Program Year Summary

by Rick Sanchez, Vice President, Communications

Accomplished, rewarding, and exciting are a few words that come to mind when I describe this year’s events held by the Houston STC chapter. Truly, I can say that the STC Houston committee managers and volunteers have broadened the depth and breath of the organization. These volunteers have such a wide range of experience that their perspective and problem-solving initiative are, ostensibly, inexhaustible. Together, the communication managers and their respective committees have, in my opinion, exceeded all expectations.

Newsletter Committee

Take, for instance, the editors of Dateline Houston—wow, I could get creative and make that into an acronym, but I am a technical writer, so I won’t try it. However, the effort that the team (Rebecca Taylor, Yvonne Wade Sanchez, Jan Brantley, Melanie Boston, and Jamie Diamandopoulos) put forth this year is nothing short of exceptional. It was a pleasure to have seen all their efforts come to fruition. I sincerely hope that the torch remains lit for years to come.

Website Committee

Let us not forget our other modes of communication; our Website has been the hub of the chapter’s communication for many years now. We owe a debt of gratitude to our tireless and dedicated group of volunteers. Robert Delwood has seen his group grow in the last year. Robert and Paul Mueller worked to revamp the appearance, usability, and interactivity of the site. The webmaster spent many development hours keeping up with the demands of the chapter; his efforts were matched only by the amount of new and rewarding opportunities that continue to unfold for the webmaster and his team of volunteers. Indecently, the webmaster’s team grew with the return of Erika Frensley. Her re-entry to the team was pivotal during the STC banquet registration process. She brought a degree of historical and technical expertise that eased the management of what is possibly one of the site’s busiest endeavors.

Mailing List (STC Houston ListServ) Committee

Let us not forget also (not redundant, just parallel construction) that we have additional peer-to-peer modes of communication. Anne Smith has successfully managed our listserv for many years now and is quietly working on providing us with a more robust peer-to-peer and bulk communication model. She is working with members of the technical support team at the society level to help standardize our chapter’s email communication tool. You will learn more about that in the coming months. Both traditional and nontraditional methods are being explored and like the STC-Houston forums, established technologies are easing the role of today’s communicators.

Forums Committee

The STC-Houston forums continue to experience increased use; our employment manager and other great volunteers have used this tool to inform the community of hundreds of job openings. Along with that benefit, the STC-Houston forum provides updates to current events and is used by the STC administrative council as a public presentation tool to render their decisions and keep track of their action items. The STC-Houston forum is technically maintained by our webmaster team and is actively monitored by yours truly (someone has to take out the trash). Seriously, though, the communication team has room for more dedicated professionals, so if you would like to exhibit your communication acumen or polish your more technical skills, please send me a line.

For a truly accomplished year, I congratulate all the members of the communication team!