As a chapter, we are required to have an annual business meeting. This year’s business meeting is scheduled for this FRIDAY, September 17th at 7PM. We will be holding the business meeting in the banquet room of the Sizzler restaurant on 9000 South and State Street in Sandy. Dinner will be on your own, and you don’t need to buy dinner to join us.

In the most important part of this business meeting, the chapter administrative council will present the proposed bylaws for the chapter. Our chapter has never had official bylaws, so this is an important step forward for the chapter.

The proposed bylaws are posted online on the chapter website. You can review them here: http://www.intermountain-stc.org/about/intermountain-chapter-bylaws/

If you are unable to attend the chapter meeting, but would like to submit feedback on the bylaws, please send your feedback to president@intermountain-stc.org and we’ll consider it.

Also, if you are unable to attend, and would like to submit a proxy vote, you can send your vote to me at president@intermountain-stc.org and I’ll submit your vote on your behalf. The question that will be presented to the voting members will be: “Do you vote to accept the Intermountain STC Chapter bylaws as they are currently presented on the chapter Website?” We will then ask for votes in the affirmative, and votes in the negative.

If you have any questions about the process, please don’t hesitate to contact me. You can reach me at the e-mail address I gave above, or you are always welcome to contact me on my cell phone at 801-938-8391.

Thanks for your support of our chapter. We are looking forward to some great programming this fall and winter. If you have any suggestions, as always, let us know.

Attention Intermountain Chapter members!

On September 17, 2010 we will hold our annual business meeting. This annual meeting is required by STC bylaws, and will be a place where we conduct official business of the chapter.

This year, we will hold the business meeting at a the Sizzler restaurant on 9000 South and State Street in Sandy. Everybody is welcome, but only current chapter members will be able to vote on chapter business.

The most important item of business will be adopting new chapter bylaws. We will present these bylaws for a vote at the business meeting.

Please make every effort to attend this meeting, as it is a time that you get to make your voice heard.

More details are available here.

September board meeting conference call

October Event

Marj, our programs coordinator, is chasing this one and will have more information for us as she hears back from the organization that we are inviting to speak to the chapter.

November Event

Scheduled for Saturday, November 7th, this event includes several sessions on creating an online presence, something that is increasingly useful (and even expected) in our field. Details will be coming soon.

Tentative Program

Out of our brainstorming in August, we have created a tentative program going through 2010. It is a work in progress at this point (see the next item). We hope to allow well known but distant leaders in tech comm reach us through webinars. This type of event would also allow more members to participate in events. Webinars are often costly for attendees, and we want to mitigate the expense to members as much as possible to allow more participation.

Polling Members

We will soon be sending out a questionnaire to the chapter to find out what you want out of STC and the Intermountain Chapter. The officers have our ideas, and we have a tentative plan for events, but we want to know what your ideas are. This will be your chance to make your voice heard and affect our events. What types of events do you prefer? What topics are of most interest to you? What are some good venues? We would like your answers to questions like these.

Our chapter events will also include brief evaluations. This isn’t to add drudgery to the events or make them look more fitting for a professional association; rather, we plan to actively use the information you give us through these evaluations to continually make our events more beneficial to you.

Well as a season ticket holder at the U, I remember November 25, 2006 all too well. For those of you who aren’t huge football fans, this was the date of the 2006 Holy War. Utah was ahead most of the game. In fact, the Utes had a 31-27 lead going into the final drive. That’s when the trouble began. Utah went to a prevent defense. I hate the prevent defense. The prevent defense only prevents a team from winning. And that’s exactly what happened. BYU marched the football up the field. Tick, tick, tick. But finally… it looked as if the Utah Defense might hold. BYU had gotten to the 11, but they had only three seconds left on the clock. One final play. Surely Utah had them.

That’s when the disaster struck. BYU snapped the final play of the game. The Utah Defense put pressure on John Beck. But the little weasel broke free. He went right. Just tackle him already. But it wasn’t to be. Right before John Beck got clobbered by a Utah Defender, he noticed that Johnny Harline had broken free on the far left. John Beck lobbed up an ugly pass. But it was good enough. Harline caught it. Touchdown. BYU wins.

In retrospect, this game and the Johnny Harline catch reminded me of an important fact. Teams, groups, and organization are only as strong as their weakest link. In the case of Utah, a missed assignment in the secondary cost the team a win. And it really doesn’t matter how talented an individual may be. No one can reach their full potential without helping the team succeed first. Even today I believe Utah had more talent on the field. But BYU won because they were the better team.

That’s the point I am trying to make. Teams are important! Teams… groups… organizations… they are always most successful when they work together. They improve when they have a unified vision. And they achieve excellence when people work together, not just for their own betterment, but for the betterment of the team.

It was for this reason—the reason being a sincere desire to improve our chapter (or team)—that the new executive council of the Intermountain-STC chapter met on Saturday, August 1, 2009. During our meeting, we spent much of our time re-evaluating the vision of our chapter. To sum up our meeting (in an extremely short summary), we hope to bring significant value back to our chapter. Although we created outlines for 15 terrific events, this was far from our primary focus. Instead, we worked hard to create a new vision for the chapter. And we developed corresponding goals that support this vision.

But these goals bring me back to teamwork. There is no better way for each of us to improve in our positions as Technical Communicators—not only within our organizations but also within our market—than through a strong, unified team. So this is the vision or goal of your next executive council. We want to facilitate the development of a strong chapter team.

We understand that for each of us, a strong, unified chapter might mean something different. For you, this might be a desire to improve personal knowledge regarding applications or concepts. Maybe it means developing leadership skills. Possibly it means being able to show your organization your value from a Return on Investment (ROI) perspective. Or maybe this simply means networking.

Whatever your situation may be—whether you are a current, active chapter member; a current, inactive chapter member; a technical communicator that allowed your chapter membership to lapse; a technical communicator that’s never joined STC; or a member of a sister organization—we invite you to join us this year in rebuilding the Intermountain-STC Chapter. As an executive council, we truly believe that we can strengthen our profession. But we all believe that this requires a strong team effort.

At the chapter's strategic planning meeting, we brainstormed ideas using post-it notes

At the beginning of August, the Intermountain Chapter board meeting met to discuss plans for the coming year. As part of the brainstorming session, we put our ideas about member value and needs on Lisa Ferrera’s fireplace using Post-it notes.

Here are a few notes from the meeting:

Action Items

• Put out a notice that people can join STC in October and get membership through 2010. (Tom)
• Finalize the 2009–2010 budget to send to STC. (Ben and Marj)
• Launch new website. (Tom)
• Solicit participation of previous competitors in competition this year. (Marj)
• Create outline of 2010 program. (Ben)

Member Benefits

Discussed benefits of being a member of STC, and a member of the chapter. Need to sell benefits to prospective members.

Events

Discussed member meetings/events that we can hold in 2009 and 2010. Discussed rotating events in 3 main counties: Utah, Salt Lake, and Davis.

Budget

Discussed budget for 2009 and 2010. We will not get any funding from National STC through 2010, so we will need to survive on the money we currently have in the bank, and any money we can raise through competitions, sponsors, site advertising, etc.