SWE Space Coast 50^th Anniversary Community Reception

Executive Summary:

Space Coast Section conducted a 50^th Anniversary community reception to spread the SWE message to Presidents/CEO’s of local technical companies, local technical society leaders, local area women’s groups and the local educational system. Five hundred people were invited to partake of heavy horsdoeuvres, a cash bar and to hear a presentation by National SWE President, Sherita Caesar. Ten 30 x 40 inch storyboards depicting various SWE activities were designed and purchased. The storyboards were displayed around the room and staffed with a SWE member to discuss the board and to answer questions.

One hundred and seven people attended the event. A number of women’s organizations were present and we have developed several partnering activities as a result. The hoped for enhanced interest on the part of local corporations will become evident as the year progresses.

2- Narrative Description and Guide to Conducting a Community Reception

The culmination of Space Coast’s yearlong 50^th Anniversary celebration was a Community Reception on May 26, 2000. Two hundred and fifty invitations were mailed to local area Presidents and CEO’s of technical companies, military installation commanders, senior management at NASA as well as leaders in local technical societies and local women’s organizations. Each invitation was for the principal and a guest making a total of five hundred people invited. The reception featured heavy horsdoeuvres and a cash bar. To stimulate dialogue about SWE, ten 30 x 40 inch storyboards, which tell the SWE story, were positioned throughout the room.

The storyboards featured local and national activity. (Storyboard Link) Each storyboard was staffed by a member of the Space Coast Section who answered questions and had a dialogue with the attendees about the role SWE members play in their companies and in the community. Region F Director, Michele Fitzpatrick, was in attendance and staffed one of the storyboards concerning the future workforce.

The highlight of the event was an address by SWE’s National President, Sherita Ceasar. Sherita discussed SWE’s goals and activities and encouraged those present to consider ways to partner with SWE to further those goals. Through the story board dialogues and Sherita’s message our goal was to significantly enhance the understanding about SWE and its’ goals on the part of the senior technical leaders/managers, local technical society and women’s organizations present and increase their support and participation in SWE activities.

Based on the comments by the attendees, we were very successful in meeting our objectives. Through discussions at the reception we have established a new relationship with the Girl Scouts and look forward to an expansion of our Girl Scout workshops. National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) attendees invited SWE to partner in their planned “All Women Build” with Habitat for Humanity. Several of our members participated with NAWIC in an all women activity to build a new home. The Federally Employed Women (FEW), the South East Consortium for Minorities in Engineering (SECME) and the Brevard County Commission on the Status of Women were also represented and dialogue with these organizations continues. Several of the attendees from other women’s organizations expressed an interest in our Women’s History Month Banquet and suggested ways to enhance its’ attendance. Early indications are that our corporate support may get a boost this year as well.

The conduct of the program was similar to preparations for and the conduct of a medium sized banquet. A contract was signed for the room in January of 2000. The Invitations and RSVP Card were designed and ordered in late April and mailed on May 3, 2000. An invitation letter was also included in non-SWE invitations. (Letter Link)The development of the invitation list and confirmation of corporate leaders was a significant task. We merged lists used for other SWE activities and got inputs from members in the various companies. The turnover of corporate players is high and lists that were more than three months old were often out of date. The local Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Commission are also sources for corporate listings. There may be a cost, however, and you should check to see how current the list is.

The original plan had been to have the National SWE History Exhibit shipped in for the reception. $1600 was included in the budget for this purpose. Estimates for shipping and set up/repack began to approach $3000. This was determined to be too large an expenditure for just two hours of exposure. The committee decided to abandon the use of the exhibit and to expand the use of storyboards. The number was expanded from eight to ten. The total cost for the storyboards was $1220, well within the estimate for storyboards and the exhibit. Space Coast members were requested to staff the storyboards and were provided a copy of their board in advance to help with anticipating questions from the attendees. The storyboards were very effective and are available for continued use. Space Coast plans to have several of the storyboards at each meeting this year and the Region Director plans to have them at the Region D Conference in March 2001.

Arrangements with the Raddison Hotel were also straightforward. The Banquet Manager provided menu selections and costs in January and was helpful in developing a proposed menu. Once the size of the group was determined through the RSVP cards that were returned, a final selection of the horsdoeuvres was made and provisions to provide coffee with the 50^th Anniversary cake. This meeting was about one week before the event. The room layout specifications were also agreed upon at this time.

The RSVP Returns list was used to produce nametags for the event. A registration table was used to pass out nametags and to identify key players as they arrived. Several of our officers and senior members were assigned key player attendees to give them special attention. The “Smooze Queens”, as they became known, saw to it that the key player attendees met Sherita Caesar and got to as many storyboards as possible. We believe this technique was successful and will use it again at our large banquet meetings.

3-Measured Results

Our target attendance was three hundred. We were able to attract one hundred and seventeen. The ethnic and gender composition of the crowd is shown on the cover sheet. We were perhaps optimistic with our target, but feel like the results were well worth the effort. With the lower attendance we were able to reduce costs and a check for $2837.90 was returned to SWE on June 7, 2000.

In terms of our goal to increase the visibility of SWE throughout the community we believe we were successful. As mentioned above we have established a new relationship with the Girl Scouts that will lead to an expansion of our Girl Scout workshops. Several attendees have pursued membership in SWE. The increase in corporate support has yet to manifest itself. The results will come later in the year as we seek support for scholarships, sponsorship for the student sections, the expansion of our after hours girls science club activity and attendance and participation in our Engineer of the Year awards program.

4-Publicity

We did not attempt to provide any pre-event publicity. Since the event was by invitation only we decided pre-event publicity would be inappropriate. We did use our membership to encourage the attendance of managers in their companies who were invited.

5-Description of Deliverables

The links provided throughout the report will take you to the deliverables. For the links to work properly, all the files must be in the same directory.

Report - DR084Final Report.doc - The final report for grant number DR084 is presented in a word document.

Storyboards- DR084Storyboards.ppt - A PowerPoint presentation of nine of the ten 30 x 40 inch storyboards used for the reception. The title board (Shown in Appendix B) was used at the registration table and the rest were spread throughout the room and staffed by a SWE member to answer questions and have dialogue with the attendees. The storyboards were produced by a graphics/printing company directly from the PowerPoint files included in this report. See Appendix B for pictures of the storyboards.

RSVP Cards - DR084Recept RSVP Card.doc - This shows the RSVP Card that was enclosed with the invitation. The envelope for the RSVP Card was pre-addressed and stamped.

Budget - DR084Budget.xls – This provides a plan versus actual budget in the format used in the proposal. It provides a more detailed look at the expenditures for the reception.

6-Lessons Learned

The use of the National SWE History Exhibit for an event like this was not a cost-effective idea. In order to justify the costs the exhibit must have at least three or four days of exposure. It plays a very important role at the SWE National Conference where many of our stakeholders have a chance to view it and thus be influenced. It doesn’t make financial sense for use at a two-hour meeting and perhaps use at Region meetings should be reviewed.

The storyboards, on the other hand, are easily and cheaply transported and could be produced by every region for about $1200 per set. The Title board can be tailored to a section or a region or eliminated. Using a 24 x 36-inch board will reduce the cost from $120 per board to $85 per board. The boards are of top quality “gatorboard” and have a matte laminate coating to protect the surface.

Trying to capture an audience of three hundred for an inaugural event was a bit ambitious. We still believe a Friday night has the best chance of success. We will need to do more front-end communication to get our message out and make attendance more appealing. We are considering publishing and distributing an Annual Report to the target audience to help in this regard.

7-Budget

The project operated with the budget submitted in the original proposal. We have provided the data requested below and included a planned versus actual budget (Budget Link) as a deliverable to provide the details for those interested in conducting an event like this.

Item	Plan	Actual
Professional Services
Travel	$ 350
Lodging
Meals	$4700	$2010.34
Equipment & Supplies	$ 250	$ 248.47
Publications	$1050	$1560.52
Distribution	$ 100	$ 214.50
Advertising	$1620
Total	$8075	$4033.83

SWE @7/8		$3529.60
Space Coast @ 1/8		$ 504.23
Check from SWE		$6367.50
SWE Share of Costs		($3529.60)
Refund to SWE		$2837.90

8-Appendices

A-Deliverables-See Section 5 above.

B-Publicity-

· Title Storyboard

· Pictures of the storyboards

Date: 10/5/00

Project Manager: Charlotte Ort Section: Space Coast

Email: charlotte.ort@ksc.nasa.gov Phone: 321-861-3197

Deliverables: Indicate type (i.e. document, web page, brochure, etc.), title, and media (hard copy, email file, disk, etc.) Six electronic files are provided; four Word files, one PowerPoint file and one Excel file. The titles and a brief description are given in section 5.

Select the one primary Strategic Priority this project addressed:
Visibility

SWE Committees to which this report and deliverables would be of interest: