The State of STC and of the Intermountain Chapter

By Ben Minson on Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Me sitting in my chair at home

Welcome to the new Intermountain-STC Chapter website. The chapter board is excited to launch this site and offer chapter members many more resources than we had before. Thanks to Tom Johnson for building the site and to the rest of the board for their contributions. The site provides a public face to the strength that our chapter is gaining.

You are probably aware that STC is in severe financial trouble, with the year-end shortfall anticipated as high as $1.2 million. The main STC leaders and staff are working on a recovery plan using ideas from community leaders and members. The first update on their progress is coming at the end of August.

The bad news is that STC is planning on raising dues because the cost of supporting each member is higher than the dues collected. STC has relied principally on the annual conference as a moneymaker, and this past conference showed that if not enough people attend, the conference doesn’t make up for the gap between dues and member costs. A dues raise has been promised, but we don’t yet know the specific amount. STC has also asked chapters to move to zero-based budgeting, to set a budget through the end of 2010, and send surplus funds to the main office to help the Society come out of the shortfall.

It can be tempting at a time like this to drop out of the organization, especially if the downturn in the economy adversely affected your employment. I encourage you to stick with STC and see this through. Due to various circumstances that I won’t elaborate on here, the Intermountain chapter had a slow 2008—2009 year. You may ask, “What has STC done for me? How has my membership really benefited me?” If you’re asking that now and come up short of answers, I expect that if you stay with STC and ask again in a year, you will have plenty of answers.

We now have a substantial board of committed individuals. Our objective is to maximize the benefits that the chapter can offer you as its members. The board just met on August 1 to work on our program, and we plan to offer benefits in the areas of relevant site content, mentoring, employer relationships, career boosting, networking, and skills development. For example, on this site, we plan to build an information library, and we welcome all chapter members to contribute. This effort will serve as a locally relevant version of STC’s body of knowledge (under development at http://stcbok.editme.com), and parts of our library will likely be relevant for the STC repository. Another major aim will be to help those of you who are looking for work to find it.

So the bad news is that STC will soon cost members more to join. (I would like to highlight the fact that if you join STC from October to the end of the year, the year’s worth of dues carries your membership through the entire following year.) The good news is that the Intermountain Chapter board is going to do the best we can to provide value for every cent. I believe that if you have already paid membership dues, you shouldn’t have to pay additional fees for benefits that you deserve as a member.

Meanwhile, if you would like to do what you can to help save STC, various options are available:

• Participate in the discussions at STC Ideas and voice your own ideas. The STC board is listening. (Bill Swallow sent an STC Ideas invitation to STC members who requested to receive communications from STC. Click the link in the email to enter the first time, or sign in at http://stcideas.ning.com and use the email address you have on file with STC and your existing Ning password if you have one. If you can’t get in, contact Bill through his site, http://techcommdood.com.)
• Contribute a tax-deductible donation to STC directly to help overcome the shortfall. Further, if you work in a for-profit organization, speak with your employer about a corporate, tax-deductible donation to STC.
• Visit www.GoodSearch.com; in the box that reads “Who do you GoodSearch for?” enter Society for Technical Communication and click Verify. Once STC has been verified as part of the network, use the search engine on the same page for all your searching needs—each search will raise money for STC.
• STC receives a small royalty from sales that are generated via the Amazon.com portal on the STC website (http://www.stc.org). Try purchasing books through that portal if possible.

I’m looking forward to a great year. We hope to have a rich variety of offerings for you that will boost your career, your abilities, and your network. We still have some officer positions open and can always benefit from your participation on the committees. Please visit the Chapter Leaders page to see where you can help.

With your assistance, STC can come out of its current state a stronger, leaner, and more relevant organization for its members and the industry. I look forward to meeting more of you and working with you during the year. I ask that as you see the benefits of your membership, you’ll talk to colleagues and members of your professional network about those benefits and encourage them to participate. And of course, if you ever have feedback or ideas for me, please don’t hesitate to let me know. You can reach me at btminson(at)gmail(dot)com.