I had the chance to visit with each of the US based Regional Conference Chairs this past week to solicit feedback on how things were going across their events. We are in our third year of expanding the regional events.
Stan Jakubik (University System of Maryland) and Cathy Burrier (MIDA) organized and successfully held another Mid-Atlantic conference in June. Over 200 people attended from 18 different campuses. Stan has been involved in this successful event now for over 10 years.
Over 375 attendees from over 20 campuses primarily from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas attended this year’s South Central HEUG Regional (SCHRUG) conference at the University of Texas, Arlington. This was the second year of the event whose planning team was led by Jean Grove (University of Texas System).
Still to come:
The Wisconsin folks had organized WHEPSUG for nearly 10 years before it evolved into a broader regional group by combining with CARHEUG to form what we are now calling MidHEUG. Scott Johnson continues to chair the planning team and indicated that once again things are going well. The conference will be held in Middleton, WI (just next to Madison) October 10-11.
The Southeast Area Regional User Group (SEARUG) is quickly approaching and will be held at the Sheraton Chapel Hill Hotel, in Chapel Hill, NC on September 30 and October 1. Tom Johnson (Duke University) is leading the planning team for this event which is being held for the third year in a row.
Finally, the Northeast Regional HEUG (NERHEUG) will once again hold its one day event on October 7 at the Conference Center at Mercer in West Windsor, New Jersey. Joanne Steele (Iona College) worked with her team to put together this year’s event.
Internationally:
Also in October and November HEUG members will be attending the HEUG EMEA (October 9-10), Alliance Down Under (November 6-8) and HEUG Asia (November 11-12). The leaders of the planning teams for these events are Jane Broad (Liverpool John Moore’s University), ommy Hor (National University of Singapore) and Gail White (University of Newcastle) respectively.
Grass roots:
The HEUG Members in South Africa have been holding a South Africa ‘Mini-HEUG’ for a number of years each summer. They held another successful event in July. We had a successful organizing meeting with the University of Dammam last May and will be traveling back to
the Gulf Region to attend an event being hosted by Qatar University in November. Finally, HEUG members in Colombia (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) and in Peru (Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru) held events in the last year attracting nearly 200 attendees at each. The ‘Grass Roots’ events while endorsed by the HEUG are organized and presented by the host campuses themselves. We are very thankful and proud of their efforts.