The chairperson solicits members for the committee. Once members are in place, a meeting is held in the spring of the upcoming program year. At this meeting possible topics and speakers are discussed. Generally, each committee member takes responsibility for one speaker and makes contact. One or two follow-up meetings may be required to get the program year set up.

Throughout the year the program chair will follow-up with committee members to ensure:

• speaker agreements have been obtained,
• any audiovisual needs have been communicated to Digital Communications rep.
• an article for The Post Graduate has been written
• any issues have been resolved. The key is to have good committee members.

The time involved is a few hours over the course of the year. Most of the work occurs early in the process when speakers are being identified and contacted.

The quality of the programs at branch meetings is a key factor in attracting and maintaining membership. In general, topics and speakers should be based on the AAUW mission and public policy statements. The goal is to provide fact-based information presented by a good speaker.

Skills that you feel are necessary to be successful in this position:

• Organization is probably the key skill along with being able to manage deadlines.
• A clear understanding of the mission and public policy positions of AAUW are also important and an awareness of the types of speakers and topics members expect.

Familiarity with speaker sources is a plus.