This year, I was honored to be elected as President of the Florida chapter. My responsibilities are broad: to preside at meetings, manage the Administrative Council, and support the voting members. In practicality, my primary activities are to collaborate with my fellow Administrative council members, to work with our treasurer to ensure we are making wise financial choices, to motivate our volunteers, and to promote the benefits of membership.
As we prepared to embark on our statewide initiative as the Florida chapter, I strongly encouraged our administrative council to update our brand. In addition to preparing for hosting the Summit, this required us to update our logo, our website, and our communication strategy in general. While everyone supported this effort, I made the decision to spearhead the initiative. By collaborating with the chapter members, I cannot express how proud I am of our new logo and new website.
At our annual leadership retreat, I worked with our core group of volunteers to create a plan for the chapter year driven by responses to a survey of our membership. While I am still in my first year in this role, we have already made strides to sustaining a cohesive statewide technical communication community with greater engagement from members in other parts of the state.
At the Florida chapter leadership retreat this year, as each attendee explained why they had joined the society, many of our talented, young members had originally joined because I had spoken to them one-on-one after their class to share what mentoring and STC membership mean to me. I have always seen my role as an influencer, where I can encourage and support others.
Bethany Aguad 