Seminar Committee

Each seminar is on a specific single topic and lasts no more than two hours for the seminars. The sessions are offered by our own members or by other people or agencies. Some examples of topics suggested have included Health Insurance Options, Elder Care Options, Retirement Tips, Financial Management for Retirees, and Technology Use 

 

The Seminars Committee has further established that: 

• Topics should be relevant to the challenges and opportunities of “senior life.” 
• Topics solely of intellectual or pastime interest that are covered by several other organizations would not be addressed by ASURA. 
• Seminars should be as cost-free to attendees as possible. 
• Rather than intermittently, the seminars should be offered on a “regular” basis, by which we mean monthly during the traditional school year except when a seminar would conflict with a major event such as Retirees Day (October, January, February, March, and May are likely dates). 
• The Community Services Building is the most acceptable (but not the only) venue for these seminars.

Chair Responsibilities

The chair is appointed by ASURA Board President and has the following 

responsibilities: 

1. Coordinating the work of the committee (e.g., scheduling committee meetings, presiding at committee meetings, etc.) 
2. Providing monthly report at ASURA Board meetings as needed 
3. Working with the Event Chair to develop a Calendar of ASURA Events for publication in the Summer Prime Times. 
4. Creating the event on Wild Apricot.  
   1. If creating an event is more than you feel comfortable doing let the Event Chair know and the Chair or the Chair's designee will contact you to get the text you want for the webpage and email announcements 
   2. If you would like to edit and/or proof the email announcements see Event process which has detailed instructions for accomplishing this task). 
5. Provide seminar evaluation forms to the attendees after the seminar has taken place and a summary of the feedback back to the Seminar Committee members.
6. Reviewing and updating the Seminar Committee Processes (i.e., this document). Note: any changes should be sent to the ASURA Technology Manager. 

Sample Process

1. The committee generates a set of possible seminars and selects the ones it wants to present. On occasion the members are polled to see what topics generate the most interst
2. Each committee member takes responsibility for coordinating one seminar per year. The Chair and other committee members help with each seminar but one committee member serves as the lead for that seminar coordinating the logistics including: 
   1. contacting the speaker,
   2. arranging for the room set up including any technology needed, 
   3. making arrangements for getting pictures, 
   4. making arrangements for refreshments (if any),
   5. introducing and thanking the speaker at the end, 
   6. seminar evaluations and 
   7. preparing a brief event story for Prime Times (Prime Times publishing calendar) and the ASURAs Seminar Reports
3. It would be nice if one committee member agrees to serve as Publicity Chair for the Committee and become an expert in knowing how to best publicize these events.