What Can You Teach Me?

By Anjela Dukes, Chapter President

Last month, after sharing some of my concerns with the new membership model at http://www.stc.org/transformation/article9.asp, and pointing out the professional bene.ts of remaining in the Carolina Chapter, I encouraged you to stay in our community. This month, I’d like to focus on the educational value provided by membership in STC Carolina.

Here are but a few of the ongoing educational opportunities we offer:

• Our training committee provides a variety of hands-on workshops and telewebinars each month. You can .nd details about upcoming training events at http://www.stc-carolina.org/training/index.shtml.
• Our mentorship program, described at http://www.stc-carolina.org/about/mentoring.shtml, enables members to partner with a seasoned professional to build their skill set and advance professionally.
• Our monthly membership meetings provide information about tools, techniques, and professional development topics directly related to our ever-changing roles as technical communicators.

In addition to these opportunities, we are always looking for outside activities that will allow our members to learn and grow. For example, we recently became a member of the O’Reilly User Group & Professional Association Program. This allows our members to review O’Reilly books in exchange for the following:

• Review copies of O’Reilly products
• Donations of books and other promotional items for our chapter events
• 20% discount on O’Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, Site-Point, and Syngress books
• 20% discount on O’Reilly conferences
• Weekly newsletters
• Quarterly catalogs
• Access to O’Reilly speakers

If you would like to review a book for O’Reilly Media, contact Anjela Dukes for more information. Please note that this opportunity is for STC Carolina Members only. Take a look at O’Reilly’s book review suggestions at http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html for tips on writing great reviews.

This year, our biggest push to provide you educational value is Tri-Doc 2005. The conference committee has done an outstanding job of enlisting speakers fromall over the country to provide sessionsabout emerging technologies, advanced "tools of the trade," and other topics tohelp us learn more.

If I've learned anything about the STC Carolina chapter this year, it's that the administrative council, SIG leaders, and Committee leaders really care about our members. They strive, and have always strived, to provide you with the knowledge,tools training, and professional development resources to make yousuccessful. Helping our members learn is not a new initiative for this chapter! It's an ongoing commitment. It's another reason for you to stay in our community. But I need to learn from you about whether what we're doing is on target. Please contact me with comments or suggestions about what we do or can do for you.