Your Local Connection, Worldwide

Hello Chapter Leaders,

We know events are difficult to run in these times of social distancing so we’d like to offer some updates and ideas.

The new Professional and Student Chapters Committee (PSCC) members under the leadership of AJ Christensen are here to help. You can see the new and returning ACM SIGGRAPH PSCC Members here.

We hope you saw the recent message from ACM SIGGRAPH President, Jessica Hodgins. If not, you can find it in the President's Corner- COVID19 communication.

You might have seen the updates on the official SIGGRAPH 2020 Conference website. The conference this year will not take place physically and will move to a virtual conference format.

We understand that this creates more questions than it answers, particularly in relation to our annual chapters events like the Chapters Workshop, Chapters Party, Student Volunteer Luncheon, and Chapters Fast Forward. We don’t yet know what options we will have and ask you to be patient while details are being worked out.

For some idea of what might come, you may choose to review the ACM report on virtual conferences. The Chapters Committee will provide updates on this subject as soon as possible.

What we can say today is that Chapters are now the lifeblood of the organization more than ever. Local communities across the world will try to scratch their SIGGRAPH itch and, as Chapters, we will aim to be there for them and offer a great lineup of events throughout the year.

We would like to help you broadcast digital events to the whole chapters network, and the PSCC is happy to work with you to make that happen. Today we’d like to mention two important tools:

1. Slack

   • The official ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Slack is ready! Please sign up to join the Slack here. 

   • Once you sign up, expect to be admitted in the coming weeks. We’re going to be slowly admitting Chapter members in order to better organise the structure of our Slack.

   • We look forward to having you all on this Slack, which will act as a space for all Chapters to communicate and cooperate directly worldwide.

2. GSuite

   • Many benefits come from setting up your Gsuite! (email, team calendars, video conference, storage, documents, jamboard, ...) 

   • GSuites have been created for active professional chapters and we are happy to provide these to any student chapters that request it. 

   • GSuite gives your chapter access to some useful tools including enhanced Google Meet for holding virtual events and board meetings. 

   • The PSCC relies on these GSuite contact points as one way to reach out to your officer group. Therefore we’d like to remind you to update your current officers in your GSuite group. If you need help to access/configure GSuite for your chapter please reach out to pscc-its@acmsiggraph.org

If you have any questions related to managing your chapter during this pandemic, please reach out to chapters-chair@acmsiggraph.org.

Thank you,

PSCC

About the Professional and Student Chapters Committee