Showing Strength in Membership
The end of 2018 has come and we look forward to 2019 with great anticipation. As of December 5, 2018, the MEDC maintained our membership at a total of 347 members. This is down five members from 2017. Most of this is attributed to retirements and members who moved to other career positions out of Nebraska.
We had 32 new members with an 87.6% retention rate. As of October 31, we exceeded our first-year retention goal of 60%, with 80% retained. Only one other section had better retention (at 86%) and one tied with us at 80%, so we think we are doing the right things to attract and retain members. There was a very good uptick in membership near the Fall Conference.
The committee met at the Fall Conference in Kearney, in addition to exchanging emails and calls to provide for the membership drive that was held in spring 2018 to coincide with Drinking Water Week. Marc Rosso attended the AWWA Membership Summit in Denver and learned about the "Fine Art of Conversation". Marc did not attend ACE as required by AWWA MEDC because of a job change. The committee prepared the 2018 membership plan update and submitted to AWWA in March.
Our plans and projects for upcoming year:
- An early spring 2019 non-member contact by AWWA is planned to try to add members.
- A student membership drive is again planned in the fall.
- We will update the membership plan with activities that worked well and provide comments in the SOP.
Marc Rosso has moved into a Senior Construction Engineer position at the City of Lincoln and will plan to attend the Membership Summit in February and ACE in June in Denver.
