Manager’s Report

By Dawnell Claessen

Conference Notes

I had the distinct privilege of attending the STC’s 56th Annual Conference May 3-6 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Even in these tough times, it was wonderful to be amongst my peers.

Monday morning the SIG held our "face to face" meeting and I was excited by our turnout. P&P SIG had about 15 members in attendance which made for a lively discussion about our working community of practice and our professional environment.

Monday afternoon I attended a great educational session called Ten Tips for Tastier Tasks, A Lighthearted Look at Improving Procedures, by Leah Guren. This presentation was so well done that I approached the speaker about putting together a presentation for all our SIG Members. I’ll keep you posted on this effort.

Later on Monday afternoon, I went to the annual STC Business meeting. There seemed to be a lot of good news / bad news talk. The Society is facing a large budget deficit and must act on that, but membership renewals were strong.

By the way, P&P SIG membership stands at about 600, this is down by about 180 members. A lot of folks are losing their jobs, but many are finding new ones or are at least finding contract work.

Still, job confidence and the lack of job security seemed to be on everyone’s mind. I certainly know that feeling, being an employee of a large defense contracting firm.

Our SIG Progression Session was on Wednesday morning and it was VERY well attended. Over the course of the two hours, we each did our presentations four times for more than 60 attendees - just on our side of the room. Check out the "conference online link" to view session materials that have been uploaded.

Ralph Robinson and Sharon Burton Recognized

Congratulations to P&P SIG members Ralph Robinson and Sharon Burton. At Tuesday night’s Honors Banquet, Ralph was made STC Fellow and Sharon Burton was made Associate Fellow.

Volunteer Recruiting

P&P SIG is actively recruiting volunteers and I want to make this very easy for you. If you don’t feel you want to take on a position, just volunteer to take on a task and see how it goes.

For example, we need a Membership Manager, but if you don’t want to take that on, maybe you would volunteer to send out a welcome email to new members once a month?

We also need a Co-Manager for the SIG, but if you don’t want to take that on, perhaps you’d be interested in managing our proposal for next year’s conference?

Or maybe you’d consider writing an article for the newsletter, or moderating a topic on the list serve, doing a book review or writing simple quarterly reports or budgets for the SIG? Come on! Step up, your SIG needs you.

Need a good reason to volunteer? Check out Guy Ball’s article in this issue called "Smart Volunteering".