ASHI Quarterly

6 ASHI Quarterly Fourth Quarter 2016 E D I T O R I A L Membership The Membership Task Force has set its sights on increasing both the number of ASHI members and retention of current members. The ASHI Membership Committee, AH staff person Cecilia Blair, and the task force have worked tirelessly on this strategic initiative. The following goals have been accomplished: • Remove the need for sponsorship when applying for ASHI membership from the bylaws • Reach out to past ASHI members • Launch an email campaign to ABHI-certified, non-ASHI members • Create a membership renewal postcard Future goals include: • Determine a structure for potential institutional/group membership • Design exit interview survey questions to determine why some members do not renew • Determine multiple modes to reach out to prior members • Gather information at annual meeting about member needs • Develop a membership satisfaction survey (2017) • Review bylaws concerning requirements for Emeritus membership • Increase ASHI's social media presence Governance The Governance Task Force has been charged with reviewing organizational structure, composition, and communication; evaluating program and committee goals, responsibilities, and effectiveness; and assessing ASHI bylaws and the Standard Policies and Procedures Manual (SPPM). Each of these areas is being considered with a perspective toward the task force's strategic initiative of identifying weakness in structure, transparency, and communication. The Governance Task Force is formulating ideas on organizational structure, which will allow for the best transparency of communication to all membership. Accomplishments include: • Created a proposal to restructure division framework and program/committee composition • Developed policies for bi-directional communication pathways within the organizational structure • Incorporated program/committee surveys into policy development • Implemented revisions to bylaws and SPPM for the purpose of creating comprehensive documents that eliminate duplicity, promote transparency, and provide our society with the framework necessary to continue to be a world leader in the field of histocompatibility and immunogenetics Engagement The Engagement Task force was created to assess member satisfaction with engagement in ASHI and to improve the opportunities for volunteers to best utilize their expertise and time availability. The goals for the first year were to assess the level of engagement in ASHI, to improve access to information about volunteer opportunities and the mechanism for volunteering, and to better engage members who are not able to attend ASHI meetings. To start, committee chairs and committee members were surveyed for their ideas. When the task force evaluated the level of volunteerism in ASHI, it was found that we have a higher percentage of members who volunteer on committees compared to most other societies! Therefore, the task force focused on how to make volunteering easier and to also find ways for members to volunteer for tasks and projects other than by joining a committee. This was accomplished by creating an online volunteer form as well as a Volunteer Portal on the ASHI website. In addition, committee-specific posters were created and displayed at the annual meeting to inform members about each committee and to recruit new members, with great success! Walk-in slides at the meeting were also utilized to acknowledge the hard work of committee members. For the final goal, the task force brainstormed ways to engage members who don't attend meetings. To that end, a survey was recently sent to all laboratories to determine if there are ways that ASHI can help encourage small regional conferences that would allow more members, especially our technologist members, to obtain continuing education and to become involved in ASHI and our field in a more local setting. Expanding on this idea will be a major focus for 2017. With the work that has been accomplished, ASHI was awarded Association Headquarters' Red Chair Award for Engaged and Disciplined Leadership. The award celebrates organizations that have had measurable success throughout the year on one or more of the following AH pillars: • Multi-dimensional growth • Engaged and disciplined leadership • Intelligent use of technology • Unwavering commitment to mission As is demonstrated above, a lot has been happening in the strategic planning of ASHI. Each task force continues to search for ideas to promote the wellbeing of the society. Please feel free to contact any of the task force members, past or present, to share any ideas that you might have. We continue to look forward to productivity on this plan.

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