What does it take to become a life member?
IEEE members whose number of years as a member plus their age automatically qualify for Life Membership if they are 65 or older. The full rules are described at the IEEE life member web site. Life members have their annual IEEE membership dues waived, and also their society and affiliate group membership for most IEEE OU’s where they have been members for five years or more.
The 2016/17 NH Life Member Chair (Jim Isaak), encourages NH Life Members to contribute some of their savings to the IEEE Foundation or his favorite IEEE Foundation activity, the Society on Social Implications of Technology. IEEE and the IEEE Foundation are 501(c)3 organizations which qualify as educational charities with respect to U.S. Income Tax.
What do Life Members do?
As an IEEE Affiliate Group, NH Life Members hold meetings on a regular basis. We hold joint meetings with the Boston Section Life Members about once a month at Lincoln Labs in Mass. We also hold meetings in NH, please contact our Chair if you have a topic you would to see discussed, or if you want to share some of your professional or historical perspective with NH Life Members. (We often hold joint meetings with other NH IEEE groups such as the Young Professionals, Women in Engineering, Computer Society, Engineering in Medicine and Biology and Robotics chapters.
Life Members also are active in supporting other technology activities. These include IEEE’s Congressional Visits Day (or, bringing a technical perspective to our Congressional Delegation right here in the state. IEEE USA can provide information on current issues and official IEEE positions.) We support STEM education in various ways – though section participation in pre-college events such as TechFest, TEDx, Teacher in-service training, school visits, mentoring Robotics teams, and collaboration with tne NH High Tech Council events.
What can I do to be more active?
We welcome volunteers within the Life Members group, and at the Section level. Often all that is needed is someone to help with the logistics of arranging a meeting, getting the word out (IEEE vTools eNotice helps here) and reporting the attendance to IEEE (again via vTools.) Our events are typically open to non-IEEE members and students (we even have high-school students attend some.) So getting the word out beyond “just us chickens” is very useful as well. Folks to talk with students at TechFest, Makers Fairs, and such is a second area where help is needed. Just sharing some of your experiences and enthusiasm with students can make a difference. The NH Section is also partnering with groups like the NH Joint Professional Engineering Societies for their Engineering Week activities and with their annual conference — and help with coordination activities like these is of value.