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.

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...

A Conversation with Head Office

Cindy Currie, President of the STC, talked to our chapter and other Canadian chapters about our reluctance to give our surplus funds to STC Head Office, and our general feeling that we are not fully integrated in the international organization. There were representatives from the Canada West Coast, Alberta, Manitoba, Eastern Ontario, Toronto, and Montreal chapters, as well as us. Cindy was joined by Susan Burton, Executive Director/CEO, and Aiessa Moyna, Treasurer. We had a very constructive and enlightening conversation; these are the highlights:

• Canadian chapters are not legally obliged to give surplus funds to STC Head Office.


• Cindy made the case that if we want to see the STC survive, we should be motivated to help them out financially because without enough funding, the STC will collapse. Passing surplus funds to Head Office is meant to be a temporary measure to see them through the financial crisis.


• The Canadian chapters pointed out several important services that Head Office does not provide, such as a Canadian salary survey and group insurance. The Canadian chapters discussed taking the initiative to implement these purely Canadian services. Cindy said that the Society might fund these initiatives if we presented them with a business case.


• The Canadian chapters discussed whether to form a national organization.

The Canadian chapters are currently discussing where to go from here. In my opinion, all Canadian STC members would benefit from closer co-operation between the Canadian chapters, but whether there is enough collective will to form a national organization remains to be seen.

The Southwestern Ontario chapter is currently setting the budget for the rest of 2009 and 2010 to meet Head Office's deadline of August 17. As part of the budget discussion, we will explore what, if anything, we can do to help Head Office out of their financial crisis.

Your thoughts and feedback are always welcome.

I'll keep you posted on any new developments.

The Current State of Affairs

The STC Head Office has provided information about how this financial crisis came about, how they have already cut costs, and what they would like to do to remedy this situation. In addition, they have provided answers to frequently asked questions. You can read the articles about each of these items at http://www.stc.org/LCR/state-of-the-society.asp (you must be able to log into the STC site to read these).

However, if you want to read a summary before deciding if you want more detail, here are the highlights:

• The shortfall for 2009 is $1.2 million USD, but Head Office plans to cover that shortfall with $400 000 from their reserves and $250 000 through a line of credit. This means that they have to obtain about $500 000 from other sources.
  
  
• The shortfall is due to a drop in reserves that were held in investments, a decrease in the number of members, and a decrease in attendance at the annual conference. These are the three main areas that the STC usually depends on to sustain itself. However, although members are a source of income, the cost of serving a member actually exceeds the cost of a membership. To keep the cost of membership down, Head Office has been making up the difference through the revenue generated from their conference and their investments. Unfortunately, this year there is not enough revenue.


• Head Office has implemented cost-cutting measures such as moving the office to cheaper quarters and not replacing two staff members.


• They would like to make up the $500 000 shortfall by raising dues, increasing educational offerings (for example, more Web seminars), asking for individual and corporate donations, and asking chapters for any surpluses they have in their bank accounts. Our chapter has a substantial surplus from previous years when our Education Days were very successful.


• To encourage all chapters to provide programs, and to spread the wealth around to needier chapters, Head Office is changing its accounting method to zero-based budgeting. This means that chapters must submit a budget to Head Office each fiscal year (something that we already do), but now Head Office must approve it prior to us implementing it. Then, instead of regularly receiving funds based on the number of members of the chapter, chapters will receive funds only if they cannot cover all the budgeted expenses themselves. Any excess reserves or profit that a chapter accummulates must be given to Head Office.
  

Lots of other money-generating and cost-cutting measures have been suggested and debated. If you want to follow these discussions or add some of your own, check out the STC Ideas group on the Ning network (http://twitzap.com/u/MDk?xgi=6X1VNGI).

As you can imagine, this chapter is reluctant to surrender the reserves in our bank account with little direct benefit to our members. Also, the legal relationship between our chapter in Canada and Head Office in the USA is not clear. Both sides are working to understand what this means. As we understand more and choose a definitive path, I'll share this information with you through this blog.

In the meantime, the administrative council of this chapter is trying its best to ensure that you get as many (if not more) services and programs as we have offered in the past. We hope to minimize the effects of the turmoil surrounding Head Office. Let us know if you have specific concerns, questions or suggestions.

Welcome to the Southwestern Ontario STC Blog!

We've started this blog because the Society for Technical Communication (STC) is experiencing a financial crisis due to the global recession. As a result, there may be many changes taking place that will affect you as a member. Since developments are happening fairly rapidly, we thought you might like to keep informed through this blog. I'll be updating it at least once a week, and you can comment on my postings.

To make sure you are kept up-to-date, you can subscribe to be notified when there are new postings to the blog.

Depending on interest and our volunteer council's ability to keep it up-to-date, we may continue the blog after the financial crisis is over. Please provide your feedback.