An STC Community of Excellence
Leadership Council Meeting Minutes
Date:
Monday, July 20, 2015 (default 4th Mondays)
Time:
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 pm
Location:
Mimi’s Café - 4775 Hacienda Dr. Dublin, CA 94568 925-833-2521
Elected officers
Volunteers

Liz Miller, President

Lori Meyer, Immediate Past President/floating secretary

Joe Humbert, Treasurer

Patrick Lufkin, volunteer at large

Lori Cooke, Arrangements
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Richard Mateosian, volunteer at large

Jane Olivera, Arrangements

Gwaltney Mountford, volunteer at large
President report (Liz):
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There will be no dinner meeting and no administrative council meeting in August. If chapter activities
need discussing, we’ll exchange emails. The next council meeting will be on September 28.
Treasurer report (Joe):
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Latest financials, if needed, will be submitted by email from Joe.
Gwaltney suggested -- and Lori, Jane and Liz agreed -- that the chapter should not give free meals
this year, but instead offer members a holiday party discount (TBD, possibly $5 off regular price).
Action: Get Joe’s opinion or agreement.
Year to date meeting financials
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Number of meetings: 6
Net income: $1,124.47
Mimi’s charge: $1,082.12
Net for chapter: $42.35 (average of $7.06 per meeting)
Membership report (Lori M)
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Membership data
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 Members as of 07/19/2015: 42
 New chapter members since 01/01/2015: 6
 New chapter members in the last 30 days: 0
Member survey: We will want to do a member survey in 2015, since our last survey was done in 2013.

New member welcome process: Although the new CAA criteria do not specifically require a written new
member welcome process, I did some updates to our process anyway, so we could have a current
process to provide as a supporting document.
Programs report (Lori M)
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Regular chapter programs

September: Trends Panel. Three panelists being proposed: Marta Rauch (mobile technology),
Robert Hershenow (graphics), and Laura Bellamy (structured authoring).
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An STC Community of Excellence
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Action: Lori M. to confirm panelists and get biographies to Jane so she can send the e-blast for the
September dinner meeting.
October: Bruce Poropat
November: Hilary Powers on Microsoft Word
December: Holiday Party
Summer event: John Muir House tour and ice cream social
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Liz got council feedback on proposed Events page text and made minor edits.
Liz will accept the event RSVPs due to Joe’s current demanding family situation.
Jane will purchase pints of non-dairy ice cream for those who can’t tolerate regular; will bring in her
own ice chest, along with a table cloth.
 Liz, Jane and Lori C. will check their homes for leftover clear plastic cups or coated paper bowls that
won’t melt, and search for ice cream scoops. Liz will buy clear plastic cups if no one else has any.
 Liz will go to a party store and get blue helium-filled balloons and ribbon, a disposable 6-foot table
cloth if needed.
 Lori C. has a large ice chest, which she will fill with ice. She will buy 3 flavors of Haagen-Daz ice
cream: chocolate, vanilla and one other. Quantity will be determined by RSVPs collected by Liz.
 Liz emailed Joe asking for the page to go live by Tuesday night so Jane can send the e-blast about
the event. Liz provided announcement text.
Vision event held June 4


We usually do a Summit recap for our June meeting (the final meeting before our summer program
break), but since Summit fell in late June this year, we could not schedule a recap for June. Instead,
we had a chapter vision program, whose purpose was to discuss our long term vision for the chapter.
Unfortunately, it was poorly attended (it was our first meeting of this type, and the summer date might
have conflicted with members’ vacation plans.).Lori M. would love to hear suggestions about how we
might generate some member enthusiasm for an event like this.
Member offer to do a free Ruby programming workshop

See Joe’s note about our new member Dan Dunne, who has offered to do a FREE workshop for us
on beginning programming with Ruby. We need to:
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Decide on whether to accept his offer (Lori and Joe vote yes).
Nail down a date.
Find a venue.
Determine length and format (half day? 2 hours?)
Work with Dan to determine workshop content and how it can work best for our attendees.
 Do we want to plan this for early 2016?
WordPress presentation with Jane
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Jane would like to do a presentation to our membership and interested attendees about our new
WordPress-based web site. The original plan was to have Jane do this in November, but Hilary
Powers (who we hoped could present in June) asked if she could have the November date. Jane is
willing to present in January 2016.
Equipment notes

Occasionally, one of our speakers uses a Mac to project slides. We need to determine what
additional cables, if any, ensure our Mac presenters can connect to our projector successfully.
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We might also want to see if we can project something using a mobile device. Our new projector
should probably be able to do this, but it would be good to be sure. I have an Android tablet and
would be glad to do some testing. If we can bring the projector to a future in-person council meeting, I
can bring some slides output to PDF and see if we can project them successfully from my tablet.
Do we have Mimi’s for the rest of 2015?

If we do, great – we should make sure they have us reserved for the remaining dates in the 2015.
Newsletter report (Jane, Liz)
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We reviewed the six-step process that Liz and Jane designed to get Ashwini started as newsletter editor.

Ashwini was going to provide feedback on the Word template before the board meeting, but was unable
to do that. Gwaltney pointed out that as managing editor, she will be soliciting articles, not writing all of
the content.

For file management, Gwaltney suggested a folder for each edition to accommodate the source Word doc
file, any images, and the HTML file itself.

Jane has a file management and file naming convention in mind; Richard stressed importance of using
the yyyy-mm prefix.
Website/WordPress reports (Jane, Joe)
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Jane has created our new WordPress database and plans to have the WordPress site live on Tuesday
July 21, although there will be no content. The child theme she is building is still a work in progress, as is
a visual representation of our current home page, which she plans to use as a cross reference to make
sure all home page elements are accounted for during site migration. She plans to update the site
inventory list to reflect her recent activities.
Action: Provide Liz the latest inventory list to update her Excel version.
Strategic Plan update

Board members agree that the current four chapter strategies are still valid planning guidelines:
1. Provide resources to help our members enhance their careers and develop leadership skills.
2. Promote the technical communication profession and STC visibility within the East Bay community.
3. Maintain a sense of camaraderie and mutual support among chapter members.
4. Support STC goals and endeavors.
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There was no further discussion of the Strategic Plan.
Chapter bylaws update
STC Bylaws template references “Directors” in many sections, which may not apply to EBSTC. It also references
a non-existent Article IX, and the wording is full of legalese.
A lively discussion brought forth these points.
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Gwaltney: The Bylaws outline how the chapter operates. At a minimum, regardless of format, we need to
document policies around EBSTC voting, membership, and officer roles (currently in the 2003 Bylaws).

Richard: Consider not having a Bylaws document at all, which is how Berkeley has been for many years.
Instead, consider writing up the necessary policies to refer to.
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An STC Community of Excellence
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Liz: The STC Bylaws mention a Chapter Handbook. Since we don’t have one, why not start one, and
make the Policies one chapter. We could also document WordPress, Newsletter, and how we address
EBSTC topics that are not covered in the STC Bylaws’ Articles, like Committees and Elections.
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Gwaltney: Each section could be developed in its own time based on need and resource availability.
Action: Liz will read Lori Meyer’s Bylaws annotations and add these to her master copy of the merged
Bylaws. (Hardcopy DONE)
Action: Liz will read all of the inserted comments to understand STC’s intentions for their template.
(DONE. Comments from STC stated we can use their template, add to it as needed, and remove more
detailed EBSTC particulars to a Policy document)
Action: Liz will email Jane Wilson to find out if chapters are REQUIRED to maintain a Bylaws doc. Only if
the answer is yes should we plan to merge their topics into our Bylaws, and vote on whether this is a task
best left for 2016.
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CAA Application
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The revamped CAA guidelines have been announced.
Actions assigned
Action
Who
Status
Confirm panelists for Trends Panel, Sept 10
Lori M.
Done
Check your content on Who We Are page; send additions or changes to Joe
All
To do
Agreement from Jo on Holiday party funds: give free meals this year, but
instead offer members a holiday party discount
Joe
To do
Update Who We Are page on web site once everyone has provided input
Joe
To do
Check with Mimi’s to be sure wine room is available for September – December
2015
Lori C,
Jane
To do
WordPress site live on Tuesday July 21, although there will be no content
Jane
Read Lori Meyer’s Bylaws annotations and add these to her master copy of the
merged Bylaws. (Hardcopy DONE)
Liz
Done
Read all inserted comments in Bylaws template to understand STC’s intentions.
Liz
Done
Email Jane Wilson to find out if chapters are REQUIRED to maintain a Bylaws
doc. Only if the answer is yes should we plan to merge their topics into our
Bylaws, and vote on whether this is a task best left for 2016.
Liz
Done (Aug. 8
email to Jane
and board)
Update chapter brochure.
Lori M.
In progress.
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