It may be June gloom here in LA, but up in San Francisco the weather looks sunny and mild. Good thing too, as this year's AIGA Leadership Retreat is being held there this weekend June 23-25. Not that those attending will see much daylight. For those that are not familiar, AIGA holds an annual retreat for representatives of each chapter. The official "why" and "how", lifted directly from the informational website is as follows:
What is the leadership retreat?
• An opportunity for chapter leaders to hear about the big picture, including what's happening nationally as well as what other chapters are doing
• An occasion for sharing ideas and information
• A chance to build skills and build community
• A time for motivation, inspiration and rejuvenation
For the retreat to be successful:
• Each chapter should send at least one representative to the retreat.
• Each chapter should select board representatives who will prepare for the retreat in advance and participate actively.
• Attendees are strongly encouraged to share the experience with others who did not attend the retreat when they return home.
Sounds like a good idea to me. The theme this year is "Continuum" which seems appropriate, as it reminds me of my AIGA folder in my email inbox.
Last year, our group started this tradition of live field reports from our attending board members with Pittsblogh. This year we intend to continue the tradition in the spririt of providing access to the operations of our organization. When I was a younger member and less involved, I had no idea the amount of effort, dedication and passion that goes into making the AIGA and our chapter work and remain relevant to our industry and careers. These annual retreats allow us to gather with the AIGA staff and leaders from the other 55 chapters to discuss what works, what doesn't, how to improve chapters, how to lead non-profits, and this year, probably World Cup scores. We'll be sharing event ideas, communication strategies, technical practices, membership tips, and basically everything else that goes into helping shape the future of our chapter and the AIGA. We'll be coming back to LA full of enthusiasm and ideas.
Stay posted to this column through the weekend (yeah right, you'll be at the beach!) and let us know if you have any questions or comments.
this was a bit from the st. louis retreat...: http://www.aigalosangeles.org/features/archives/000600.php
Thanks for the link, David. I forgot about that story. You mentioned that there were 48 chapters and now, two years later, there are 56. Pretty impressive.
It's Saturday morning and I'm not hung over, although I am running late. Like usual. The retreat started yesterday at 1 pm (for me, at least) with a welcome and introduction by Mick Hodgson and Katherine Fredrickson and great slideshow of photos from last year. We all laughed at the none-too-flattering pictures. Thanks Mick! We got a warm welcome from our fine SF hosts and overviews of current initiatives including: our new diversity task force; sustainable growth for chapters; mission and messaging; and increasing membership.
We then dividing into our first round of breakout sessions and I attended New Chapter Websites/Internet Kit moderated by Brad Benjamin and Tom Synchay. The group was small, but enthusiastic about the new web services that AIGA is offering all chapters.
For the evening, we found ourselves at the infamous 56/56, where we all pretty much embarrass ourselves equally. We did a little skit on the the whole fake acronym thing but the scene stealers were clearly the Honolulu chapter, sweeping the competition with actual TALENT.
Today is a busy schedule and I have to get moving. More later.
This morning at 10:30, Daniel Crowder (Atlanta) and I hosted a breakout session on managing chapter websites and redesigns. We also threw in an overview of email and introduced the group to AIGA's new email software supplied by Emma Email Marketing. It was interesting to see how different chapters are dealing with their websites and electronic communications. Daniel and I both shared how we've been doing things in our respective chapters. Seems like quite a few chapters are struggling with how to manage their chapter's site and build the teams that are required to run one. Everyone seemed really excited about the email stuff and it seemed that the session went pretty well. We signed up a few beta testers for the email accounts, so that's good.
Just came out of the CPM (Center for Practice Management) breakout session. This is the hottest initiative to come out of AIGA in a long time! Members are going to love this. I say let's take Shel Perkins hostage and keep him in LA. (We can take the Honolulu guys too).
This is Paula Here! It is Sat afternoon and I just had lunch with Nida, Scott, Brad, Justin and Bonnie. The place had really slow service, but it gave us all time to talk. Bonnie provided her insight and explanation about a session on business practices, Scott went to a sponsorship session. I am not sure what session Justin and Brad went to but Nida and I went to the session on Mentoring.
Mentoring can be interpreted in so many ways, but what we took from it was really exiting. New York, WorldStudio.org, San Diego and St. Louis are doing really interesting things with mentoring kids with professions and college students.
Nida and I realized that having a mentoring community (or even calling outreach) could not only address the mentoring issue but also the diversity initiative AIGA has put forth.
Coming up with a plan is the key thing. AIGA New York City chapter developed a partnership with a vocational (magnet) public high school called Art and Design. They purposely did not gear towards at-risk because they felt there were other issues that needed to be addressed with that population specifically that they could not support. Nida and I felt that is you are working with a public inner city art and design school that you would be working with a varied ethic and diverse pollution and that would be a start in reaching youth and connecting them with design. But I can inform you all about this later with Nida.
Yesterday I went to a break out session on Dross Cultural design. And some of our AIGA LA members are already working with this national committee. Vesna and Zelda both have things happening. Great work, our LA board needs to reconnect with them on what is happening.
Currently the Cross Cultural Design initiatives are on international exchange. As a member of AIGA, you are also a member of ICOGRADA. (They are the global organization in design). There is a week in Seattle from July 7-15 2006 that will be important to the cross cultural design committee. We need someone to go to this and I can not (I am bumming…. ☹..
Also, there are quite a few things happening, a trip to China in the fall, they need 2 more people to go in order to make the trip happen. The trip will be a tour of design studios, printers, and design schools in China.
However, the session on Friday took another direction —Cross Cultural Design within the US. Most people agreed that this was important to address and to have the AIGA communities learn about and expose varied graphic arts/designers of diverse populations. (Even to recognize the deaf community as a cultural group in design). One of the ideas was to have a call for works that focus on a theme or issue that relates to cross or multi cultural design.
Rick in his speech this morning said that although it is socially responsible to take on this initiative to have AIGA represent the diverse cultures within in the US, it is also important in the goal of increasing membership and recognizing that there are designers who are not AIGA members from diverse cultures.
Oops it is 2:43pm and I am suppose to be in a meeting… I am late… update later. Anyone wants to post a comment about this, go ahead I am excited about this discussion.
Just wrapped a visioning session moderated by gurus Eric La Brecque and Meryl Holland. Here’s Rob Bynder for you, when asked to describe a photo of our chapter he wrote: “..a Hockney composition of a Jackson Pollack painting�. The session was attended by Justin, Bonnie, Rob and me, with in and out interaction from our President Emeritus. Good food for thought. More on this at our board retreat.
So it is 3:44 am on Sunday and Scott, Brad and I and Alex from Los Vegas were talking to some of the chapter people from Seattle and Jacksonville.
But a little flash back to the evening……
At around 10:30 the LA board headed to the Beauty Bar down on Mission at 19th street. People from Houston, Honolulu, Boston, Los Vegas and others were drinking and dancing. Scott, Justin, Mick and Agustin hung near the door and seemed to greet those who strolled in off the street. –Camera’s flashed and thought of bribery were obviously on their mind. By the way…Rob seemed be the lead dancer of the group, moving from the wallflower section of the room, to the middle of the dance floor. Go Rob, you party animal…. I saw Brad text messaging on his phone a few times, does he dance? Bonnie and I moved our hips to the 80’s music (just for the hell of it). Bonnie and Nida and I stuck together (the gurls), putting our faces in a photo booth…. Pictures sucked but it was really fun!
We decided to leave and go to a bar up the street that had a roof top section where we could mingle and talk instead of yelling. I sat with Alex from Los Vegas and we talk about his chapter and what was happening with their student groups. I also had a chance to get to know Scott (our own LA development guy) some more and I have to say, I really like Scott. He is an extremely intelligent guy with so much to say about where the role of designing is heading and how that effects future designers and the chooses (or lack of chooses) they will make in the future. (I will let Scott explain that more).
We stopped and had a burrito that was cheep and really good and then we hailed a cab back to the hotel. It is 4am... More later….
oops, spelled choices wrong! sorry all. Dam.... spell check!- it is also 4am.
See photos on Flickr (tag search aigaretreat2006)
what an amazing retreat. so glad to have meet so many of you from around the country and hope to see you next year. thanks aiga.
Paula, nice recap of a fun night, but I think it's well documented by this photo that SF'er Josh Levine was indeed the center of that dance floor.