STC Administrative Council Meeting Sept. 26, 2002
Present: Kymm Nelsen, Rachel Houghton, Teresa Shelton, Patti Loverink
Marilee Sauter, Christy Graunke, Kathee Kuvinka, Valerie Allison, Kellie
Pierce, Darinda LaFlash, Jean Richardson, Dave Grassmann, Kate Evans
*  We received qualifications for and a list of potential candidates for
Associate Fellow. Currently, Mark Ace and Katherine Murphy are our only
chapter Associate Fellows. We will e-mail two nominees to Kymm.
*  Rachel discussed Richard Lederer's program meeting last week. There
were 62 RSVPs, but only 42 showed up. Thirteen were walk-ins, for a
total attendance of 55. Rachel received 36 evaluations, and, on a scale
of 1 to 5, the following areas got an average value of:
Topic accurately represented in publicity:             4.8
Speaker presented material effectively:                4.88
Topic was relevant to my job/ professional interests   4.2
Meeting conveyed something about value about tec comm   4.375
Meeting facilities were:                               4
The food was:                                          3.7
    We discussed our on-going problem with people who RSVP and don't
show up, and we decided to follow the lead of many other chapters and
institute a prepay policy, using Paypal. (People will still be able to
pay at the door.) We will make sure the prepay and refund policy are
posted. We also will make sure that if events are at PSU that we will
include MAX/Trimet instructions.
*  Rachel is our Volunteer of the month for her hard work in putting the
Lederer meeting and workshop together. She will receive a $25
certificate from Amazon.
*  Rachel and Christy spoke about what we need to do for a Chapter
Achievement Award. Christy indicated we need to update our brochure to
include the new logo and officers.
*  Patti briefed us on the Senior Panel, which is designed to meet the
needs of our senior members and help them become more involved in the
chapter. One issue is program meeting topics geared for senior members.
Since the Senior Panel is Patti's brainchild, she will  be the Senior
Member representative to the admin council this year. The Panel has not
yet met, but will before the Senior Member Breakfast in October. Patti
will organize the meeting. Marilee said the student chapter would be
interested in having Senior Members speak at the student chapter, and we
briefly discussed setting up a Speaker's Bureau and having a database of
the Senior Member expertise.
*  Dave and Jean reported on their focus group of eight which has been
meeting this summer. The topic: professional resiliency, the challenge
of being resilient, reinventing yourself, finding work, and advancing
your career in the current economy. We discussed whether Jean and Dave
are proposing a new SIG or a SIG coordinator with a cluster of SIGs. Two
factors, Phyllis is very busy at work and will not be able to continue
with the Entry Level SIG; the Contractors' SIG has had steadily
declining numbers for some time. (We're wondering if quarterly instead
of monthly meetings for the Contractors' SIG would make sense.)
   Jean proposed we have a Progressive Meeting to discuss resiliency and
career management issues before we establish a new SIG or a SIG cluster
coordinator. The topics could include interpersonal and negotiating
skills, personality inventories, ethical issues, career progression, and
retooling in the current economy. Names for the Focus Group/SIG were
discussed, such as Career Development or Leadership.
   We were wondering if, given the current economy, we need to change
the focus of the Entry Level SIG to retooling issues, career paths, and
broadening the idea of what tec comm is. We also talked about calling it
a workshop, not a SIG, and making it an overview of technical
communication, not getting started in tec comm.
*  Dave reported we had 11 people at the Lederer workshop and made
$912.50
*  Dave read Mike Engel's minutes from the Single Sourcing meeting.
There were 20 attendees, with 9 nonmembers. Bryan Schabel, a data
architect from Tek, presented an intro to XML. He talked about some of
the tools and sister technologies and demonstrated how Tek is using XML
as a single sourcing option for their spec sheets and  how they're using
SVG for graphics.
*  Dave had this announcement from Michael Horenstein of the
Contractors' SIG. In Oct. William Clive, a CPA, will be speaking.
November's meeting will feature medical writers. December might be a
yoga demo. They are also considering a ten year anniversary celebration.
Diane Purser has been helping Michael with the SIG.
*  Jean suggested Kymm post to the presidents' list to see how the SIGs
are doing in the other chapters.
*  Marilee Sauter reported that the Rose City student chapter will have
a program 10/26 on career paths in technical communication. Garret
Romaine will speak about five ways to make six figures in technical
writing.
*  Dave reported that we have $11,372.85 in our checking account,
$2.626.92 in our money market account, and $300 in Paypal for a total of
$14,299.77. We are expecting $10,000-$12,000 in membership dues from
national. We discussed having a rainy day fund; we also discussed
putting a percentage of our funds into our money market fund.
*  Our next administrative council meeting will be Thursday, Dec. 5th.
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