On March 9, 2016 the MAC ASHI board of directors unanimously approved a motion to create an IT task force and to implement a 3-month pilot program for the specific purpose of investigating ways and means of holding meetings online. 

The IT Task Force subsequently developed a mission statement and held three monthly meetings during the pilot:

• April 6, 2016 - Educational speaker: Charles Buell (grounding and bonding)
• May 4, 2016 - Education speaker: Kenny Hart (water heaters)
• June 1, 2016 - Eduction speaker: Alan Carson (report writing)

To encourage comradery the task force began holding social events at InspectionWorld. The rest is history. The Online Meeting Group (OMG) was born.

Pros:

• Recruit the millennials. ASHI is faced with competition in capturing the attention of young home inspectors who are just getting started. They have limited budgets, limited experience and limited insight into the value of what ASHI offers. It would seem that reaching out with an online opportunity might be appealing to a generation of young people who grew up on video games, YouTube and Wikipedia.

• Provide opportunity for members who, for whatever reason, are not traveling to physical brick and mortar buildings to participate in ASHI chapter activities. By participating in a chapter meeting from home, members could:

• Get continuing education
• Experience comradery
• Give and take in sharing the collective wisdom of the group
• Be represented to ASHI through the Council of Representatives (CoR)
• Bring revenue to MAC ASHI.
• Bring membership to ASHI
• Brind revenues to ASHI

Cons:

• Competition with Brick and Mortar Meeting. If people can attend without driving, they might stop driving.
• Some voting issues still need to be worked out.
• Details and exit plans not completed.
• May be ahead of its time, so not get traction.
• May undercut effort by National or other chapters’ efforts.

Costs:

• GoToMeeting subscription (sponsored for pilot)
• GoToMeeting 100 seat subscription $588/annum
• GoToWebinar 500 seat subscription $2,388/annum
• State specific CEs
• Human capital
• Speakers/content (undetermined)
• Website hosting and maintenance $200-500/annum +/-
• Annual physical meeting $1,000

Determination of Success:

• Continued growth
• Recognition/acceptance by ASHI National