President’s Message:
Take My Job…Please

by Debbie Kerr, President

While some American presidents have been shot in the performance of their duties, we have never had anything violent happen to a president of the Southwestern Ontario Chapter, so have no fear. Actually, quite the opposite is true. The members of this chapter are quite a friendly bunch, and some of the presidents have continued on up the ranks in the STC. Not only have the presidents survived the experienced; they have even thrived.

Why become active?

As any good writer knows, the active voice is much better than the passive voice. It’s all because there is a “doer” who is taking some kind of action instead of being acted upon. If you took the “Eight Steps to Editing” seminar, then you know that the active voice generates energy instead of the passive voice, which actually drains energy. So if you are someone wondering whether you could lead a team of professionals, remember, it is less draining to say, “I can!” than “I was lead by someone else”.

What are the benefits?

It’s hard to believe that it is already March, and I have about four months left in my term. The time has just flown by. While every position can have its challenges, there have been many great perks to taking on this role.

Work with the Region 1 Director-Sponsor

Our Director-Sponsor is Cindy Currie (see her article this month), and I must say that she has been a fountain of information. I have contacted her on many occasions, and she has always responded to me. Whether I needed information, had suggestions, or needed feedback on something I was completing, she was always in my corner, and I felt very supported. Sometimes the STC Head Office can feel very removed from the chapter, but Cindy has been great at closing that gap. As president, you will have the opportunity of working with the director-sponsor, and getting to know her a little better.

Get to Know Your Fellow Communicators

It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own little world as you repeat the same cycle each day, week, and month. As president, you will have regular council meetings to attend, and the opportunity to interact regularly with your fellow council members. You will get to meet other people and learn about other businesses. We don’t sit and talk about our jobs, but it does come up from time to time.

Enhance Your Time Management Skills

Don’t tell me that you can’t do it; there aren’t enough hours in the day. Where there’s a will; there’s a way. Some how things always work out. For me, if I get through this week, I think it will be some kind of miracle. I have so much to get done that I don’t even have enough time to panic. Making a list of what I have to accomplish is really too scary, so I just keep things to a need to know basis and only tell myself what I have to do right now. If I keep reviewing the entire list of what has to be done between now and March 7 (the day of our general meeting), then I will panic. If you see me there, then you will know that everything worked out, and you can do it too.

Interact with New Groups of People Outside the STC

As the president, you are the initial point of contact for many outside groups. This means that you get to network on a new level. For example, this year, because of the need for new people on the advisory committee at Humber College, I made a new contact there, plus I made a new contact at the Canadian Medical Writers Association. If I was not in this position, someone else on the council would have been interacting with these people, and I would have been like you, reading the articles in the newsletter. Sometimes it is fun being able to be the person who gets to exchange those extra emails, or who talks to these people on the phone, so that you get to “meet” someone new. I am looking forward to see who else might contact me by the end of my term.

Find Out About Activities

Sometimes the president is the contact for various activities, both STC and non-STC related. Late last year, I received information about judging in the STC’s Technical Publications competition. After taken on the president's role, I took another chance and submitted my resume and applied to become a judge at an international level. It wasn’t until February 10 that I found out that I was selected to be an off-site judge. This meant that I received 12 entries—a collection of newsletters, technical reports, and magazines—to judge with two other people in a two-week period. Once we are done, our recommendations on-site judges use our recommendations to determine which entries receive Best of Show awards.

By the time you read this article, my part in the process will be complete, but as I am writing this, I am scrambling to hit my commitments to this newsletter as well as the commitments to the judging experience. Who would have thought that everything would be due at the same time?

Other than the deadline issues (see Enhance Your Time Management Skills section earlier), the judging experience has been great. You get to see such a variety of entries, and you get to work with new people who have different perspectives (sort of like working on a council), so you can’t help but learn something new.

If I had not volunteered to be president, I wouldn’t have volunteered to be an international judge. Once I took the leap to be president, I had the confidence to give judging at an international level a try as well.

Attend the STC Annual Conference

Our chapter pays some money towards the president attending the annual STC conference, so I will be attending my first conference after being in the business for over 20 years. Ironically, it happens to be in Las Vegas this year, so it should prove interesting. I have already picked out all the sessions I want to attend; the problem is that many of them are at the same time. It seems that there can be just too much of a good thing.

What’s holding you back?

If you still have questions, or you are not sure that you can do it, then email me or come and talk to me. There are also plenty of past presidents who are available to answer your questions. The only thing worse than taking the position is not taking the position. Think about it, and then act on it.

About Debbie Kerr (President)

In the 20 years that Debbie has been writing documentation, she has worked in a variety of industries: government, retail, software, and insurance. She is currently employed at The Economical Insurance Group in Waterloo, where she has stepped out of her traditional role of writing user guides and help files, and now writes a variety of specifications.

Debbie has been a member of the STC since 1994 and has been a council member for many years. Most recently she was The Quill editor for two years.