by Anjela Dukes, Carolina Chapter Immediate Past President

Cindy Richardson-Decker has been a longtime STC Carolina Chapter member and administrative council member. Over the years, Cindy contributed to our chapter by filling the roles of secretary, treasurer, and most recently as membership manager. I’ve continuously been impressed by Cindy’s innovative ideas, sound advice, and member dedication.

Two years ago, when Cindy assumed the role of membership manager, she immediately started looking for ways to “get in touch” with our current members and build relationships with potential members. She began attending all of the monthly membership meetings armed with information about the services provided by our chapter and to welcome newcomers. She made herself available to answer their questions about our chapter and provide general membership information.

Cindy used her creativity to come up with fun ways for members and nonmembers to network and win prizes at our annual membership picnic. After the fun and games while folks were socializing with old/new friends, I noticed that Cindy would often politely excuse herself from a conversation to approach a newcomer and make sure that they felt welcome and a part of the group.

Cindy expanded the role of the membership manager to include looking for ways to build our chapter’s membership by:

• Experimenting with contacting members that had transferred out of our chapter and those that did not renew their membership
• Mailing welcome packages to new members and those that transferred into our chapter
• Making it easy for people to join our chapter by having membership applications available for them to complete at membership events

When Cindy informed the administrative council that she would not serve as membership manager for a third year, she expressed that it was very important to her that new membership manager was fully prepared to assume this role. During the last quarter of the STC year, she met with our incoming membership manager to turn over records and describe the responsibilities and even co-managed one of the membership meetings to make sure that things went smoothly.

Thank you, Cindy, for bringing so much to the role of membership manager!


Anjela can be reached at dukes_anjela at emc dot com.