some benefits from ACM
as well. As you may know, last year we did not hold an election for chapter officers as we were unable to fill all the officer slots on the ballot. Our officers from last year agreed to continue operating the chapter as they were able. It is election time again, and this year we need to get back on track. The Chicago Chapter of the ACM is a professional chapter of International ACM (http://www.acm.org) and as such there are requirements to maintain. There must be at least three officers (Chair, Vice-Chair, and Treasurer/Secretary) who are also members of ACM. There must be chapter members who attend meetings, help plan and organize the meetings, and work on other projects for the benefit of chapter members and Chicago's computing community. Joining the chapter and working on chapter committees can provide valuable experience and networking opportunities to those who take part. The Program Committee, headed by the vice chair of the chapter, looks for topics that will be of interest to our audiences, finds the right speakers to present the talk, and handles meeting arrangements. The Publicity and Membership Committee identifies ways to increase membership and provides chapter communications through e-mail announcements, developing the chapter website, and other means such as use of social media. (The chapter now has Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.) To build up membership we are announcing a membership drive. In addition to receiving e-mails about additional activities that will be part of this drive, we will be sending out paper notices if we have your address. Additionally, with the assistance of ACM, we will be reaching out to the nearly 2000 Chicago-area ACM members. Our current agreement with Loyola University for free meeting space (a very valuable commodity in downtown Chicago) requires us to hold no-cost, open meetings. When we charged a fee for each meeting in the past, it was largely to support a provided meal during the social hour, and chapter members received a discount. Our dues at the time were designed to cover the member discount in addition to supporting chapter activities. As part of the membership drive, we are rolling back to 1969 rates and offering a catch-up rate of $4 for a professional membership and $2 for a student membership. This will make your membership current until the end of our Chapter year, June 30, 2011. After that, the new officers will assess what the annual membership dues should be for the 2011-12 Chapter year. Two primary benefits of being a chapter member are the right to vote in elections, and the free resources that become available to you from International ACM - delivered to you through the e-mail address you report when you join the Chicago Chapter.
You may join the Chicago Chapter ACM at any of our meetings, or by mail. You can find a PDF of the Chapter Membership form on our website at http://www.chicagoacm.org Thank you for your continued support of the Chicago Chapter ACM. Greg Neumarke Richard Lee |
Announcement list moving to Google Groups
Please be aware that the e-mail meeting topic announcement list will be moving to a Google Group. This will be a much easier way for us to handle the e-mail list, and should allow interested parties to subscribe and manage their own subscriptions without ACM officer intervention. If you are currently getting our announcement e-mails, you will soon be getting the new e-mails, all prefixed with [Chicago ACM] Thanks -Greg |
A Note about Food at ACM meetings
For the Nov 12, 2009 meeting, and possibly future meetings, there will be no food provided at the ACM meeting, as has been our custom in the past. The reason for this is that in order to qualify for a free meeting space and insurance coverage at Loyola University, we need to not charge admission to the meeting and be sponsored by an internal department. There is not a prohibition against food, just against a mandatory meeting charge. So you may bring in food to eat during the social hour at 5:30pm - 6:30pm. There has been some talk of providing a "box lunch" type service for the meetings that would be optional, and we are still working out the details of how that might work and allow for people to pay for their meal in advance. In the meantime, there are many dining and carryout options in the vicinity, particularly on State St. |
Is our Website crashing your browser?
I've had a report that the website is crashing some older browsers. Is this happening to anyone? Let me know. For now, I've recreated the April 17 homepage, hopefully the refresh will help. -Greg acm@chicagoacm.org |
Meeting Room change for Feb 11
Just another place for you to notice that our meeting room for the Feb 11 meeting is different than where we have been for the past several meetings. It's the same building, just enter on the Wabash side, Herman Crown Center, and go to the second floor cafeteria. |
History of meeting topics page added, front page tweaked
This is our second month of using the new website. I've updated the front page with November's info, and moved it to a new archive page "Previous Meeting Topics." We do have documentation of previous meetings going back quite a ways, and we need to put that into a format we can use on the website. But for now, I'll just add in each meeting as it goes by. I also stopped embedding the future meetings as a google spreadsheet, as it didn't really buy me anything and made the page load slower. -Greg |
Fixed About us page
I had the about us page set up as an embedded Google document, but I didn't have it shared with the world. So it looked ok to me when I was logged in as the editor of the site, but wasn't working for anyone else. It's fixed now. I took out the embedded document since the formatting wasn't working the way I wanted anyway. |
Domain forwarding working
Ok, I think I've got domain forwarding working so that if you type just chicagoacm.org into your browser, it will redirect to www.chicagoacm.org instead of what it was doing, which was going nowhere. So, we are ready to go live! -Greg |
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