During the past few months, MEISA chapters across the country have been planning and participating in a variety of educational and social activities:

University of Massachusetts, Lowell is holding their third annual "Mothers of Rock, a Tribute to Women in Music" on March 7th. The show features 20 different bands playing music that pay homage to women in rock. The show is sponsored by local businesses, and is part of Lowell Women's week. In addition, half of the proceeds benefit Girls INC of Greater Lowell, an organization that helps underprivileged youths.

Loyola University, New Orleans is hosting a battle of the on February 2nd. 17 Demos were submitted, and six finalists were chosen from a focus group consisting of MEISA members. They have a panel of judges including industry professionals from Jazz Fest and Voodoo Fest in New Orleans.

Full Sail University, one of MEISA's newest and largest chapters with over 300 members, created a promotional video for their website. Check it out at http://www.fullsail.com/flash/index.cfm?degree=entertainment-business.

Northeastern University plans to launch a MEISA Debate on music industry hot topics. Panels will be moderated by music industry professors.

Executive Board News

After a successful meeting with the MEIEA Executive Board in early November, the MEISA Executive Board is proud to announce the following up and coming ventures:

Internship Central
Located in the "members only" section of the forum, MEISA's Internship Central will operate as a resource for resume, networking and interviewing tips, including a number of professional references and websites. Look out for its debut in mid-Februray!

Please contact Vice President, Jose Duarte at duarte@meisa.org for more information.

Communication Model
The MEISA Executive Board has instituted an innovative model in order to better facilitate communication between chapter presidents, regional representatives and the executive board. Such a plan will help increase inter-regional communication, as well as communication from individual MEISA chapters through the national level. This will allow us all to focus on continued networking more often than just at the national and regional conferences. The model will:

-Enable members from other chapters to attend events going on within their region
-Let chapters learn from one another’s experiences, successes and failures
-Alert members of other opportunities and events occurring in the region
-Allow those in leadership positions to be knowledgeable about what is occurring throughout MEISA as a whole

Please contact Secretary Samantha Basso at basso@meisa.org for questions, comments or ideas to help implement our plan.

Sponsorship
The MEISA Executive Board is currently working with Rock U, TVT Records, B4MD and the Florida Music Festival as potential MEISA sponsors for various regional and national events.

For more information, please contact Director of Public Relations Whitney Handrich at handrich@meisa.org.

Alumni Mixer
The MEISA Executive Board and Cal Poly Pomona will be hosting a mixer recognizing our alumni! Join us on Friday, March 23rd following the conference. Look out for updates on our website at www.meisa.org.

If you have a list of alumni that you'd like us to invite, please e-mail Treasurer Logan Durant at durant@meisa.org.

Jeopardy
After the success of University of the Pacific's Jeopardy event during last year's conference, the MEISA Executive Board will be hosting another round of music trivia as a welcome social event Thursday evening prior to the conference.

Please contact President Sabrina Sutherland at sutherland@meisa.org for student nominations and/or question suggestions. We will be accepting one student nomination per chapter.

The MEISA Executive Board will also be hosting our annual Battle of Band competition, in addition to our MEISA Scholarship Award and Chapter of the Year Award. We look forward to announcing the winners at this year's national conference! For more information on this year's conference, "Crossing Boundaries," please visit www.meieaconference.org.