Wine and Lots of Cheese: Adventures in Networking

by Margie Yundt, Quill Editor

On March 27th, our chapter held its annual Wine and Cheese, and it was good on so many levels. This year, we had a couple of special guests—Cindy Currie, our Region 1 Director (and now Second Vice President!) and Mark Clifford, Second Vice President (and now First Vice President)!

Fearless Leaders From left to right: Mark Clifford, Debbie Kerr, Rob Hanna, and Cindy Currie.

Cindy and Mark were a little late arriving, thanks to a delay in their flight, but they eventually found their way to the University Club in time for the presentation of our awards, and both shared with us some words of wisdom (such as don't fly with Cindy, she apparently has epic tales of airline woes).

In the meantime, there were lots of fancy cheeses, crackers, and desserts to munch on—oh, and beverages, with or without alcohol. It was good to catch up with old friends, and meet a few new ones, so thanks to everyone for making the effort to come out to the event!

Special thanks also goes to Rob Hanna, President of the STC Toronto Chapter for making the trip from the Big Smoke, and our own Ted Edwins who put together a trip down memory lane with an STC slideshow (gotta love that 90s hair?!).

After much networking and random laughter, we eventually did get to the awards: first Pauline Horn, Student Awards Manager, presented the winners of the Heidi Thiessen Memorial Award, then Debbie Kerr, President, announced this year's Distinguished Chapter Service Awards. You'll just have to click on the links to find out who won. 

Leanne Rollins, Education Manager, also talked about our chapter competitions. Cindy also signed certificates, which were later sent to the winners. What made the certificates even more special was that they contained logos that were new to our chapter. Martin Eisenloeffel designed a new chapter logo and two logos (that were chosen from many) for winners of our chapter competitions. Winners can use these logos, for example, on their company website, to identify that their documentation won an award in our competition. We will soon be putting these up on our chapter website, so stay tuned.

Congratulations to all our winners—you are all stars!

It was a great event, filled with the usual chapter fanfare, including a presentation of Timmy gift certificates to Cindy and Mark, who spent these wisely on their journey to the Eastern chapter's competition dinner.

The giving did not end there—we also had fabulous door prizes to give away (Chapters gift certificates, another Canadian landmark). Congratulations to our door prize winners: Leanne Rollins and Ryan Lehmann!

...and so ended our red carpet moments for another year.

About Margie Yundt

Margie is a senior member in our local STC chapter and has been kicking around the Kitchener-Waterloo/Guelph area since...well, forever it seems. She is a technical writer at heart and enjoys mentoring her kids in the Art of Plain English. She lives in Guelph with her family and enjoys a daily commute into Waterloo to join her many co-workers at Research In Motion.