SEDS Regions

[Mark]

I've had an idea to divide the nation into a few regions for SEDS. This would be helpful for a few things, but right now it would be most useful for expansion. The director of expansion could have a regional director of expansion in each region, to work with in that particular region.

Later, we could set up regional conferences, regional projects, etc. once we have more chapters.

At any rate, I put together a map tonight that indicates the current recognized SEDS chapters, and an idea for regional divisions. The regions are roughly equal in terms of population. They also divide our active chapters so there are a few active chapters in each region. You can view them here:

http://www.ae.uiuc.edu/~mgschaff/sedsregions.gif

Any thoughts? :)

[JediJosh]

Hmm would prob be nice if the bounds on the 'regions' are closer to the individual chapters. Would save on post and allow for visitations and stuff.

Like Washington is closer to Idaho than Arizona is, so they would have an easier time setting up chapters there.

Though the idea of dividing the country into regions is a good one, and has been used by SEDS many times in the past. There is still a list of regions in the bylaws somewhere....

Any other thoughts?

[Evans]

Mark

You basically have what is already in section 5 of the Bylaws, except they use 6 regions instead of 5.

[Mark]

I'll have to look at the bylaws. That's funny too because originally I tried to divide the nation into 6 regions, but 5 seemed to work out a lot nicer in terms of schools' locations.

The regions can be variable, as we add more schools we can modify the regions accordingly. I put the west coast schools together just because there seems to be more continuity along the coast than across the mountains, if that makes any sense.

[Mark]

I went ahead and put together a map of our regions as definied by the bylaws. You can view it here:

http://www.ae.uiuc.edu/~mgschaff/sedsbylaws.gif

The problem with this setup is a matter of population density. This is the problem I encountered when trying to divide the nation into 6 roughly equal population regions. It became easier to make the entire west into one region and have the other four regions basically as they are in the bylaws.

To be techinical, I set them up using the electoral votes given to each state. It was a quick way to judge the population of each state using round numbers. With my setup, the regions look like this:

Northeast Region (green): 122 EV
Southeast Region (red): 128 EV
Midwest Region (blue): 112 EV
West Region (purple): 93 EV
Pacific Region (yellow): 83 EV

There is a tendency towards the eastern states, but the population tends that way as well. Conversely, here's the setup as it is in the bylaws:

Region I (green): 122 EV
Region II (red): 113 EV
Region III (blue): 112 EV
Region IV (grey): 72 EV
Region V (purple): 28 EV
Region VI (yellow): 91 EV

Region IV and V, the west regions, are significantly smaller than the others in terms of population.

At any rate, I think we should modify the bylaws and change the region definitions. I'm not 100% for my breakdown, I put it up here to generate some discussion. I'll come up with some modifications and post them later, I encourage everyone to continue to comment!

[Mark]

I modified my original map a little more to come up with a more even distribution both geographically and by population. Check it out:

http://www.ae.uiuc.edu/~mgschaff/sedsregions2.gif

Here's a breakdown of the electoral votes, again:

Northeast Region (green): 122 EV
Southeast Region (red): 113 EV
Midwest Region (blue): 118 EV
West Region (purple): 92 EV
Pacific Region (yellow): 95 EV

[JediJosh]

Much better :-)

[Mark]

Yeah. I was having trouble getting the 2004 election map out of my head when I made the original map. ;)

Also, I modified the links so they should be accessible to everyone now.

[SEDShead]

Wow. This is totally cool. This is the first time that I haven't had to point out that something is in the constitution, bylways, or had already been thought out in probably the past 7 years. SEDS is back. You guys are going to rock.

[JediJosh]

*chuckles*

Huzzah!

[Mark]

I was thinking about it tonight, I'd love to see an interactive map along the lines of the one I posted, except when you scroll over one of the schools a little window pops up that shows some information about the school, such as the school's name and location, their chapter director, their chapter representative, etc. Then if you click on the school it loads that chapter's website in a new window. I have no idea how to code such a monstrosity but if I'm bored over winter break I might try and learn. ;)