Writing the Next Chapter

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Writing the Next Chapter

Category:Infosec Communicator,Leadchange,STC,STC Rochester,Uncategorized Tags : 

Change is necessary but change is uncomfortable.

We should ignore the past. We should value the past. We should just do it. We should learn from past efforts. Do we dash forward, make our mistakes and sort things out as we go? Do we assess the path forward and move carefully down it? How strong should our sense of urgency be? How fast can and should we move forward? How do we mold individual desires into a shared vision?

We need to attract new members. We want to retain existing members. We have many senior members who have contributed faithfully to STC Rochester. We have new members who may not know our past but who are willing to pour themselves into redefining our organization and positioning ourselves for the future.

These are some of the issues we face as the council charged with stewarding the Rochester Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. We are a chapter with a long history of excellence. It’s time to write the next chapter.

I’m trying to find a path that allows us to retain theĀ  distinctiveness of what has made us STC Rochester while moving to a model that is sustainable and will foster growth. Part of this path forward includes implementing a marketing strategy. We’ve received our marketing plan from Neil Hair’s RIT Marketing Concepts class. The plan identifies key opportunities and strategies for growth. We’ve set up a subgroup to study the plan and bring forward recommendations to our October council meeting.

Our kickoff meeting is September 21st. We’re inviting prospective members and want to be sure we can articulate why they should join STC. There is a good bit of angst surrounding this.

We need to remember to have fun.

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2 Comments

benwoelk

August 31, 2010at 3:30 pm

Techquestioner,
We’re working to add variety in both formats and content, but are also working to publicize the events better among sister organizations and networking groups. We began integrating purely social events a couple of years ago, in part to maintain contact during our really cold and gray months.

One factor I omitted in the post was that we were unable to fill the Program Chair position through chapter elections and are relying on council members to fill the gap.

I didn’t want to give the impression that we’re finding this to be an insurmountable obstacle. It’s not, although it does lead to some interesting debates.

All of the STC Communities are facing challenges this year.
Ben

Techquestioner

August 31, 2010at 1:50 pm

One of the things that I think the Atlanta STC Chapter is doing successfully is providing meetings and other events with a wide variety of subject matter and types of presentations. They break up the educational meetings with a couple of purely social ones each year. Last year they had a Saturday Jobs workshop.

In a large chapter with a diverse membership, all the topics will not appeal to everyone, but diverse offerings bring in different mixes of members who are interested in specific topics. Old-timers don’t want “the same old thing” every month, but newcomers are turned off if everything is over their heads. Get a good Program Chairman and give that person all the support that you can to plan an exciting, educational, and diverse schedule.

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