By Cindy Pao, President, STC Houston

It is the time of year when things end. Certain other things then begin, among those things being summer and a quieter life at my house.
Our children have either finished the school year (the college one) or are winding up the school year (the middle schooler). My middle schooler reports tonight that he has four and one-half days of school left. That means three and one-half days of finals, after which I shall be, perhaps, happier than he will.

We are planning vacations. Perhaps we are planning to work a little harder. Maybe we are planning to goof off more. This is what summer lets us do.
And so it is that the STC Houston program year is winding down, too. The admin council will take somewhat of a break for a bit and then start up planning as summer starts to come to a close. We need the break. We’re tired.
Consider the accomplishments of the year:

• Five program meetings
• Two workshops: video and leadership
• One free webinar – our first
• Monthly networking lunches
• Quarterly Lone Writer SIG meet ups
• Dateline Houston gets its 20,000th hit
• 50th anniversary and its ensuing celebration
• Distinguished Chapter Service Award winner Erika Guerra Ramon
• Collaboration with the New York Metro and Philadelphia Metro chapter on the annual competition
• Chapter Achievement Award application
• CHAPTER OF DISTINCTION!
• MOST IMPROVED COMMUNITY!

[To be sure, there are more, and they are listed on the Chapter Achievement Award application. If you’d like to see it, let me know.]
We have a group of volunteers in our chapter who’ve worked hard to make all of this happen. Why, the CAA application took multiple hours and at least two meetings to complete. All that effort just to get recognition and validation for our chapter!
Did you check out any of these activities? We hope we did something – even a little thing – that has been valuable to you.
You need to remember, we did it all for you. Sure, we did it for us, too, but it was mostly for you.

June Program Meeting

I said it last month, and I’m saying it in a slightly different way again: The June program meeting is about recognition and information:

• Cheer and recognize and thank our awesome volunteers.
• Find out who are our active members.
• Take a look at the award-winning entry to the regional and international competitions.
• Sit back, listen to, and laugh at the lightning talks*.
• Pick up some free SWAG from years past (please help me get it out of my garage).
• Eat.
• A lightning talk is a presentation format where the speaker presents 20 slides, each displayed for 15 seconds, for a total talk time of 5 minutes.

I hope I’ll see you there. It won’t be the same without you!

Keep in Touch

I’m not going anywhere next year, so drop me a line! You can send email to president@stc-houston.org.