Member Meetings
SURF currently hosts two in-person member meetings a year, each co-located with AEHS conferences. Summaries of these member meetings are below. MORE
Beginning in 2006, SURF hosted two to three technical meetings annually. As meeting attendance grew, the effort to produce the meetings also grew significantly and generally did not generate significant numbers of new SURF members. The SURF meeting format at the time was growth-limited due to the intimate, participatory approach of the meetings, venue size, agenda limitations for both business and technical topics, and time limitations of SURF’s all-volunteer Meetings and Programs Committee.
As SURF completed its first decade as an organization, SURF leadership explored strategies to improve its standing as a professional membership association, expand its audience and influence, and sustain the organization for another decade or more. A 2015 SURF Organization Sustainability Strategy (internal Board proposal) and a 2016 SURF member survey both revealed a common objective: to continue delivering high-quality technical conferences to members while expanding SURF’s reach and easing the organizational/ curatorial effort. In October 2017, SURF began co-locating member meetings at AEHS conferences and organizing two, half-day technical sessions focused on topics of interest to SURF members.
By joining forces with an established conference coordination team, SURF shares the workload and resources associated with developing and administering a high-quality technical conference, while continuing to keep its members engaged and updated on the activities of the organization.
