Greetings AEA365 readers! Happy to see you here today! I’m Sheila B. Robinson, AEA365 Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor with a few tips for increasing your involvement with what I hope is your favorite professional association!
Lesson Learned:
TIGs. When you join AEA, you can select up to five Topical Interest Groups (TIGs) to join. In fact, that’s one of our Five Tips for New AEA Members. AEA has around 60 TIGs with varying numbers of members and varying levels of activity.
Affiliates. In addition to joining TIGs, you can join Local Affiliates. There are 34 Local Affiliates listed on the AEA website, and they range from highly active to currently inactive. Some even host conferences and professional development events. Leader contact info is there for you. Many local affiliates are open to members from geographic areas outside of the boundaries suggested by their names.
Volunteer opportunities. AEA currently has 14 Working Groups and Task Forces. Descriptions of each are available, along with a Volunteer Form where you can specify your top 3 interests.
Social Media. Connect with others interested in evaluation through AEA’s social media channels:
AEA365. You can connect with our authors by commenting on their posts or even contribute an article of your own! We accept submissions for consideration year-round on a rolling basis. See the footer of this post for more information.
Hot Tip:
Try TIG leadership. At my first AEA fall conference – Evaluation 2010 – I attended a TIG business meeting. Minutes later my hand was in the air, I was telling the group about myself and my interests, and was elected as program co-chair. I had no idea at the time what that entailed, but it turned into about 5 years of TIG leadership in various roles and an incredible wealth of learning and experience. And, I met some wonderful friends along the way! I highly recommend this path.
BONUS! Local Affiliates have leadership opportunities as well!
Cool trick:
Look for other ways to connect with AEA and its members under the Community heading on the AEA website.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.
Are we ever going to consider bringing back evaltalk?
I found it useful and Bolland was always able to moderate the list serve.
I am surprised we have not been able to replace her.