Tips for Renewing or Buying an STC Membership

As I was renewing my membership, I found out a few things that I didn't read before starting the online process. I also found out a few things by asking STC Head Office. To help you avoid some surprises, or perhaps to answer some questions before you ask them, here are my personal discoveries (all prices are in US dollars):

• A Basic STC membership no longer gives you membership in a chapter or a SIG. Each chapter membership now costs an additional $25, and a SIG membership costs $10 each.


• If you do not renew your membership by February 28, 2010, you are subject to an extra renewal fee of $15.


• If you do not renew your membership for a year, you are subject to an extra renewal fee of $30.


• When you buy an STC membership for the first time, there is an additional initiation fee of $30.


• If you want printed versions of the publications, the magazine Intercom is $30 + $7.50 for postage to Canada; the journal Technical Communication is $75 + $7.50 for postage to Canada.


• You have the option of paying your total dues in four equal installments over the course of the year.


• If you want to add a chapter or SIG membership to your existing membership, you can do it over the course of the year.

To buy or renew your membership, go to the STC Head Office website.

If you discover something useful about buying or renewing a membership that isn't listed here, feel free to leave a comment.

The Toronto chapter and the Southwestern Ontario chapter of the STC would like to hold a joint workshop session on April 19 and 20, 2010, but the questions are where and about what topics?

Please fill in the following brief survey (http://www2.stctoronto.org/get-involved/next-event/survey) if you think you would like to attend one or two days of in-depth training at an affordable price. If you provide your contact information, we'll put your name in for a draw for a free workshop pass.

Survey closes Friday, December 18, 8:00 pm.

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.

Content Reuse Education Evening

No matter what your business, efficient communication is crucial to your success. With that in mind, are the writers and content managers in your company working efficiently? Unless you are doing everything possible to reuse your content throughout your organization, you’re wasting time and money.

This special event is designed for a broader group of communicators beyond the technical writing community. We’ve assembled a team of content reuse experts for this session, which is open to anyone in the business community. As you’ll see when you attend, content reuse is not just for the technical writing community. The principles and applications are relevant to virtually any content environment. No matter what your business or your function, you can reuse your content.

Pamela Kostur, a partner at Parallax Communications in Toronto and a recognized content management expert, will describe the benefits of writing for reuse, and the process of planning and creating reusable content. Bryan Lynn, a founder of Thirty Six Software in Indianapolis, will demonstrate SmartDocs, an MS Word add-in that integrates the power of content reuse in the Word environment, and uses Microsoft SharePoint to centralize storage of reusable content and configure reusable content metadata.

The event concludes with a hands-on Smart Docs training session, conducted by Front Runner Training of Toronto, a recognized leader in technical communication training. Participants will also receive a trial version of the Smart Docs software to start work on reusing their own content.

Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Time: 6:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:00
Location: University of Waterloo, Arts Lecture Hall, Room AL 208
Cost:

In person: members are free; non-members are $5

Webinar: members are $10; non-members are $20 (to cover the cost of each network meeting line)

Registration and Payment: See our website.

FrameMaker User Network Meeting

Front Runner Training hosts a F.U.N. meeting...

Kitchener, Ontario
Tuesday November 17th, 2009

University of Waterloo
J.R. Coutts Eng. Lecture Hall
Room 212 (RCH 212)
6:00pm-8:00pm

Map of University

Tim Grantham will discuss DITA and FrameMaker 9.

Mark James from Adobe Systems Canada will provide a high level overview of Adobe Acrobat 9 3-D to show its cool capabilities!

Help us give a kid a Christmas this holiday...At all our events we are accepting new, unwrapped toy donations for the CP24/CHUM Christmas Wish.

Here is a link to register to the event...http://www.front-runner.com/Events.php?eid=1

Thanks, hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Veronica Kütt
President
Front Runner Training,
a Div. of Front Runner Publishing Solutions Inc.
416-515-0155
Call Toll free: 1-877-999-0155
veronica@front-runner.com

"Learn what you wish you'd known yesterday!"®

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.

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.