STC Toronto presents Management Day

The Toronto Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication is hosting Management Day, an interactive event designed to help technical communicators learn three important elements of effective communication:“Be Agile, “Always consider Users” and “Improve content through reuse”. Management Day: Elements of Effective Communication (sponsored by Front Runner Training) will be held on Feb 26th, from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm at Front Runner, 21 St Clair Ave. E, Toronto, ON. The event will feature four speakers who have real world experience in their areas of expertise. Participants will have a chance to meet each of these four speakers outside of their seminars before the day commences, during breaks, as well as during both the panel discussion and feedback and closing. Registration and payment is required in advance, and the cost to attend the event is $49 for members, students and affiliates; and $99 for non-members. To find out more about this event, as well as review the speakers and peruse seminar topics, just follow this link: http://www2.stctoronto.org/get-involved/events/management-day.

Canadian Questions Posed to STC Election Candidates

The presidents of the Canadian chapters agreed that it would be helpful to our voting members if we asked the candidates some questions that are relevant to Canadian STC members. The questions were:

• How would you propose to make international chapters like Canada feel more like they are a part of the bigger organization?
• What would you do to convince Canadian members that they should pay the same membership dues as Americans, when many of the STC services do not apply to Canada?
• Are you aware that the International Affiliation Agreement is currently being reworked, and what do you think it should contain?

These questions were posed on February 1 to candidates running for all positions: director, secretary, and nominating committee. They each had a choice of whether to answer them or not. The following people chose to answer them as of February 11:

• Mak Pandit: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/makarand-pandit-member-questions/. Mak requested a copy of the International Affiliation Agreement, so I sent it to him. He responded by email:
  “Since I could not answer your question I had asked forwarded it and the reply I got is STC is working with it lawyers to update this agreement. The updated agreement will then be sent to the chapters.”
• Tricia Spayer: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/tricia-spayer-member-questions/.
• Nathaniel Lim (answered one of the three questions): http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/nathaniel-lim-member-questions/
• W. C. Wiese: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/wc-wiese-member-questions/.
• Nicky Bleiel: http://notebook.stc.org/2010-election/nicky-bleiel-member-questions/

Please feel free to scan the other candidates’ answers to see if they have responded to these questions after this blog post. You can also pose questions of your own if you are an STC member. Note that you must have paid for your membership before February 28, 2010 to be eligible to vote. Voting starts on March 9.

We hope this additional information will help you decide who to vote for.