Speakers: Justin Schilawski, Chapter President, Philadelphia Chapter. Eva Scott, Chapter President, Central Virginia Chapter. David Keleher, Chapter President, Arizona Chapter. Heather Blevins, Chapter President, Central Illinois Chapter. Shane Leger, IG Chair, Risk Management and Loss Control Interest Group. Sue Snyder, IG Chair, Underwriting Interest Group. Dar Beachy, IG Vice Chair, Underwriting Interest Group. Glenn Leung, IG Vice Chair, RE&S Interest Group. Rosario "Tony" LaRocca, IG Vice Chair, Claims Interest Group. Emily Donnelly, Chapter President, Central Jersey Chapter. Michelle Smith, Chapter President, Florida Gold Coast Chapter
How have you stayed connected to and engaged with members?
Emily Donnelly: The Central New Jersey Chapter has stayed engaged by sending out our Constant Contact emails or Chaptergrams, and we continue to partner with our New Jersey Chapter to host our annual trivia nights, which is always a great success. It allows our members to network, get to know each other, and stay connected through these times where it's difficult to see everybody in person.
Dar Beachy: We have used some outside professionals and delivered a couple of webinars around the concept of parametric policies and looking at doing one that was more general and one that was looking at doing a deeper dive.
What have you done to overcome the challenges related to COVID-19 to continue hosting successful events?
Eva Scott: Our mission as a board has been to focus on quality over quantity and honing in on one event per month has really helped us stay organized for this year with hopes to reengage our chapter members, increase our participation, and then increase our involvement in years to come.
Shane Leger: We did this by continuing to be engaged in sponsoring, providing and recruiting speakers for virtual seminars at In2Risk, participating in virtual roadshow broadcasts, and even hosting a virtual conversation cafe discussion on labor shortage impacts at last year's In2Risk conference for virtual attendees.
Tell us about a time you thought outside of the box.
Michelle Smith: Due to the pandemic, We had to put off our in person educational luncheons. We had to put it on hold and replace them with virtual educational luncheons. We worked hard to get good speakers for our meetings that were knowledgeable and relevant. We sent each chapter member that attended a Grubhub gift card so they can have their lunch delivered to their home or workplace to make it more of a true luncheon.
How are you preparing for the future?
Glenn Leung: The RE&S Interest Group is preparing for the future by recruiting students and educating them about the industry
Rosario "Tony" LaRocca: One of the things that we are currently doing right now is connecting with other interest groups. For example, we've connected with the Information Technology Interest Group and the Emerging Leaders Interest Group to try to find ways that we can collaborate.
Justin Schilawski: I feel like one of the best things that that we've done together is really just keep our foundation as a leadership team together, having strong board members and officers who all are aligned and know where we're headed
Share a success story!
Heather Blevins: When we saw that our numbers were going to be dropping, decided to do almost like a it's a personalized membership drive where individually, we reach out to people that we might know in our organization and just have a conversation with them either via email or some time that we set aside to talk to them.
David Keleher: The Arizona Chapter is proud of our relationships that we developed with Gamma Iota Sigma and the insurance studies programs at Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and Rio Salado Colleges. Many of their graduates have become members of the chapter and have gone on to work in insurance internships and permanent employment positions for Arizona insurers.
Sue Snyder: There are many successes of the Underwriting Interest Group, but I would say the greatest is the people. The people on the committee are amazing. We have people from all over the United States, from different companies. And the success comes from collaborating with each other, giving different ideas, sharing thoughts. We have people from personal lines
