Topics for Technicals

[Mike Kurta]

    Hi Greg:
    Our Syracuse chapter hosts members from sister chapters on an exchange 
basis.  They send a tech with a subject to us, and we do the same with them. 
This keeps the costs down and fresh faces in front of us.  We also schedule 
(as I'm sure many chapters do) a summer picnic and a winter 
dinner-Christmas, New Year, whatever. They give the spouses a chance to get 
together. We also take a month off here and there, and have started an 
annual field trip.  We've done meetings consisting of white elephant sales, 
round robin meetings at members homes, what's in your tool kit meetings, 
your favorite tool(s), any specialty a member may have such as keytop 
replacement, refinishing, stringing, regulation, etc. etc.  Get creative, 
have speakers come in from your local gas and/or electric company (they have 
them) to put on a meeting.  As someone suggested, ask local dealers if they 
would have a factory person come in for a presentation, (they also have 
them).
    You'll always have veteran members who will stay home, but if the 
meetings are interesting enough, its surprising how many of them show up.
    Mike Kurta