By Cindy Pao, President, STC Houston
Each year, STC communities are asked to identify initiatives. If the community submits a Community Achievement Award application, we are required to include these initiatives on the application.
Here are the initiatives the Admin Council has identified for 2012:
- Re-energize STC Houston
- Relaunch the STC Houston newsletter, Dateline Houston
- New member welcomes throughout the year
- Hold more Share-the-Knowledge events
- Publicity
Chapter initiatives are important. They should help guide the chapter leaders to provide value to the membership. They help the chapter membership know what the chapter can help them learn and accomplish.
I hope that, through these initiatives, the chapter leads the way to technical communicators joining or rejoining STC. I want us to show that STC is the go to organization for their professional development needs.
For each of the initiatives, here are some of the activities I’d like to see us accomplish:
Re-energize STC Houston
- Reach out to current STC Houston members, former members, and not-yet-members to renew, re-join, or join STC
- Send letters to all STC Houston members and former members to talk up STC Houston and our 50th anniversary
- Send letters to faculty of technical communication programs at Houston-area universities; invite the faculty to come to STC Houston meetings; ask these faculty members to get their students involved with STC Houston and to allow STC Houston members to get involved with their students
- Send letters to Houston-area companies that employ or might employ technical communicators; work with the management at these companies to encourage their technical communicators to attend our meetings and events
- Host a 50th anniversary party for STC Houston to celebrate us
Dateline Houston
- Bring in a new editor for the newsletter
- Change the format for the newsletter to an interactive blog
- Advertise the newsletter via social media
- Encourage readers to comment on the posts
New Members
- Send each and every new member a welcome letter
- Add a new-member highlight article to Dateline Houston
- Hold a new-member luncheon twice during the year
- Identify new members at the program meetings
Share-the-Knowledge
- Host at least three STKs during the program year (2012-2013)
- Conduct an active search for STC Houston members to conduct STKs
- Share our system for planning and executing STKs with other STC communities
- Solicit ideas for improving STKs from other communities
Publicity
- Identify a chapter member to manage chapter publicity
- Identify media outlets in the Houston area where we can publicize chapter events
- Document media contacts and processes for event publicity
- Update chapter website often with new events
- Use social media to advertise chapter events
