Council Meeting Recap

by Carol Lawless, Recorder

Our last council meeting was at Equitrac and, despite an optimistic agenda; we managed to get through (almost) everything! Our secret – feed Paul subs. His creative juices really get flowing.

General Meetings

While we’re still looking for one more speaker for our general meetings, there are some exciting things planned for the new year. At the top of the list is that we’re also looking into the logistics of broadcasting our February general meeting via Webcast. Stay tuned for more. If you would like to speak, or you have a speaker or topic you would like to hear, please send an email to Debbie at president@stc-soc.org.

Training

For those of you wondering, “What happened to the Webinars?” we were unsuccessful in finding a (free) venue we could use on a regular basis, but Fei Min Lorente seems to have found a viable option. Come out to the Waterloo Public Library on Dec 6 for “Creating Training that Sticks”. Registration is limited; act right away.

We’ll keep watching for other Webinars that we think you will find useful. We are hoping to host them on months with no general meetings. Let us know which ones interest you.

On a related note, we’re considering offering online training (see the Learning article for details). Go to our home page and complete the poll to let us know if you would use this training option.

We discussed our Education days. It will be in April this year. We’re still looking at presenters, but we expect the theme will be XML and single sourcing.

Awards and Celebrations

Other portfolio managers were either not at the meeting or had nothing to report at this time. That doesn’t mean that they have nothing to do. I know for a fact that things change quickly.

Shhhhhhh — By the time you read this Debbie will have submitted our nominees for the Distinguished Chapter Service Award. Find out this year’s winner(s) at the Wine and Cheese in the spring. Although this event is currently scheduled for April, we’re trying to co-ordinate that event with a visit from Cindy Currie, our Region 1 Director. She’s hoping to stop here at the end of March, so watch the calendar for the date — it may not be on the usual “first Tuesday of the month”.

We’ll also be awarding the Heidi Thiessen Student Award winners that night (everything is on track), and will display the best of show competition winners. Our online communication and technical publications competitions are on track too. Although there are not a large number of entries, the submissions look good and we have a great cast of judges.

So make plans to come out to our annual Wine and Cheese, meet Cindy, celebrate with all our award winners, and visit with old friends and new.

The Budget

And finally, we passed our budget, even though there is a deficit. We are doing this because we are committed to ensuring we give value back to our membership, and we have funds in the bank from previous years. We have kept some of the money we had in GICs out this year, so that we could use it. The rest of the money has once again been put back into GICs. Three-quarters of it will be rolled into a three-year term GIC to get higher rates and one quarter of the remaining money will go into a GIC that renews annually. This will give us a buffer of money if we need it from one year to the next.

We'd love to see you...

Council meetings are always open. Check the calendar on our website for the time and place, and come join us. We’re always looking for your ideas and suggestions and would love to share the subs with you!

About Carol Lawless

Carol has been a member of our profession since 1993 and is a senior STC member. She is a founding partner of KCA Consulting, specializing in web usability and usability testing. She's also an independent contractor, when a suitable project arises. She is our official recorder at council. Outside of the STC and work, Carol's special interest is Ancient Civilizations, and still does not tire of visiting ruins (her favourite is Delphi with Karnak a close second). In her spare time, she runs Mom's taxi and loves to read (while waiting for the next taxi run!).