Several AIGA San Diego board members headed to Denver to meet with members from other chapters to gain insights, inspiration and idea.

“This was my first national retreat with AIGA and I really had no idea what to expect. The pace was quick and there seemed to be an energetic buzz about the whole event,” said Gil Lazcano, LINK Chair. “Perhaps it was the charismatic speakers or the valuable knowledge that they shared, but I felt privileged and honored to share an audience with such influential people from across our nation.”

“It was my first national retreat. Meeting representatives from other chapters was great! It was inspiring to see what other chapters are doing to promote events,” said Judith Pelayo, Events Chair.

“In the smaller group sessions I learned about how chapters are investing in the future of design in their area with outreaches to schools and mentorship programs,” said Karen Morrison, Link Director.  “Their programs ranged from things similar to mentor match, to programs that paired people on certain projects guiding them through the learning process. In one session we broke up into groups and focused on the needs of a specific audiences, I was in the Emerging Designer group. I loved the idea of focusing on needs like this THEN working on programing that would fill those needs vs coming up with programing first.”

“We learned a great deal about growing our numbers, seeking out non-designers, sponsorships/partnerships, a little about management science and what it means to be a good leader,” said Gil. “AIGA’s executive director Ric Grefé spoke frankly about concerns regarding new membership rates and assured everyone that we’ve made the right decision and are essentially in the lull from having members switch their plans to a lower rate, without yet seeing the benefit of a substantial increase in numbers.”

“We’re excited to share what we learned and look forward to implementing some great ideas,” said Judith.