The STC International office requests a report on chapter activities three times a year. These are the results I submitted to the STC head office at the beginning of January, 2009. Our membership might also be interested in hearing about what the chapter has accomplished during Fall 2008, so I am delighted to share these highlights with you.

Membership decreases and increases

• 252 members Dec 31, 2008
• 217 members June 2008
• 290 members May 14, 2008
• 247 members Nov 28, 2007

The STC International has a membership renewal drive on from now until March 20, which we will be telling you about soon. As you can see, numbers go up and down, but our chapter size has been pretty consistent over the years, ranging between 200 and 300 members. My view is that the STC CWC has a well-established presence in the BC community, and that members come and go in an organic way as their needs change. Our chapter has connections with educational institutes that teach tech writing, to bring awareness of our existence to newcomers in the field. I think growth or change in size happens in an natural way that doesn’t need to be forced.

Community accomplishments

• Our volunteer team has grown from a handful in May, 2008 to 30 people!
• All executive volunteer positions have been filled, and we have new volunteers for many positions that were previously unfilled. Happily, we have a very competent, enthusiastic vice president who is preparing to take over the presidency in June.
• Monthly CIC SIG meetings have been well-attended, held in an informal atmosphere, and people really enjoy them.
• We had a program in September that was well-attended, and the November program had close to 100 attendees!!! The September meeting was our inaugural meeting as a virtual chapter, using technology to allow remote attendance, and with a remote speaker. This was very successful, although there were a few audio glitches. A committee is investigating our technology options for providing remote broadcasting for future programs.
• Executive/volunteer meetings in September and November were also very well-attended, with free dinner provided and the volunteer team continuing to strengthen connections. I believe that the supportive atmosphere where all contributions are valued has contributed to the growth in volunteers.
• The treasurer filed our financial report and we held our AGM in November. The treasurer reported that for the first time in 5 years the chapter is in the black! (But the bank account has been healthy for many years; we have just been investing heavily in the web site the past few years, so being in the red was not a bad thing.) Publishing the newsletter online has helped drastically reduce costs.
• All administrative functions for the chapter are flowing smoothly. The vice president has been handling all official emails, and the membership coordinator has assisted new members to access the features of the web site. The president and vice president prepared a preliminary budget for 2009, to be discussed with the executive team at the January volunteer meeting.
• The job bank continues to serve our members and employers, with job opportunities posted and everything functioning smoothly.
• The online chapter newsletter published three issues this fall, and we have a new online photo gallery to display member photos from program meetings and the volunteer appreciation lunch held in the summer.
• We have worked towards our strategic plan’s goal of making a difference through celebrating our individual achievements in our communities and families (during a portion of the September meeting) and through volunteers choosing to donate their volunteer appreciation gift to the Vancouver Food Bank—a total contribution of $300.
• The new online forum is very active, with 500 – 800 views of many topics. The topic with the highest number of views is on Making a Difference in the World, demonstrating that our strategic plan is in alignment with the interests of our membership. The forum has over 50 topics posted, with over 140 replies.
• We have made some improvements to the Wiki that gives instructions and resources for volunteers, including updating forms, adding missing documents, and providing new instructions for tasks. The web master is developing a web training session to teach volunteers how to use the site.
• The web master has made some other updates to the web site, including adding new RSS feeds and fixing the feeds that weren’t working.
• The past president created a "web sort" to survey members about the design of the home page for our web site, receiving input from many members, and is working on the redesign.
• The team created a new advertising policy for the online newsletter. We also have a thriving sponsorship program.
• Chapter member and Innovation Strategist Rahel Bailie was nominated to become an STC Fellow, in recognition of her significant contributions to the chapter and the profession.

Community challenges

• Job postings are slow, with 14 postings from September to December. This reflects the economic challenges the chapter membership is facing, as are many other communities in North America. A member reported in the forum having difficulty finding work, and this is certainly more challenging at present.
• As mentioned earlier, the audio portion for parts of the September program didn’t work, creating a disappointing experience for the remote participants.
• Some email thread discussions for the volunteer team became lengthy and we devised a new way of handling group discussion via the volunteer section of the forum.

Karen Rempel, STC CWC President 2008-2009