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Journals by EmailNear the end of May, the Intermountain Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication installed the officers for the 2010–11 year. I handed the presidential position off to Paul Pehrson (otherwise known as Doc Guy), who had been my vice president.
The last year wasn’t as amazing as I’d hoped, but we did a few things right.
Filled Leadership Positions
When I ran for president, we had no current president (due to circumstances that I won’t explain here). Our treasurer/programs manager/competitions manager was keeping things going, with help from the immediate past president. I had just taken over a few months previous as the webmaster because the previous one became unable to continue. Our ship was staffed by a skeleton crew and was probably close to being decommissioned by the central office.
After the treasurer and I ran for office and won, I set about filling up the chapter leadership positions. I asked the prior year’s immediate past president to remain in that position for one more year, and she accepted. I recruited Paul to serve as vice president and someone else as the public relations manager. Within a short time, a former chapter president stepped forward to serve as secretary, and another person offered to take the employment manager position. A previous education manager also returned.
It didn’t take long to get nearly a fully staffed chapter, and I was pretty proud of that. I think that after the year the chapter had just experienced, people responded when they saw that someone was sitting in the driver seat and had a foot on the accelerator. The great group we assembled paved the way for other accomplishments.
Survival
Even as voting was going on, I attended the 2009 STC Summit and found out about the million-dollar shortfall. What a fun thing to step into. Not only was I trying to keep the chapter’s collective head above water, but now I had to help the overall organization do the same thing. But I tried to know what was going on, keep the board informed, and get the chapter members’ thoughts and feelings about these events. I could have done better at letting the chapter know what was happening and at trying to recruit new members. However, we did what headquarters asked us to do, meaning that we created a zero-based budget and sent some funds to them so STC could come out of the red.
Ultimately, though the chapter came out of the dues restructuring with only 30 to 35 members, we’re moving forward.
Events
We offered a greater variety of events over this last year. Previously, most of our chapter meetings were in a presentation format. However, we introduced formats such as discussion forums and greater opportunities for networking. We also extensively explored doing webinars and half-day events, which we are introducing this year.
On top of that, we saw a 100% increase in attendance at some of our events. Attendance had been pretty scarce over the last year, and it began climbing back up. This isn’t to say that our events are packed, but by comparison, we made a big jump.
Chapter Website
Tom Johnson took on the webmaster position when I became president, and he led the effort with his WordPress expertise to making the chapter website a more dynamic source of information. The new website was a big step forward in engaging chapter members and providing up-to-date chapter information.
I should add that Tom opened a chapter Twitter account through which we automatically announce updates to the website.
Wrap-up
I’m not sure I was ready to be president of a chapter when I ran, but I knew our chapter needed a president last year or we would be sunk. Our treasurer needed more support. I certainly could have accomplished more, but I think our chapter saw a good year in spite of the challenges. Paul is enthusiastic and has a lot of great ideas, so I expect things to continue getting better.
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4 Comments to 'A Look Back on a Year as an STC Chapter President'
June 18, 2010
I love the graphic of “Installing new officers” – it really made me laugh. From the amount of stuff I read about your Chapter I’d never have guessed you had so few members. Clearly the dedication and enthusiasm you and your fellow officers are putting in makes up for that, and I’m sure it will bear fruit in the longer term. In the meantime you all seem to enjoy what your doing, and that’s really important.
June 18, 2010
You have a lot to be proud of, Ben. You breathed new life into the Intermountain chapter. That’s always a major accomplishment — but it was especially so given that “big” STC was going through its own tribulations.
Let me say a sincere Thank You. I don’t live in Utah, and I’m not a member of your chapter. But having a strong community like yours, regardless of location, is good for the whole profession.
June 18, 2010
Ben, I second Larry’s “Thank You,” the Intermountain Chapter is a great role model that other chapters could learn from. As a former officer of a now-defunct student chapter I’ve seen the downward spiral that a struggling chapter can take. It’s wonderful to hear of your success and I hope other chapters are inspired to keep on trekking on as well.
June 23, 2010
Thanks for the comments. After I posted this, I thought of another thing that went well over the last year, but I’ve forgotten it. But I bet it was awesome.
But I think we’re headed in the right direction. Our half-day event on Friday was a success, and we’ll have a post by one of the attendees about it on the chapter site soon.