By Anjela Dukes, Carolina Chapter President

Is it over? Well sort of. As I sift through notebooks, folders, and old emails to make sure that I pass along all of the important stuff to our incoming president, Larry Kunz, I become a little nostalgic as I think about all of the wonderful experiences that I’ve had during my tenure as president. In this farewell message, I’d like to take a quick look back at some of events that left lasting impressions for me over the past two years.

• The Transformation Initiative! The Carolina chapter was approved as re-chartered at the January 2005 STC Board of Directors Meeting. What does this mean? Our chapter had to evaluate the services we provide to our members and the administrative council had to make decisions regarding chapter communication, membership value, and budget issues to ensure that we meet local community and society goals.
• Who could forget Tri-Doc 2005?! Over 200 people attended this conference that featured speakers from all over the country and provided sessions about emerging technologies, advanced “tools of the trade,” and other technical communication topics.
  
  

  Tri-Doc 2005 banner
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  Chocolate mousse pie%%%at the Awards Banquet
  STC Carolina Chapter Technical Competitions and the awards banquet. I've had the privilege of serving as a judge for our chapter's technical competition and attending the awards banquet that showcases exceptional work in the field.
  
  

  Winners accept their awards

Some fun stuff, too!

• Membership Picnics! For the past three years the Carolina chapter has hosted membership picnics at Lake Crabtree. This outing is a great place to meet new, not-so-new,and potential members. We play networking games, talk about the great events our chapter holds, and of course eat :)
• Getting to know our members!Serving as president has given me the wonderful opportunity to meet some of the best in the field. I have a support group of experts (aka friends) that I can email or call during any technical communication crisis. Sometimes we even get together outside of STC events to discuss ideas and network!
  
  

  Tea party at The Pineapple Tea Room in downtown Apex.

Most recently, I had the honor of representing the Carolina chapter at STC’s annual conference May 7–10, 2006, in Las Vegas, NV. Here are some highlights of my favorite moments at the conference.

• I attended leadership day where I yelped for joy as I sprang from my chair to accept the Chapter of Excellence Award on behalf of the Carolina chapter. This year makes the fourth year in a row the Carolina chapter brought home this honor!! This award recognizes our community’s exceptional accomplishments for demonstrating outstanding, innovative, and sustained performance in advancing the goals of the Society. It’s the wonderful ideas that are shared and carried out by dedicated members that allow our chapter to shine year after year.
• I logged into my email at the cyber café and saw the announcement that the Carolina Communiqué received an Award of Merit in the Society’s newsletter competition.
  This award applauds the hard work of the newsletter staff that continuously looks for new ways to bring information about technical communication, STC, and our chapter to our members. Congratulations to Meredith Blackwelder, Sheila Loring, and Melissa Thornton for a job well done!
• I attended the Society award banquet, where I sat with fellow Carolina members and, despite Society’s Immediate Past President Andrea Ames’ attempt to “shush the crowed,” we enthusiastically cheered as Michelle Corbin and Michael Harvey walked across the stage to officially receive the rank of Associate Fellow.

True…I’ll no longer serve as president, but the knowledge I’ve gained about project management, being an effective leader, and supporting others are lessons that I’ll continue to use in my career and to support STC. I’m looking forward to facing new responsibilities and working with the Carolina chapter leaders in my role as Immediate Past President.


Contact Anjela at dukes_anjela at emc dot com.