Announcements

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – March 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING NOTES

March 18, 2019

12:00 – 1:30 CST/1:00 pm – 2: 30pm EST

Attendees: Ipek, Josh, Kevin, Mandy, Colleen, Dana, Ashley, Justine, Allison, Ron, Patrick

Notes:                                                                

  1. Ann Arbor Mixer (March 25)                   (Josh/Colleen)
    1. Registration/RSVP #s
    2. Announcements/Reminder Emails to the attendees
    3. Venue/Payment/Other logistics (food/drinks/name tags/etc..)

Currently have 20 registrants for the event. We expect more people will RSVP after the newsletter goes out. Justine will update Josh about the number for the event as we get closer. The venue said these numbers would be pretty easy to handle. Colleen will bring the table cloth and be there to help set it up. Please send Kevin digital copies of any receipts you get from purchases for the event. We will send another round of messaging to members. The newsletter goes out next week, and the social media has been refreshed. Kevin will send the friends of MAPOR list to Colleen and Josh in an attempt to identify and contact any other organizations or individuals who are in the area.

  1. Webinar (April 17)              (Patrick)
    1. Announcements
    2. Logistics

Web page hass been updated, it will all be published this week. Patrick will send the materials to Kevin so that he can distribute. Patrick will reach out to Justine to cover social media. We will be sure to stagger communications over the next 4 weeks.

  • Communications                             (Justine)
    1. Newsletter
      1. Sponsorship information confirmation
      2. Publication and Announcement Schedule
    2. Pictures from events
    3. Communications Plan

A draft of the newsletter has gone out. Please provide feedback to Justine if you have not so by tomorrow morning. The newsletter is planned to go out tomorrow.

Concerning future newsletters – If you have images from other events, please send these to Justine to add to future newsletters as they take away from some of the whitespace on the pages.

Justine wants to make sure that the benefits of membership are up to date.

Justine will send a link to a folder where people can send updated headshots for future publications. The headshots in the current issue are pulled from older newsletters – they may be outdated or of lower quality.

  1. 2019 Conference                                (Dana)
    1. Conference theme:
      1. Where Methods and Substance Meet: Reflecting the Present and Shaping the Future of Public Opinion and Survey Research
    2. Speakers
      1. Brady West, Barbara Anderson, Justine Bulgar-Medina
    3. Reorganization of Conference directory on MAPOR Google Drive
    4. Call for Conference Participation and Student Paper Competition Announcements
    5. Discuss potential conference tweaks based on survey data for feedback (below)

Dana is drafting the call for papers and the student paper competition documents.

She would like to enable something in Cvent so that persons have the ability of people to characterize their paper topic when they submit. Kevin believes this should be doable.

Also, it would be great to have persons be able to select whether or not they would like to be put into a methodological brief. Some of the methods papers from last year were not quite suitable to be presented in the methods format.

Dana has rewiewed the Member Survey responses about what we should do in case we have a record number of submissions. She will make decisions based on this feedback as well as the number of registrants we receive. We may not be able to accommodate what people want if we don’t have the physical space to do so.

Dana re-organized the conference subgroup folder. She sorted things into content groups by year. Please be aware that things have been moved if you are searching for something and can no longer find it.

One issue we have is the lack of organization on the drive. Ipek is open to suggestions for a volunteer or a committee to take a look at re-organizing the drive.

Some people feel they might be seeing other things than others when in the drive. Patrick explained that it is very possible that some folders have been created by individuals and there are only individual level permissions which do not align with the current EC.  So, it is very possible that some EC see a different folders when they log in. Ipek will put more thought into this and we can discuss during the next meeting.

  1. Treasurer’s Report                               (Kevin)
    1. Budget updates

Checking: $18,931.66

Savings: $45,019.11

Illinois non-profit report has been filed.

Federal report has been filed.

  1. Review the Conference and Member Survey data                               (Kevin)
    1. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jMZa2Oz53UVoj4kCImCB_069FAZsgiXU
    2. What are interesting findings we can distribute to members? Anything surprising? Should we make the entire dataset available?

Kevin reviewed some of the high level findings of interest. It seems that in previous years, we have provided a summary of some of the interesting findings and then provided links to the survey data. Kevin will work to put something together that can be distributed to all members.

 

Sara gathered quotes from 4 Imprint, UPrinting, and a local vendor, Chicago Signs and Printing.  Chicago Signs and Printing and UPrinting were both less expensive, but Chicago Signs and Printing has limited stock and UPrinting had inconsistent reviews online in terms of product quality and customer experience. 4Imprint had more options to choose from, their sales rep was very knowledgeable about the products, and 4Imprint was the only vendor who provided me with an actual quote (not an email or verbal quotes) and followed up with me.  I think 4Imprint is the best choice- although they are more expensive, I think we’re paying for higher quality products  and they will be the easiest to work with. I’d like council’s approval to move forward with placing an order with 4Imprint. As for tchotchkes, I’ll look through the goodies on 4Imprint’s site. Justine suggested lanyards, so I’ll check work on those next once we get the big order out.

  • AAPOR All Chapter Unofficial Event    (Ipek)
    1. Photo Booth

The photo booth is a go.

  1. Rules and regulations re budget and reserves     (Ron)

Ron reached out to multiple other chapters, but only one chapter sent their policy about the guidance. It may be that other chapters just don’t have a policy. Based on anecdotal evidence, it seems that one year of reserves is the a reasonable and common nest egg. Ron will work with Kevin and Mary to draft a document for MAPOR.

  1. MAPOR Vision and Mission              (Mandy)
    1. Draft MAPOR Vision and Mission:

Mandy solicited feedback and asked for further clarification concerning feedback from the Google document. Next steps will be for Mandy to reach out to former EC and fellows to solicit feedback and ideas. Mandy will work to refine the vision and mission, then present another round to EC to vote.

 

Next meeting: April 15 (Monday) @ Noon CT/1:00 ET

2019 Student Paper Competition

MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition

44th Annual Conference

November 22-23, 2019

Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown

600 N. State Street

The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research invites eligible students to enter the association’s MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition. Two winning papers, the Doris A. Graber Award in public opinion and the Allan L. McCutcheon Award in survey research methodology, will receive $500, one free conference registration and one free ticket to the Friday MAPOR luncheon. The winning papers also will be accepted for presentation during a session at the May 2020 AAPOR conference in Atlanta, GA.

Eligibility

For the purposes of this competition, an eligible student is someone enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program at the time of the conference. A paper authored by more than one person is considered an eligible student paper only if all authors are students according to the above definition. Students need not be members of MAPOR.

The topic of the paper must fall under one or both of MAPOR’s general areas of scholarship, which are (1) public opinion and (2) research methods in public opinion and survey research. When submitting, the author(s) must indicate the topic for which the paper should be considered. The papers need not be quantitative nor must they report data in order to qualify for consideration in this competition. Each student may be an author on only one paper submitted to the competition.

Procedure

  • Submit an abstract to the MAPOR conference at mapor.org. In addition to a title and abstract, you will be asked to provide the name, institutional affiliation, and email address for all authors. Students must provide the name and e-mail address of a faculty mentor when submitting their abstract. Abstracts can be submitted until 11:59pm CDT on Monday, July 1, 2019.
  • Students whose papers have been accepted for the 2019 conference can have their papers considered for MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition.  Here are the requirements:
    • Send full paper  in Word format to John Stevenson (stevenso@ssc.wisc.edu) by 11:59pm CDT, September 15, 2019.
    • Remove all acknowledgments and other identifying information and run “Inspect” in Word to remove all authorship information that Word stores in the document.
    • Include a title page with title, abstract, and the word count (number of words of text including footnotes).
      • Maximum length is 6,500 words of text including footnotes.
    • Put the following at the end of the manuscript and do not include them in the word count:  tables, references, and appendices.
    • Review the information described on p. 2 of this announcement (under the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practices) and make sure this information is included in the appropriate places in the manuscript. (For example, include response rate when you describe the data.)
    • Include the following in the email that accompanies your submission:
      • A subject line that says:  MAPOR Student Paper Competition-Student Name
      • A statement that your manuscript includes the information required by the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics and Practices.
      • The names and email addresses of all authors.
      • The USPS address, phone number, and email address of the contact author.
      • The name and email address of the faculty mentor for the paper.
    • Identify a faculty mentor and ask them to do the following:
      • Review the submission to ensure it meets professional standards of readability, grammar, and so forth. This ensures that the reviewers can attend to the substance of the paper.
      • Review the submission to verify that it does not exceed the length limitation
      • Send a brief email to John Stevenson (stevenso@ssc.wisc.edu) by the deadline. The statement should:
        • Have a subject line that says:  MAPOR Student Paper Competition – [student name]
        • State that they have reviewed the submission to ensure that it meets professional standards and does not exceed length limitations
        • Describe the contribution of the student(s) and the contributions (if any) of any faculty to the research design, execution, and writing.  

A committee composed of MAPOR Fellows will judge all papers submitted to the competition. Winners will be announced at the Friday Awards Session.

AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practices

All submissions must abide by the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics & Practices. Manuscripts that make use of survey data must include, at minimum, the information below from Section III-A of the Code:

A…. [I]nclude the following items in any report of research results or make them available immediately upon release of that report. 

  1. Who sponsored the research study, who conducted it, and who funded it, including, to the extent known, all original funding sources.
  2. The exact wording and presentation of questions and responses whose results are reported.
  3. A definition of the population under study, its geographic location, and a description of the sampling frame used to identify this population. If the sampling frame was provided by a third party, the supplier shall be named. If no frame or list was utilized, this shall be indicated.
  4. A description of the sample design, giving a clear indication of the method by which the respondents were selected (or self-selected) and recruited, along with any quotas or additional sample selection criteria applied within the survey instrument or post-fielding. The description of the sampling frame and sample design should include sufficient detail to determine whether the respondents were selected using probability or non-probability methods.
  5. Sample sizes and a discussion of the precision of the findings, including estimates of sampling error for probability samples and a description of the variables used in any weighting or estimating procedures. The discussion of the precision of the findings should state whether or not the reported margins of sampling error or statistical analyses have been adjusted for the design effect due to clustering and weighting, if any.
  6. Which results are based on parts of the sample, rather than on the total sample, and the size of such parts.
  7. Method and dates of data collection.
  8. All submissions must include the following:
    1. The response rate and details of its calculation (if response rate is not appropriate, the refusal rate). Accurate reporting of the response rate requires consulting the AAPOR Standard Definitions (aapor.org), to identify the appropriate response rate definition. If the AAPOR recommendations are not followed, authors should explain why a nonstandard approach was employed.
    2. For models fitted to the data, the equations of the models should be presented, including the numerical values of the parameter estimates, the respective standard errors, and goodness-of-fit statistics for the model.

In addition, authors need to agree to make other specific information about the study available within 30 days of any request for such materials. This information is listed in Section III-B of the Code located at aapor.org/Standards-Ethics/AAPOR-Code-of-Ethics

2019 Conference Call for Participation

Call for Participation 

Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research

44th Annual Conference

November 22-23, 2019

Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown, 600 N. State Street

The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research’s annual conference welcomes abstract submissions on any topic related to public opinion research, communication, or survey research methodology. This year, we are accepting submissions for the following types of presentations: papers, methodological briefs, posters, and panels of papers. We are particularly interested in papers that relate to our conference theme:

Where Methods and Substance Meet:

Reflecting the Present and Shaping the Future of Public Opinion and Survey Research

This year, our conference theme encourages us to extend the strengths of the MAPOR community in our methodological and substantive research interests and focus on their intersection—how they shape and are shaped by each other. For example, how interviewers’ behaviors shape respondents’ survey answers and vice versa, how methods of gathering public opinion data may shape public opinion, and so forth. We encourage abstract submissions on all facets of research related to public opinion, communication, survey research, and their methodologies. Topics may include but are not limited to: questionnaire design; interviewers’ role in data collection; total survey error; politics and public opinion; social media and public opinion; journalism, media, and public opinion; machine learning, big data, and data science; location and geographic information; challenges facing the field due to technological and societal shifts; the ethical use of public opinion and survey data; public opinion on social, economic, and political issues; data collection issues and strategies; qualitative and mixed-method research techniques; cross-cultural research; recruitment, participation, nonresponse; hard-to-reach populations; existing and new methods for collecting data from respondents; and data quality issues.

Submissions: Abstracts of 300 words or fewer can be submitted at mapor.org. In addition to a title and abstract, you will be asked to provide the name, institutional affiliation, and email address for all authors. The same author’s name may appear as first author on a maximum of two submissions. To allow for blind review, please remove all personally identifying information from the abstract’s text before submission.

Note to student authors: If all authors are students who will be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program at the time of the conference, you may submit your paper to the MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition (see additional information on the 2019 MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition, available here). When submitting a student paper to the competition, the student submitter will be asked to provide the name and e-mail address of a faculty mentor. The faculty mentor will be asked to send an email of 25 words or fewer endorsing the paper when the full paper is submitted.

Panel Proposals: Panels focus on a common theme and include 4 or 5 participants. A panel proposal requires a description of 300 words or fewer discussing the issues to be addressed and their importance. Also, submissions should list the potential panelists, their institutional affiliations, email addresses, and tentative titles of presentations. Panels related to the conference theme are especially encouraged.

Submission Information: All abstracts must be posted no later than 11:59pm CDT on Monday, July 8, 2019. Accepted papers sharing a theme will be scheduled during a paper session. Papers with more individualized topics will be scheduled during a poster session. MAPOR considers both types of presentation equally valuable. All submitters will be notified via e-mail by August 15 of their abstract’s acceptance status. For questions or problems with the submission process, please contact the 2019 MAPOR conference chair, Dana Garbarski at: abstracts@mapor.org.

2019 Annual Conference

Where Methods and Substance Meet:

Reflecting the Present and Shaping the Future of Public Opinion and Survey Research

November 22-23, 2019

Embassy Suites, Downtown Chicago, 600 N. State Street, Chicago, IL 60654


Conference Chair: Dana Garbarski, Loyola University Chicago

Associate Conference Chair: Sara Walsh, NORC at the University of Chicago


This year, our conference theme encourages us to extend the strengths of the MAPOR community in our methodological and substantive research interests and focus on their intersection—how they shape and are shaped by each other. For example, how interviewers’ behaviors shape respondents’ survey answers and vice versa, how methods of gathering public opinion data may shape public opinion, and so forth. Our conference will feature many interesting sessions on all facets of research related to public opinion, communication, survey research, and their methodologies. We are looking forward to seeing you in November at the conference!

–Dana Garbarski, 2019 MAPOR Conference Chair

Conference highlights:

Short course on “Survey Weighting: Everything from Basic Concepts to Advanced Applications”

Brady West, Research Associate Professor at the Survey Research Center in the Institute for Social Research at University of Michigan

Keynote on “Privacy, Politics and Data for Policy in U.S. Censuses

Recording of talk now available HERE

Barbara Anderson, Ronald A. Freedman Collegiate Professor of Sociology and Population Studies at University of Michigan and former member and chair of the Census Scientific Advisory Committee

Pedagogy Hour on “The Measurement of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Surveys

Justine Bulgar-Medina, Research Scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago

The final conference program is available here:

Conference Program

Conference presentations (organized by day and room) available here:

Conference Presentations

Information about our past conferences can be found here.

MAPOR Winter 2019 Newsletter

The 2019 Winter issue of MAPOR Newsletter is now available!

The newsletter highlights the first presidential address from our new president (Ipek Bilgen), notes from our previous (Ned English) and current (Dana Garbarski) conference chairs, our student liaison (Colleen McClain), and our Secretary-Treasurer (Kevin Ulrich).

Inside this issue:

  • Information on the upcoming MAPOR Events: Winter Mixer in Ann Arbor and Spring Webinar
  • Presidential address
  • 2018 Annual Conference Review
  • 2019 Annual Conference Planning
  • Update on MAPOR Member Survey
  • Student Corner

MAPOR April 17 Webinar

Why Machines Matter for Survey and Social Science Researchers:
Exploring How Machine Learning Methods Can Be Applied to
the Design, Collection and Analysis of Social Science Data

Antje Kirchner, Ph.D.
Trent D. Buskirk, Ph.D.,

RTI International

Bowling Green State University

April 17th, 12-1 pm central time

ADMISSION: 
$10 for students, $40 for non-student MAPOR members, $50 for non-members

Register here 

Read More

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – February 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING NOTES
February 18, 2019
12:00 – 1:30 CST/1:00 pm – 2: 30pm EST

Attendees: Ipek, Kevin, Mandy, Dana, Justine, Ned, Sara, Colleen, Josh, Ron, Patrick

I. 2020-2022 Conference Hotel Contract Update (Ipek)

Executed Hotel Contracts are located in the Contracts Folder of the google drive.

Thanks to the subcommittee for reviewing the hotel contracts! We now have executed contracts for 3 additional years at the Embassy Suites. The contact is available on the Google drive. Please contact Ipek if you have any questions about the contract.

 

II. Ann Arbor Mixer: New date (March 25) (Josh/Colleen)
a. Venue
b. Registration/RSVP website
c. Announcements

Date is now set for March 25th due to weather and travel considerations. Top floor of Jolly Pumpkin in downtown Ann Arbor is now booked. Kevin will send his credit card information to Josh to secure with the vendor.

Colleen and Justine will have registration site ready by end of the week. Colleen will send out the registration info with who will send out what after she receives the materials.

 

III. Webinar (April 17) (Patrick)

Date is set for April 17th. Patrick is getting bio and head shots from presenters – Trent and Antje.
Patrick will send info to Kevin and put it up on the drive so Kevin can ensure that that Cvent is ready to accept people signing up.

 

IV. Communications (Justine)
a. Newsletter
b. Updates to the website calendar
c. Communications schedule

New communications schedule is up on Google docs. Justine will distribute the communications schedule to EC for review. Please update other communications and let Justine know if you make changes so she is in the loop. Justine is working on the newsletter to go out at the end of February. Columns are due to Justine for the newsletter by next Monday, 2/25. Justine will distribute to EC for editing before it goes out to the membership.

 

V. 2019 Conference (Dana/Sara)
a. Conference theme
b. Speakers
c. Call for Conference Participation and Student Paper Competition Announcements
d. Student Paper Competition Award

Confirmed the keynote speaker. Dana is working with the subcommittee to wordsmith the conference theme but feel they are close to having it finalized. From there we will think about going after someone for the pedagogy hour. The subcommittee has ideas on potential speakers.

Dana will also review the survey results to see if there are any tweaks or other considerations to be made. Kevin will be sending these out soon.

Paper award competition amounts have been changed and should be reflected in future conference materials. The amount was upped to $500. Dana will be sure to highlight this in messaging going out in the newsletter.

 

VI. Treasurer’s Report (Kevin)
a. Budget updates

Checking: $17,320.74
Savings: $45,018.77

990 Federal has been submitted. Kevin will submit Illinois report before the next meeting. He will reach out to Joe Murphy about getting this submitted.

Kevin will send out the survey results to EC well before the next meeting so that they can review beforehand.

 

VII. MAPOR purchases with new logo (Sara)
a. Bringing with us to AAPOR – Table cloth, banner, and giveaways

Sara has one quote from “For Imprint” – Step & Repeat, Banner, and tablecloth. She is waiting for another bid from another vendor. She will get a tablecloth with an open-back. There are options for full-color and B/W. After she gets the next quote she will send these to EC to get input. The turn-around time to have these printed is very quick; about 8 days. The cost for all materials should be around $1,000.

Ipek wondered if it would be cheaper if we got give-aways from these same vendors. Sara wants to get the bid for the big stuff first, then she will look into the costs for the give-aways. The current bid is in a folder on the drive.

We usually ship these materials to AAPOR around April for the conference. Our deadline would be to have these before that date. Kevin will make sure we meet the deadline to sending these to AAPOR.

 

VIII. AAPOR All Chapter Unofficial Event (Ipek)
a. Sponsorship/Photo Booth

There will be an informal, all-chapter event on Friday night. The organizing chapters for the event are MAPOR and PAPOR, although all chapters provide sponsorship. MAPOR sponsored $1,500 for the photo booth last year and if we sponsored it again this year the cost would be the same.

Ipek requested feedback if we should sponsor the photo booth again this year. Ron and Kevin both audibly supported the idea.

Ron moved that we again provide $1,500 sponsorship for the photo booth at this year’s AAPOR conference.
Dana seconded the motion.
Council voted in favor.
There were no objections and no abstentions.
The motion is accepted.

Ipek will inform AAPOR about our support for the photo booth. Ipek will forward the invoice to Kevin to pay.

 

IX. Rules and regulations re budget and reserves (Ron)

Ron looked into what an appropriate amount of money would be to have in reserves. He reached out to the chapters and to Adam at AAPOR to see if they have guidance about how much we should have in reserves. Ron will touch base with Kevin and Mary. He is waiting to hear back from the other chapters.

Kevin notes that members were surveyed as to how they think funds should be spent. The survey results will be available soon to EC.

 

X. MAPOR Vision and Mission (Mandy)

Mandy has the inputs provided on the MAPOR vision and mission statement. She will take these and come up with 3 different versions for EC, past-presidents, and fellows to review. We will have a 3-week period of review. By the end of April we will have a completed visions and mission.

Mandy will revise the timeline materials to reflect that we will be soliciting feedback from key persons for their feedback, to include members of previous ECs.

Mandy moved to approve the timeline and plan for the MAPOR vision and mission statement (pending some changes to the notification plan which she outlined to EC).
Ron seconded the motion.
Council voted in favor.
There were no objections and no abstentions.
The motion is accepted.

MAPOR History update. Paul is moving forward with the project and he has contacted all of the fellows and he is getting more replies as time goes on.

 

XI. Other business?

Kevin would like to discuss swapping Cvent over to their new product. “Cvent FLEX System”. Kevin will provide a description of the pros and cons for EC to discuss at the next meeting, as well as a description of the cost implications.

Meeting adjourned.

Next meeting: March 18 (Monday) @ Noon CT/1:00 ET

MAPOR Council Public Meeting Minutes – January 2019

MAPOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MONTHLY MEETING Notes

January 14, 2018

12:00 – 1:15 CST/1:00 pm – 2:15pm EST

 

Attendees: Kevin, Ned, Mandy, Justine, Ipek, Josh, Allison, Mary, Colleen, Dana, Patrick, Ashley, Sara

Agenda:

  1. Website                                (Josh)
    1. Updates to website
    2. Uploading conference presentations

Josh would prefer to have individuals be able to update what aspects of the website they are responsible for. Website is fully on WordPress so if you have a login, you can access and edit. Send user names and passwords to Josh if you do not have access but would like it. From there, everyone can update their portion of the site. MAPOR.org\wp-admin gets you to the login. Major changes will be made by Josh or with josh’s help, minor changes should be made by those responsible for their content.

Justine will develop some way to document the suggested changes that need to be made.

We need to make sure that the mobile views are functioning. Justine will go into the system and see if she can find locations that need to be updated and work with Josh to make appropriate edits.

Josh suggests using the standard events calendar in the website. Calendar was set up as a Google Calendar. Josh suggests getting all of our milestone events onto this calendar. Ipek or Justine will reach out to Josh to upload some significant events (EC meetings, relevant conferences, newsletters, registration dates, webinars, MAPOR conference dates, etc.). Any events that allow members to feel engaged would be helpful to add.  Dana will work with Josh and coordinate with Justine about getting the significant conference events on the calendar.

Ned will aggregate the presentations from the conference and drop them into a google calendar, which would then be linked from the website. Ned will go through and remove those who requested their presentation was not made public.

  1. Mixer   (Josh/Colleen)
    1. Date/time of the event
    2. Venue
    3. Registration/RSVP website & announcements
    4. Who is attending from MAPOR Council?

 

We would like to meet Feb 4th from 5:30-7. There are minimums set by the locations with regard to drinks or food. We need to send out an invite with an RSVP in order to get a feel for expectations. The minimums would be fine if we knew how many people were going to come.

The Jolly Pumpkin is a brewery with nice space and good food. The minimum for that space is $400 per hour. They may be willing to negotiate a lower rate given that it is a Monday evening. Justine will put together a communication to collect RSVP numbers. Josh has a draft text that we can distribute and Justine will wrap this language into an Evite.

Kevin will send the invite out via the member lists. Communications will also send out via Twitter and the FB page. We would like to have the communication completed by no later than the 15th, and send out shortly thereafter.

  1. MAPOR purchases with new logo            (Sara)

Ipek and Sara met to discuss what needs to be purchased. Vertical banner, step and repeat, tablecloth, and some give-away stuff for the conferences. She will try to get quotes for these things all together. Sara will reach out to Kevin about dimensions and the tax free documentation. She hopes to have at least the tablecloth and banner ready for the AAPOR conference.

If anyone knows of other ‘interesting’ give away items, please reach out to Sara.

  1. 2019 Conference              (Dana/Sara)
    1. Conference theme
    2. Speaker Updates
    3. Call for Conference Participation and Student Paper Competition Announcements
    4. Student Paper Competition Award Updates

We have now secured a short-course presenter. Dana is in process of securing the key-note. The pedagogy will follow after getting the key-note confirmed. Committee is working on nailing down the theme.

Announcements should be being finalized by the end of the month.

Ipek suggests raising the amount we provide to the winners of the student paper competition. We currently provide $200, which does not do much to defer student costs if they do not live in the Chicago area. Can we provide more money towards their travel or hotel costs? It would be easier to have the amount be a fixed amount, rather than having to worry about reimbursing students and passing receipts for travel, hotels, etc.

Ron proposed that we increase the amount we provide to student paper winners from $200 to $500.

Mary seconded the motion.

Council voted majority to approve.

There were no objections and no abstentions.

The motion is accepted.

  1. 2020 Conference Hotel Contract Update     (Ipek/Ron/Ned/Sara/Kevin)
    1. Proposals from Embassy, Renaissance, and Marriott
    2. Survey results re current hotel
    3. Will vote for renewal of the contract with Embassy

Marriot and Renaissance contacted us about making a bid. The sub-committee discussed the pros and cons of all of the bids. They cannot find any benefit to move to another hotel at this time. The rates are reasonable, they are lower than the other hotels, and we have had a very positive experience with their staff. The sub-committee recommends signing a new contract with the Embassy Suites for the next 3 years.

Ron made a motion for Ipek to move forward to contact the Embassy Suites and sign a new 3-year contract as long as the terms do not deviate from the proposal they provided.

Mary seconded the motion.

Council voted majority to approve.

There were no objections and no abstentions.

The motion is accepted.

  1. Member Survey Update                              (Kevin)
    1. Survey is closed
    2. Brief Summary of the Results

Kevin cleaned the data over the holidays. There are 165 responses in the file (155 completes and 10 partial completes). He will code the open-end concerning how best to utilize MAPOR’s current savings. He will provide a set of frequencies and a dataset by the next meeting. Ipek would like to have these sent to membership at some point, perhaps through a newsletter.

  1. Treasurer’s Report                              (Kevin)
    1. Updates
    2. Contribution from Doris Graber
    3. Membership list updates

Checking: $17,388

Savings: $45,018

Doris Graber’s son informed us that Doris made funds available for MAPOR from her estate. Kevin will inform the membership when these funds arise.

Kevin continues to add new members as they come in from AAPOR.

  1. Communications Updates                     (Justine)
    1. Newsletter
    2. Communications Plan and Schedule

Justine has put together a time-line to assist with having streamlined communications go out to members. She asks council to send suggestions for other communications which may go out during slow parts of the year to keep people connected to MAPOR. We will target for 3 newsletters throughout the year.

  1. Next Webinar             (Patrick)

Patrick and Ipek have agreement from a speaker (data visualization) although the timing is not certain. Patrick also has a new lead for a spring webinar. Please let him know if you have any other leads to follow-up with.

  1. MAPOR mission statement next steps             (Mandy)

Mandy sent a schedule to EC about next steps for this initiative. Mandy will request new inputs from council members before the next meeting.

  1. AAPOR All Chapter Unofficial Event Updates   (Ipek)

Ipek is working with folks from PAPOR to put together a mutually shared event at the next AAPOR conference. (Since Canada does not have a chapter, we will work with PAPOR to host an event.)

  1. Other business?                      

Sponsorship. Allison and Ipek have created a quick “Thank You / Happy New Year” for their contributions.         

The next EC meeting is on Feb. 18th which is President’s day. Ipek asked EC members about if this would be an issue. It seems we should keep the date for now.

To be discussed in future meetings:

 

  1. MAPOR history project      (Ipek/Mandy)

 

  1. Election software investigation         (Ron/Ipek)