Blogs

Last week, I talked about a great event that the New England chapter had just held. Today, I want to hang onto the support-your-local-chapter theme for one more post. I know, this is an AIIM Expert SharePoint blog – OK, that’s a fair comment, but let me point out that two of our chapter events in 2011-12 were SharePoint events. In November, Jill Hart and I teamed up to talk about why and how Usability Matters. My portion was focused on SharePoint; Jill’s was applicable to everything. In March, the AIIM NE chapter partnered with ARMA Boston to present a panel discussion on the subject of SharePoint for Records Management. Both of these events benefited from the live setting of a chapter event, and both served our members well.

Now that I’ve covered the SharePoint side of things, I want to point out two additional benefits of having a strong chapter. Education – in addition to the educational value of the chapter events like the ones I’ve been talking about, chapters also offer formal education. In fact, the NE chapter is offering an ECM Practitioner’s course, the one-day variety you might find at the AIIM Conference. In our case, you don’t have to travel very far to take part; it’s being offered in Waltham, MA. In addition to the travel benefit of taking a local class, there is the advantage that the people you meet in this class are people from your own back yard. Networking is one of the major benefits of attending chapter events, and educational classes are no exception.

The second benefit I want to talk about is community service. I don’t know if every chapter focuses on community service, but the New England chapter does in a huge way! In two weeks, on June 18^th, the AIIM New England chapter will sponsor the 17^th annual Golf Benefit for the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. This golf benefit features a great day of golf, a wonderful evening meal and a series of auctions and raffles that are so much fun that you really don’t want to miss them (particularly the live auction). You can attend the hole day (pun intended) or, if you’re like me and don’t golf, just join us for dinner.

As impressive as 17 annual Golf Benefits are, it is only the newest way that the NE chapter helps the Horace Mann School. AIIM NE has been partnered with HMS for over 30 years! One of the reasons I am blogging about this is because many of the wonderful people who started this great tradition are retired, but the need and the benefit carries on. If you are within the great expanse of the New England chapter, join us on the 18^th. If you can’t make it in person, check out the website for ways in which you can donate to the event. This is NOT a chapter fundraiser; everything about this event goes to benefit the kids in that school.