Canadian Chapters Meeting #3

The Canadian chapter presidents had another meeting on November 11. Here are the highlights:

• Our request to the Society (Head Office) to enable us to elect a Canadian director has been turned down.
  
• The Alberta chapter has shared their salary survey questions with the other Canadian chapters, where they will be reviewed to see how they can be used to perform our own Canadian salary survey.
  
• Our chapter offered the Society an interest-free loan for two years, and the Society turned down the offer. As a result, our chapter will keep all surplus funds to pay for our chapter activities. The Society will not have to cover a shortfall in our budget for years to come.
  
• Two other Canadian chapters have decided to make a gift of some of their surplus funds.
  
• All Canadian chapters are interested in amending the international chapter affiliation agreement, which the Society says is open for amendments because it no longer reflects the new relationship between the Society and the international chapters. The Toronto chapter and our chapter have been drafting an amended agreement, and we will share it with the other chapters and the Society.
  
• The Toronto chapter discovered that the council members are actually covered by the Society’s Directors and Officers (D&O) insurance, contrary to information that we were previously given. This means that each chapter does not have to buy their own insurance, saving us hundreds of dollars annually. We have a copy of the policy which specifically states that Canada is a jurisdiction that is covered.
  

We discussed a mutual concern about getting new and existing members to join/renew their memberships not only with the Society, but with our chapter. The new dues structure makes it easier for people to join the STC without joining a specific chapter; in fact, people will have to pay an additional fee if they want to become a member of any chapter. Since the amount of funding available from the Society depends on the number of members who join chapters, people who choose to become members of the Society only will have a big impact on what services the chapters will be able to provide.

We decided that a three-tier pricing policy (one for non-members, one for STC members, and one for chapter members) was unwanted overhead. Instead, chapters decided that a two-tier approach would be easier to manage. The structure of those tiers is something that each chapter will have to decide. For example, one option would be to give discounts to all STC members (regardless of whether or not they are a member of the chapter). Another option would be to give discounts only to members of the chapter. In all cases, fees paid for events will go directly to the chapter.

If you have any questions or concerns about these issues, please feel free to comment, or send an email directly to president@stc-soc.org.