In my Featured Links post last week, I included a link to a notice the Montreal chapter of the STC was proposing to dissolve. Now one of the chapter’s core members, Jim Royal, has proposed a new organization.
Many of the problems that brought STC-Montreal to its end stemmed from the parent organization, and some were caused by mistakes made locally. The chapter rarely functioned perfectly. But there was always one thing that that STC-Montreal excelled at: bringing together a local community of technical writers.
STC-Montreal events were always well-organized and usually well-attended. Sometimes, the room was overflowing. And STC-Montreal reached beyond its immediate audience, and attracted people from a variety of writerly organizations in Montreal.
We should not allow that special ability to dissolve away.
So I believe the guiding principle of a new organization dedicated to the professional development of technical writers should be this:
Focus on things that can’t be downloaded. Focus on people interacting with people.
Like many other STC chapters, the Toronto chapter has undergone changes and seen hard times over the last few years. 15 years ago membership was over 600 and it wasn’t unusual for meetings to draw more than 100 people. A decade later membership was down by half and meeting attendance had dwindled even more. The chapter leaders instituted a new program mixing more formal education events with informal socials. This seems to have been successful and chapter membership and meeting attendance has remained steady.
That doesn’t address the issue of the international organization, which for me and most other writers I’ve talked to, is irrelevant and wouldn’t be much missed if it faded away.