I bet that you didn’t know that during these past summer months your Southwestern Ohio Chapter leadership created and finalized a chapter Strategic Plan, which you can view in its entirety by clicking here.

I also bet that you didn’t know that our new Strategic Plan guided all of the preparations for our first chapter meeting on September 17th at the Wingate Inn in West Chester. This meeting (as will all of our up-coming meetings) applied some of our Strategic Plan visions and goals that included expanding meeting venues, varying meeting formats, and presentation topics that our membership and guests would find valuable and interesting. Donna Drury was the evening’s speaker as she shared the “ABCs of Balancing Your Life”, a topic that the Program Team thought fit nicely into the new meeting format—offering a casual networking environment where attendees could talk, drink, and munch on hot and cold appetizers and even play networking bingo for prizes.

How did we determine that this September meeting agenda would Enhance Value to Members, which is one of the four Strategic Plan goals? In June we surveyed our membership to gauge what topics were of interest, what meeting formats people would find appealing, and what prevented people from attending a monthly meeting. About 40 people responded to the emailed survey.

Why should I care about all of this? We now have in place the foundation and framework to guide decisions solely based on SWO-STC objectives, strategies, and goals that we think are paramount to our membership.

The Strategic Plan’s mission states that SWO-STC will “promote and advance the technical communication profession in Southwestern Ohio while recruiting and supporting members by providing professional development, networking, employment resources, and leadership opportunities.” The plan also identifies four major goals:

• Enhance value to members
• Build continuity in the chapter
• Provide quality and timely communications
• Enhance employment-related services

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