Council Meeting Recap: April to June

by Carol Lawless, Secretary

Council has continued throughout the spring, so this recap summarizes the last few months, from April to June. We've had a duo-fold focus, wrapping up the last couple of events as well as looking ahead to the next year.

Wrapping up this year

We finished planning and held our Education Days in May. Despite an enrollment slightly under our break-even requirements, we elected to hold the workshops at a slight loss. Feedback from those attending indicate that it was a widely enjoyed success. We'll use that feedback to make improvements for next year, including earlier and better promotion.

Despite the lack of a program manager, council members pitched in to plan many of the events this year. Our final wrap-up event was planned by comittee and held at the Heuther. We kept it simple and held a networking meeting with refreshments and pool, minimizing costs and maximizing fun.

As we reviewed our membership, we saw a slide from over 140 in April to 113 at the end of June. This drop has led to discussions around promoting our presence locally. We've discussed partnering with other and local professional associations and using social networking. We're starting to investigate our options and welcome you feedback and ideas.

Financially, our chapter ran the year on a small defecit. We have built up our investments over the past years, however, and still are in a stable position.

Looking ahead to next year

With some determined recruiting, we have a nearly full slate of council members, including some new faces. We also concluded our June meeting with a special thank you to Debbie Kerr for continuing to come to bat as President for the last four years. She's managed to ensure our programs have kept running, despite working with, at times, a skeleton council. Thanks Deb, and outgoing council members Lori, Laura and Paul for all your work! We're still looking to fill some positions, including the critical program manager, so if you're interested in becoming more involved in that position or even as a volunteer at large, contact Fei Min at president@stc-soc.org.

Summer will not be vacation time for the council! Evan and Ted (our Quill Editor and Webmaster, respectively) will be working on revamping the website as well as making some changes to the Quill format. Among other things, they're investigating using an open-source content management system. Watch for exciting changes this fall.

You'll have read the bulletins from head office about the state of the STC finances in general. Internationally, we're working on restructuring to meet our debt commitments and as part of that, each local chapter has been asked to establish a non-profit status. We've formed a sub-committee to draft by-laws that are needed for the status. The sub-committee will present the draft to council by the end of summer and to you, our local membership, in early fall for ratification. We will also investigate our financial obligations to head office and to our local membership with a focus on continuing to ensure value to the Southwestern Ontario Chapter.

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!).