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[Justice C. Bigler]

Justice,
I have been an officer in the St. Louis section for a number of years.  Just stepped down as I am getting too busy. 
If you are really wanting to start a chapter there would probably be a number of things that some of our officers would be happy to share with you regarding not just professional members but also students, how we have organized meetings, partnering with other organizations (such as the Acoustical Society of America chapter in STL) for organizing and hosting events, etc.

PM sent as well.

Lee

Thanks Lee, I'll email yo later this weekend.

[Justice C. Bigler]

I'm shocked, seriously. I wonder whether it's always been that bad or if AES is just dying. The local section here in San Francisco put on a lot of great presentations earlier this decade but it's gotten pretty sparse. These days, when there's anything,  it's mostly studio tours or companies trying to recruit engineers by serving free beer. After a while neither is that interesting to me.

I don't know how it's always been in Oklahoma. I just joined at the beginning of the year.


But I suspect that it has more to do with our location at the very bottom rung of the production ladder of the whole country. As I have found out this past year, there's just not that much work in the state for professionals in this business; whether sound, lighting, staging, or the other associated fields. And what work there is is pretty much bottom feeder work. Anyone in this state who aspires to be a full time working professional goes out of state to the bigger markets. Oklahoma is just a tiny little backwater when it comes to production and there's hardly anything to keep people here. We don't even have a full time regional theatre company any where in the state.


I've talked to a few other audio folks that I know and they either had no clue what AES was, or didn't see the benefit to joining. And we don't have any schools that offer audio engineering as a degree program, so there's nowhere to pull new members from.


Still, because I'm a gluten for punishment and lost causes, I'm going to try to get a chapter together and see what happens. I figured that being a full member might be a good idea if I'm the one trying to push everything along.

[Craig Hauber]

I don't know how it's always been in Oklahoma. I just joined at the beginning of the year.


But I suspect that it has more to do with our location at the very bottom rung of the production ladder of the whole country.

Quit your whining, you do realize North Dakota and Wyoming are states too?
-so obviously you are NOT at the very bottom of the "production ladder"
You actually have a single city with more population than my entire state!

(and I'm not complaining at all -I love it here)

[Justice C. Bigler]

Been to ND a couple of times. Loved it. But I could never live there. I would freeze to death during the first winter.

I'd rather be dodging tornadoes and dealing with 100% humidity and 110 degree temps than freeze to death out in the middle of the high plains.

And I'm sure ND and WY haven't even made it to the first step on the production ladder yet.

[Justice C. Bigler]

BTW, I just checked, and there are 0 registered AES members in North and South Dakota. 4 in Wyoming and 7 in Montana.   

[Tim Hite]

I'm a member of the LA chapter but it's too far to attend the regular meetings. There were a bunch for the past few years but that has dried up lately. I would think that the AES at NAMM would revitalize interest in the organization. It's been well attended the past two year, but I guess they aren't converting attendees to members. . .

. . .

Having said all that, I've gotten to meet some great people over the years at some of these section meetings. I joined AES in 1983 when I was living in Santa Barbara and went to a number of the Los Angeles section meetings. Those were big and frequent affairs, and I got to meet a few legends of the industry. Pretty cool for a wide-eyed kid. I hope AES persists, not least, for the benefit of today's wide-eyed kids.

--Frank

[David Sturzenbecher]

BTW, I just checked, and there are 0 registered AES members in North and South Dakota. 4 in Wyoming and 7 in Montana.   

Wait what?!?  I’m from SD. Looks like I let my membership lapse. Thanks for the heads up. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Justice C. Bigler]

Wait what?!?  I’m from SD. Looks like I let my membership lapse. Thanks for the heads up. 

Happy to help, lol. I guess that makes 1 member for all of the Dakotas. 

[Dan Mortensen]

Still, because I'm a gluten for punishment and lost causes, I'm going to try to get a chapter together and see what happens. I figured that being a full member might be a good idea if I'm the one trying to push everything along.

Justice, I think that's a fine idea and it could be an exciting and interesting project.

Do you know the other 8 members in OK? Have you talked with them about if they are interested in participating in any way, even just coming to meetings?

If they are interested in topics similar to what you are interested in, that will make it easy, or comparatively so. If you are live sound, another is cell phones, another is radar/sonar, another is TV audio, another is car audio, etc., that seems like it will be more difficult to find common ground, although looking at fundamentals might work for that kind of group.

The most important part is to do things that are exciting to you and at least one other person, because you can have great meetings with only one other person present and both of you will feel it's worth it and you'd like to do it again next time.

If you think a long-time but not current officer of the PNW Section would be helpful, feel free to ask.

BTW, your membership status (Full vs. Associate) will make absolutely no difference to your success in putting something together and keeping it going. Nobody on earth will care the least little bit about the details of your membership status.

Also, you might want to have an exploratory Section first before getting things all official, meaning that you announce this/these meeting(s) as preliminary to setting up a Section. Put your work into getting the word out and coming up with good topic(s) and presenter(s) rather than the paperwork and organization required to set up an official Section (by-laws, bank account, Employer ID for same, etc.).

Just get together and talk audio with your peers before deciding to do that official work.

My $.02.

Also, I somehow had the idea you weren't a glutton for that low-gluten stuff?

[Chris Grimshaw]

Curious - is it worth joining the AES?
There's plenty of free online discussion with people at the cutting edge, so I'm not really sure what the benefit is.

I had a look around on the website, but it looks like only members can see if there are other members nearby.

Chris

[ProSoundWeb Community]