Whats the point? Article 4: Provide services like meetings, publications, seminars and conferences.

This series has taken longer than I thought it would, which I guess must be a life lesson. That being said, let's get started!

The STC Australia Chapter's charter has as article 4:
"to provide services for Australian technical communicators in the form of meetings, publications, seminars and conferences"

Australian technical writers are widely dispersed, and our approach to providing these services has to recognize how far we live from one another. Hence, our monthly meetings are held online.

This Thursday's meeting promises to be a real hair-raiser! Over the course of up to two hours, we'll be discussing...
our stable financial position, our ongoing dialogue with HQ, and the AGM that is going down in August.

Not doing it for you? What would? Please, comment on the Facebook page or on Twitter about any of the questions I pose to you in this post.

One area where the Chapter's committee struggles is inducing the general membership to come to the meetings. Would a presentation on a cool technology or tool do it? What about a talk on project management for technical writers?

The STC itself has some good publications in the form of Intercom and Technical Communication. The STC Australia Chapter used to produce a newsletter, but stopped when it proved too hard to gather enough content and interest for 4 issues a year. This blog is the compromise, a way to provide STC Australia Chapter members with relevant content, without the hassle of putting a newsletter together.

Is blogging enough? Should we reinstate the quarterly newsletter as well? Would anyone reading this write for it?

Seminars are susceptible to the tyranny of distance. Webinars are the answer to the question, but require a significant investment for the committee to organize. The cost of producing them could be lowered by producing webinars in partnership with other technical communications organisations, but this is a strategy that we have yet to pursue. During my recent phone calls to STC Australia Chapter members, there was some interest in attending webinars, but no active interest.

A possible bridge to producing our own webinars is finding a way to get the webinar content produced by the STC to Australians in their own time zone. This is something we are currently pursuing, and is an effort that would take great strength from membership support. Like, a supportive email. Something like this:

"Hi, I am (YOURNAME), an STC Australia Chapter member for (SOMENUMBER) years. I'd really like to enjoy the webinars you produce, but can't stay up that late! Please, provide us with a way to learn from your seminars in a more friendly time. Sincerely, (YOURNAME)."

A conference is a great way to meet your peers, learn new things, network, and foster a sense of community. The STC Australia Chapter membership is hovering around 25 people, which is probably too few for a good conference. However, the ASTC puts on a yearly conference. I think the STC Australia Chapter could do quite a bit more in terms of involvement there.

Have you ever been to a technical communications conference? Why would you go again?

My approach to operationalizing (boom, nominalization!) charter article 4 is: find others who are already trying to provide these services, and work with them. That way, we can deliver value to our membership, without as big a time and energy cost falling on the committee of volunteers that turn up at the meetings every month. On the first Thursday of the month. At 7:30 AEST.

Check your email for the link.

 And please, comment on the facebook page or on twitter about any of the questions I posed to you in this post.