I would think that for committees there would be some sort of system for sharing emails among the other members. I’ve served on many committees over the years and don’t remember having to use the CAS directory to find anyone’s emails.
Just got this email. Kind of reminds me of the peach stickers they give out in the Georgia elections.
This is a bit baffling.
I don’t know how the SOA handles this these days but the first thing the CIA does when setting up a new committee, task force or other group is to create a mailing list for the members to use to communicate among themselves. Seems logical to me.
The CIA website shows individual member emails but a member can presumably choose not to have his/her email shown. The emails of Canadian CAS members can be found there so this is just a CAS US thing.
Sounds like this is similar to what Lucy mentioned about the AAA, though as we discussed in another thread not every CAS member pays to be an AAA member if it’s not needed in their jobs.
My employer paid my AAA membership for many years as I needed it for some US work. However that membership was the first casualty when I retired.
This is what the CAS used to do, and it worked very well. Now all the emails pass through some “community” software that hides the actual underlying email addresses. The last time i used the directory it was because i wanted to reply privately to one committee member, without spamming the whole group. I don’t remember all the details.
I really hate that “community” software, which feels to me more like it separates us than like it helps us work together.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off about the corporate world so much. People feel the need to justify their salaries. So the CAS spent God knows how much money to make the website worse and less user friendly. Breaking plenty of historical links in the process.
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You can get individual emails in the general member directory (on the main CAS webpage, the “find an actuary” button once you scroll down a bit in the center of the page).
I guess there are 2 different “member directories” - one for all CAS members (with email addresses) and one for all “Community” members (without email addresses).
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As you say, it is not just CAS but many corporations who do this, and at great expense. Have to wonder how much thoughtfulness goes into the process.
It’s a decision by committee issue. I’m sure plenty of thought and effort went into the redesign. But I’m guessing along the way there wasn’t that one person who felt secure enough to say, “actually we don’t need this, let’s scrap the whole thing.”
This reminds me of a time this content used to be located on a different website… one that reminded me of The Simpsons.
I whined about it to my husband, who is a professional web developer. He asked, “does the new site look pretty?” “I guess so”, i replied. “So what are you complaining about? That’s the point. It’s not there to help you, it’s there to look pretty.”
Yes, he is sometimes bitter about what he is asked to do.
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Not gonna lie, I’ve never used the CAS website for anything. Other than some membership stuff.
I used to use it to:
- Look up contact info for friends at other companies
- Look up contact info for CAS officers and staff
- Look up papers
- Find CE
- Check out CAS news
- Find links to check out CAS candidates
- Check dates of exams
- Check the syllabus
- Get copies of old exams
- Find links to CAS regional affiliates
- Find links to other actuarial organizations (yes, it used to be easier than googling. Ha. Those were the days.)
- Read CAS board minutes
- Look up the results of member surveys (what percent of fellows are women? What percent are in Asia?)
I… Barely use it other than to pay dues and certify my CE now, because they’ve removed or hidden most of that content.
Maybe i won’t have to pay dues much longer.
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Polls are closed 
When do we get results?
Historically, sometime tomorrow morning.
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You mean it’s not 6 to 8 weeks?
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Do we get to see the percentage of each of our selections if we don’t pass?
They do give us the percentages of those candidates who didn’t pass. Hopefully Kevin Phillips Bonnnnnnnng gets a few more votes than last time, when he got bugger all.