Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Bylaws are Done

We are pleased to announce that the Southwestern Ontario chapter bylaws are done and sent to Head Office for approval. Here are the highlights:
  • The elected directors are the President, Treasurer and Secretary, which is standard practice for a registered non-profit organization. The Corporations Act of Ontario requires at least three elected directors. The council consists of many other people (for example, webmaster and employment manager), who are "appointed" by the directors from those who volunteer.

  • The President can only be in office for two years. If the President wants to extend his or her term for a third year, there must be a vote at the annual general meeting.

  • The chapter must hold an annual general meeting that is open to all chapter members.

  • Any member with the support of nine others who belong to the chapter can require the council to hold a special meeting to deal with a specific issue.

I would like to thank the subcommittee that worked extra hours to develop, review and revise these bylaws. They are Jim Bousquet, Lori Jankowski, Debbie Kerr, Carol Lawless and Gord Varney.

If you would like to see the bylaws in their entirety, all 17 pages, send me a request: president@stc-soc.org.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Canadian Chapters Meeting #2

The Canadian chapter presidents had another meeting on September 22, 2009. Here are the highlights:
  • We are going to propose to Head Office that Canadian members be allowed to elect a Director who will represent Canadian interests.

  • We are developing a Canadian salary survey.

  • The chapters that have a surplus would like to voluntarily share at least some of it with Head Office. We recognize that the local members worked for that money and deserve to benefit from it, so we are working to balance our chapter's needs with Head Office's needs. We are currently negotiating with Head Office to find a way to do that.

  • We discussed contingency plans in case the STC organization goes bankrupt.
Feel free to comment if you have any concerns or ideas.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

STC Montreal Teams Up with Other Professional Organizations

I just heard about a one-day professional development and networking event for freelancers in Montreal on October 24, 2009. The STC chapter there has teamed up with other organizations to set up expert panel discussions. There's still time to get early-bird discount tickets. For more information, see http://mediaville.ca/.