Sunday, August 16, 2009

Canadian Chapters Meeting #1

As a result of the current financial crisis at STC Head Office and the need to ensure that Canadian members receive services that are relevant to this country, the presidents (or delegates) of the Canadian chapters met via a teleconference on August 12. The Canada West Coast, Alberta, Manitoba, Southwestern Ontario and Montreal chapters participated in the discussion, but the Toronto and Eastern Ontario were unable to join us.

To address the need to create value for Canadian STC members at a Society level, we decided that we would ask the Society to create a position for a Canadian director. To make this a convincing request, the Canadian chapters want to jointly present a business case. All the chapters are looking for volunteers to write the business case and to share ideas about what the benefits would be of the new position to both Canadian STC members and the Society as a whole.

In addition to discussing getting more value for Canadian members, the chapters also compared notes on plans to help the Society with the financial crisis. Most chapters intend to help in a monetary fashion, but the terms and amounts are still under discussion.

Although the teleconference meetings are restricted to chapter presidents or a delegate, we are responsible for representing our council's opinions and ideas. Council members are welcome to participate in an online discussion site, which serves to set the agenda for meetings. All chapter members are welcome to contact their presidents or other council members to voice their opinions or ask questions.

The Canadian chapters are planning another meeting to check on the progress of action items from the first meeting, as well as to discuss contingency plans if the Society should fail to overcome the financial crisis. It looks like this will be the first of many meetings.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Canadian Chapters Are Meeting

The Canadian Chapters would like to discuss how and how much we can co-operate to provide more services for Canadian STC members. Due to the vacation season, it's taken a while to find a date when a representative from each Canadian chapter can meet via a conference call. That call is now scheduled for August 12, so check back next week to see the results of that meeting.

In the meantime, the council has created a budget for 2009-2010 and we plan to submit it to Head Office to meet their deadline of August 17. The council is also working on finalizing the by-laws which is a requirement of registering as a non-profit organization.


More to come...