Letter From the Immediate Past President

Greetings everyone,

On July 1, I turned the STC/SM Council over to our new president, Sharon McDonnell. We have just wrapped up a successful program year and will be attending to a few administrative tasks between now and the start of the 2016–2017 program year, so this seems like a good time to look back at the last two years.

  • Our membership has stabilized.
  • We worked with the UX community and AMWA in the interests of cross-pollinating ideas.
  • We had networking events at every time of day, and virtual and realtime programs all over the area.
  • We reexamined the Council meeting schedule. The two biggest changes are winter Council meetings online and a big Sunday afternoon meeting at the beginning of the program year to lay out the schedule and to start to fill in programs.
  • We earned two Pacesetter Awards, in 2014, for our website revamping process, and in 2015, for our Choose Your Own Learning Adventure programming in midwinter that introduced members to an STC member perk—webinars—and built a networking event on the theme of the webinars we selected for viewing.
  • We brought home a bronze Community Achievement Award (CAA) for 2015. We are working towards using the CAA rubric as our basis for planning, as the CAA is meant to reward responsiveness to member needs and good planning.
Sharon McDonnell presents a commemorative gavel to Pat Martz.
Sharon McDonnell presents a commemorative gavel to Pat Martz at the End-of-Year Potluck on Sunday, June 26, 2016.

Thank you to our Council members for all their work in the last two years. Sharon McDonnell, our new president, was a real help and sounding board as vice president. I’d also like to thank past presidents Maryann Bowen and Mary Jo David, who apprised me of chapter history and precedent and mentored me through my presidency. I appreciate your help and support very much; your counsel helped me to leave things somewhat better than I found them.

Alison Phillips, our new vice president, has agreed to serve as Secretary Pro Tem until someone steps into the job. Thank you Alison; you’ve done a terrific job, and we appreciate your willingness to continue.

However, if you, dear reader, think you would like to assume a leadership role, secretary is a great place to start. The most important part of this role is writing and distributing minutes for our meetings. Please email president@stc-sm.org for more information.

With that, we are in hiatus until our transition and planning meeting on Sunday, August 28, 1:00 p.m. Have a good summer.