From the President

by Kit Brown, STC-SRC president

In keeping with the Chinese curse, March was an interesting month, filled with joy and sadness.

Joy

Congratulations to everyone who won an award in the publication, arts, and online competition! It was a pleasure to see all of the award winners and to emcee the event. I applaud the judges, who gave many hours of their time to review the items, and who so graciously shared their expertise in the form of feedback for the entrants. I encourage both award winners and judges to share their techniques, ideas, and best practices with others. This is one of the ways we gain strength as a profession and encourage professional development. I am proud to be associated with such a talented group of people.

Sadness

Richard Terra, a writer for Healthwise, died suddenly at the age of 46. He left behind 2 sons and a wife. Kent Laverty, one of his oldest friends, writes about Richard's life. Please keep Richard's family in your thoughts.

Elections

'Tis the season for chapter elections. Full members (those who selected either electronic or traditional options) will be receiving ballots in the mail shortly.

We are still looking for a program manager. This is one of the most important jobs in the chapter as you have the opportunity to shape the content of the meetings for a year, and then get to use that knowledge to lead the chapter as president the second year. This job requires about 10hrs/month.

But remember, just because you are leading a committee doesn't mean you have to do everything. Gathering a committee makes the job even easier, and has the added benefit of allowing the committee members to gain experience managing a meeting, and enables them to promote topics that most interest them or that they think are important to the chapter. Committee members could just commit to doing at least one meeting during the program year. (That's about 10 hours of your time limited to a particular month…)

Why volunteer? It gives you the opportunity to learn skills that you may not have the opportunity to learn on your job, it provides opportunities to network with colleagues (every job I've gotten has been as a direct result of my STC network), it looks good on your résumé, and contributing your knowledge, expertise, and time to the chapter improves our profession, enhances your career, and ensures the viability of the chapter.

Please contact Kit at president@stc-src.org if you are interested in helping!