Career Day with STC Toronto

STC Toronto has invited us to their Career Day and Resume Workshop on Tuesday, September 29, 2009. Southwestern Ontario STC members get in for free. See http://www2.stctoronto.org/get-involved/next-event for the details.

Education Evening - English Usage Guide for Writers and Editors

Hobgoblins, Salad Forks, and Hard and Fast Rules: An English Usage Guide for Writers and Editors
Presented by Alan Yoshioka, PhD (University of Waterloo alumnus, Chair of the Toronto Branch of the Editors' Association of Canada)

When is it okay to boldly split an infinitive? To use a sentence fragment? Even if you were lucky enough to be taught much grammar in school, you might not know which rules are still considered current and which have gone the way of the rotary phone. Sometimes there are several correct ways to make a point, and the choice between them is just a matter of emphasis, while at other times the main concern is to maintain internal consistency within a document. Then there are usages that are unsuitable for a given context and audience.

Learn to distinguish matters of editorial taste from rules that should really be followed all the time. Also get tips for dealing tactfully with team members when there’s a usage point on which they’re dead certain, and dead wrong. Come with questions about the rules you’re anxious about—or about which you’re anxious.

Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Time: Presentation begins at 7:00 p.m. / Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for networking
Where: Room DC1304 at the Davis Centre, University of Waterloo
Cost: Free for members and non-members

For more details go to http://www.stc-soc.org/calendar/2009-10-06.php

By-Laws Almost Completed

The council is taking steps to register with the Ontario government as a non-profit organization. This would make the chapter a legal entity and allow it to enter into agreements with other organizations (such as banks and hotels), instead of forcing one of the council members to be responsible for the agreement. It also requires the chapter to develop by-laws defining how the chapter is run and how decisions are made. Once registered, the chapter must make annual reports to the government, proving that the chapter is meeting the standards of a non-profit organization.

The first step has been writing our by-laws and ensuring they comply with the requirements for a non-profit organization. The by-laws define:

• Who the elected officers are


• How and when elections are held


• Which council members are appointed


• The roles and responsibilities of the elected officers and appointed members


• How all chapter members can have a voice in running the affairs of this chapter


• The chapter's relationship with Head Office

The by-laws have to be approved by Head Office. After that, we can submit them to the government of Ontario along with our application for non-profit status.

If you would like to see a copy of the by-laws before they become official, please contact me, Fei Min Lorente, at president@stc-soc.org.

Webinar on Structure 2.0-Knowledge Delivery at Symantec

The Southwestern Ontario Chapter of the STC is hosting this webinar (Structure 2.0—Knowledge Delivery at Symantec) on Wednesday, September 16, 2009.

Location: PEER Group, 72 Victoria St. South, Kitchener

Time: 1:00 to 2:30 pm

Description

Learn how the information developers at Symantec went from information in a book paradigm to topic-based, on-demand user assistance, and all the advantages of that transition.

Presenter

Tristan Bishop has been driving documentation process improvement since 1996. These efforts have included: building a knowledge management strategy for Wells Fargo Online; crafting an XML publishing environment for Invio Software; managing multiple documentation teams; migrating VERITAS FrameMaker documentation into topic-based XML; unifying Symantec stakeholders to ensure optimal content delivery.

For more information about the webinar and the speaker, see http://www.stc.org/edu/seminars01.asp.

Fee

At the PEER Group location (sponsored by the Southwestern Ontario Chapter STC):

• Free for members and $35CAD for non-members.

At any location (sponsored by STC Head Office):

• $79USD for members and $149USD for non-members

Registration

To attend the webinar at PEER Group, email Tracey Aitcheson. Please provide your membership number if you are a member.

To attend the webinar from any other location, register here: https://access.stc.org/imispublic/Core/Events/eventdetails.aspx?iKey=WEB0916.

More Details

Watch the calendar page on our website for more details.