Do You Have a Fear of Commitment?

by Debbie Kerr, President

If you saw this headline in a slick magazine, you would be looking for the corresponding quiz to read to your boyfriend or girlfriend to prove that “Yes,” that is the problem with your relationship. In this slick newsletter, there is a list of questions followed by reassuring answers. They are meant to address the reasons (excuses?) that you may be using to avoid commitment. While volunteering to be on the council of the Southwestern Ontario Chapter STC may not have been one of your goals, maybe it should be. The commitment is not as big as, say, getting married, and there can be numerous rewards in a short period of time.

Do you have a fear of commitment? Prove you don't. Break down those barriers by continuing to read on. I dare you!

I have never been on any kind of council before, how will I know what to do?

First, there is a handover meeting between the person who held the position previously and the person who is taking over the position. Second, there are instructions. And since we are, after all, communicators, the instructions are generally quite good. Third, the council, and the person who held the position before, will answer your questions. We are a team, and the bright side of so many of us having been in many of the other positions before is that we can often answer questions about other positions. Also, we have a contact sheet that we give out to fellow council members so that you can reach anyone at any time, day or night. You are not alone.

How much of a time commitment is involved?

Some positions require more of a time commitment than others. The estimates that we have posted on our website are just estimates. You can make a position as big or as small as you want it to be, although the minimum you can get away with is bigger for some positions than for others. For example, if Margie, our newsletter editor and webmaster, slacks off, you would notice a problem a lot more quickly than in some other positions.

You also have the option of being a committee member or a manager. Managers run the show, and committee members follow the direction of the managers. Many hands make light work, so if have several people on a committee, it makes the work of the manager a lot lighter. This is the case for Margie this year. She is both webmaster and newsletter editor, but she has Aimee helping her with the web, and she has Laura and I helping with the newsletter. That's not to say that Margie doesn't have a heavy workload, but without committee members, the workload would have been a lot heavier. So if you have even a little bit of time, we want to hear from you. We welcome both managers and committee members.

What are council meetings?

In addition to your regular duties, there are monthly council meetings, and a planning meeting that we have in August to get ready for the fall. We use these meetings to plan where we are going throughout the year. While attendance is not mandatory, the more you put into your position, the more you will get out of it as well. It's sort of like class participation in school. Although you don't get marks for attendance, you will feel more involved and part of the team if you come to the meetings. I know some of our council members cannot always attend the meetings because of family and work commitments, but they come whenever they can. We appreciate that everyone has a life outside of his or her volunteer positions. As long as everyone's main council duties are getting done that is all that matters. The meetings are a bonus.

Do I have to have a lot of experience in the field to volunteer?

No. In fact, having a mixture of new and experienced council members is probably the best combination. This winning combination would help to ensure that our plans are good for everyone, which would ultimately help to attract a wider audience to our various functions.

Why should I volunteer?

There are so many reasons why you should volunteer. For example, if there are skill sets that you would like to develop at work, but you never get the opportunity, pick a position on council that will give you the opportunity to develop those skills sets. Maybe you would like to get into public relations, but no employer will give the chance because you don't have the experience. If you take on the Public Relations portfolio, you can get the experience that you want, and then you can use it when you are applying for jobs. There is even a Public Relations competition that you can enter. Wouldn't it be great if you could get an award? It would look great on your resume. Our chapter has not entered the competition in the past, so you could be the first one to do it.

Another bonus of volunteering is that you get to meet a lot of new people in a short period of time. Again, depending on the position that you select, you will meet different groups of people. In addition to meeting all the council members, you get to develop a new network of people. These are all people that you may need some time in the future if you are ever looking for a job. You never know where one contact may lead.

What if I don't live in the Guelph , Cambridge , Kitchener or Waterloo area?

If you are interested in volunteering and you are outside of this area, we still want to hear from you. With today's technology, there is a lot you can do to be part of council. For example, a lot of what the membership manager does is administrative, so some files are emailed to you and others are physically mailed to you. Some public relations, web work, and newsletter work can be done from a distance. Of course we would love to see you, but we would rather have you and your skills than not have you as part of the team at all. Don't let distance contribute to your fear of commitment.

If I will be such a great addition to the council, then why doesn't someone asked me or nominate me to be on council?

There are a lot of members in our chapter, and we don't know everyone, let alone what everyone likes to do or is capable of doing. While it's always great to be asked to take on a portfolio, it doesn't mean that you wouldn't be good or welcome if you weren't asked. I wasn't asked to be president; I just volunteered. If we only asked the people that we knew, we would be leaving out a lot of very good people.

If so many of you have been on the council together for a long time, how would a new person like me fit in?

We want new people to join us, because it means new ideas and new perspectives. We will not be around forever, and we need new people to join the council so that the same people are not always on the council and just changing jobs. Although we have fun trying on different hats, we know there are brand new ideas that we have not explored because someone new has to come up to us and say, “Let's try this.”

Are you more relaxed and ready to read more?

For a detailed descriptions of the positions, go to our website. If you are interested in any position, we would like to hear from you. Please email me at president@stc.org or use our nomination form to volunteer your services or nominate someone else you think would be great in a specific position.

About Debbie Kerr

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. For the second year in a row, Debbie has bravely taken on the role of Chapter President.