This August 11th, we kicked off our first open board meeting during Happy Hour at Araña Taqueria & Cantina. About a dozen fresh faces joined us, members and nonmembers both, as well as our new chapter leaders making their debut: Matthew Vermeulen (Partnership Director), Joseph Makkos (Special Projects Asset), and RJ Sevin (Video Editor on the Communications team). If you missed the meeting, the full minutes are here.
After conducting our compact monthly board meeting, including some questions to the general attendees, we opened the floor to the community for their topics. As a more informal complement to our recent member survey, we collected your thoughts through a set of comment cards, with the results listed further below.
Our thanks to Araña for accommodating the group and to all our attendees for coming out! We enjoyed getting to know several of you design-minded kin and hope that you all, and more, can join our next community meeting, Tuesday, September 8, 6pm-8pm , upstairs at Dat Dog on Magazine. In addition to our routine board affairs, we’ll be getting more in depth on the upcoming member party, how to get the most out of your AIGA membership, and different opportunities to get involved with the chapter and our events around the AIGA Design Conference in particular.
Feel free to add the chapter calendar (info@neworleans.aiga.org) to your Google Calendar or Apple iCal to stay informed of our upcoming meetings and events! And if you can’t wait until September, email us. We’d love to hear from you.
What do you think of when you hear “AIGA?”
“A community to help improve the lives of designers in the area. Be it via workshops or talks.”
“Design! Professional networking, meeting people.”
“Design, aesthetics, people.”
“DESIGN.”
“BIG.”
What do you think of when you hear “AIGA New Orleans?”
“A community of designers in the area already filled with amazing culture.”
“I think the AIGA NOLA chapter is probably more diverse in members and design disciplines than other chapters. I hope that’s true!”
“Not sure yet entirely as I’m new to AIGA and New Orleans.”
“Up and coming.”
“Growing.”
What are your favorite things about the AIGA New Orleans design community?
“Unique people and a city where creativity thrives like no other.”
“The little emails with tutorials & fun/helpful design articles.”
How do you see yourself contributing to the AIGA New Orleans design community?
“Connecting students w/local designers.”
“Volunteering at events/participating in events.”
“I would be happy to volunteer. I’ll certainly attend and participate in events, though I still need to purchase a membership! But I would like to expand and strengthen the New Orleans design community.”
“Volunteering at the conference this October.”
“I’d love to help plan events/meetups and facilitate more meet & greet events. I want to meet more designers more often!”
If I could do anything for AIGA, I would…
“Be more involved with events [aka go] and get others to go.”
“Volunteer at everything. The more involved, the more we can do, the more we can turn AIGA NOLA into what we want it to be.”
