Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter
February/March 2005
| Newsletter of the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter February/March 2005 |
Our chapter has begun working on rechartering as a
community in the STC as part of the Society’s Transformation Initiative.
Rechartering means identifying and documenting the
value -- in terms of programs, support, and services -- that our chapter offers to
our members. Rechartering basically explains why someone would want to join our
chapter.
The process of rechartering involves the chapter members
coming together to agree upon our mission and goals, as well as the strategies,
programs, and activities that we use to implement our goals. We will also define
the members we hope to attract and the value we provide for the larger Society.
Our chapter leadership group, which consists of our chapter
officers, managers, and other volunteers, has agreed to complete the work of
rechartering, under the direction of Reyn Johnson. If you would like to join us
in this process, please contact Reyn Johnson.
If all goes well, Touchstone (the Northern California STC
technical communication competition) will return in 2005. The presidents of the
six Northern California STC chapters (Berkeley, East Bay, North Bay, Sacramento,
Silicon Valley, and San Francisco) met in September to confirm our commitment to
hold a competition and to begin planning.
As a result of the meeting, we asked Tim Bombosch (our
chapter’s Program Manager) to develop a preliminary project plan for the
competition. Tim presented a program on Project Management for Technical
Communicators at the SF STC’s June 2004 meeting (www.stc-sf.org/newsletter/2004-aug/june_meeting.html)
and at several other Northern California chapters, so we thought he’d do a
good job.
And he has! We are meeting this month to move forward with
his plan. If you would like to be involved with Touchstone this year or if you
would just like to offer words of encouragement, please send an email message to
Tim or me. And keep watching for more Touchstone news.
If you have not already done so, now is a good time to
renew your membership in the STC. To be eligible to vote in the next Society
election, you need to renew by February 28, 2005.
The coming election should be exciting. For Society Second
Vice President (the office that leads to Society President), we have two
candidates from the Nominating Committee: Linda Oestreich (www.stcregion.org/region5/directorsponsor.html)
and Deb Sauer (www.sauer-design.com).
Joining them on the ballot as an official candidate as a result of a petition
campaign is Laura Berger (www.paulaberger.com).
Also on the ballot will be a referendum to change the
Society’s bylaws in several ways:
Refine the job of the second vice president more
broadly so the office holder supports more than the geographic chapters
Remove chapter sponsorship from the
Director-Sponsors’ role
Eliminate regional representation on the STC Board
Andrea Ames, who is our current Society
President, and the STC Board are asking you to vote in favor of these changes.
As Andrea wrote in the January 2005 issue of Intercom:
“They are necessary to support the transformation—primarily to ensure equal
representation across both practice-based and geographical communities.” You
can read Andrea’s complete article and a supporting article by STC Fellow,
John Hedtke, from www.stc.org/transformation.
On the other side of the argument, Joe Welinske, the
president of WritersUA who presented at our January meeting, and Bill Leavitt,
STC Fellow and past Society President, are encouraging members to vote No on the
referendum. Joe thinks it “will leave the 150 Chapters of our Society without
adequate representation to the Board.” You can read his open letter to STC
members from www.winwriters.com.
And I’d like to ask you again to choose the San Francisco
chapter as your geographical community (or one of them) when you renew.
The STC Annual Conference will be held May 8-11, 2005, and
it’s back in Seattle this year. I attended my first STC Conference in Seattle
in 1996 and remember spending time one evening watching the Olympic Torch arrive
on a ferry and then following as it was carried through the downtown streets.
The Annual Conference is always a great place to attend
workshops conducted by other technical communicators who can teach you things
you can use when you get back on the job. It also provides many opportunities to
network with colleagues from around the world.
And I can’t say enough about how much fun a conference in
Seattle can be. OK. It does rain. But bring your raincoat and you can walk down
to Pike Place Market (www.pikeplacemarket.org)
for lunch or catch a ferry to Bainbridge Island in the evening to see the
Seattle skyline at sunset. I’ll be there. I hope you can make it, too.
Susan Becker is a technical communicator and online help developer. She has 16 years of experience working primarily as a contractor in software development for the financial services and human resources industries.
Copyright © 2005 by the Society for Technical Communication, San Francisco Chapter (www.stc-sf.org). This article may be reprinted in another STC publication under the provisions of the chapter's copyright policy.