Come Celebrate at “Chicago, It’s My Kind of Town”!
By Dan Voss
Co-Manager Mentorship Program
Orlando Central Florida Chapter STC
mentorship@stc-orlando.org
In the 18th iteration of the venerable Washlines tradition August 21, the seven members of the STC-Orlando Central Florida chapter who were at the 59th international STC conference in Chicago last May will edify you with knowledge they gained at the event and entertain you with seven colorful and creative Chicago-themed venues.
And yes, of course, you’ll also enjoy some of Chicago’s famed delicacies such as “The Chicago Dog” and Chicago Pizza.
Al Capone will even be there, so consider wearing your full-body Kevlar armor underneath your usual STC meeting garb.
“Post time” is 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 21, at the Winter Park Civic Center off 17-92 on Morse Road in Winter Park.
A wide range of topics will be covered in a lively progression format, ranging from the new certification program in technical communication to Global English skills to social media. Watch for details in upcoming listserv postings and the second August edition of Memo to Members.
Washlines is always an enthusiastic event, but this year it will also be a CELEBRATION. The 59th was a very special conference for our chapter. In the awards ceremony at the Tuesday evening banquet, we were amazed to be called to the stage over and over again to receive awards. We literally “swept the table” in terms of community awards, bringing home our 6th Chapter of Distinction award in 9 years—a Society record—tying for the Most Improved Chapter award, and capping it off with STC’s highest community achievement award: Community of the Year!
In addition, individual chapter members made frequent journeys to the stage to accept awards captured by Special Interest Groups (SIGs) in which they were active.
The conference was also special for W.C. Wiese, who, for the first time in recent memory is no longer a member of the “Intergalactic Inner Council” (aka, Board of Directors) where he completed a highly successful and much appreciated tour of duty as a director on top of two stints as treasurer.
And the writer and his mentee, Bethany Bowles, were thrilled at the interest their presentations and workshops on student mentoring programs sparked at the conference. They went armed with 25 printed reference guides and accompanying CDs, half expecting to be trundling about 20 of them back to Orlando. Instead, they wound up giving away all 25 and giving out IOU’s which they redeemed via a post-conference reprint and mail-out.
In addition to all the progression presentations from sessions at the conference, we’re planning two special rotations this year.
As two of the seven venue hosts at Washlines XVIII, rather than give the presentation on student mentoring they gave at the conference, Bethany and Dan are presenting separately on conference sessions to help provide you with as many choices as possible. However, when their regular venues are “dark,” they will join forces for a special rotation in which those who are interested can hear how the student mentoring program between our chapter and Future Technical Communicators at the University of Central Florida is blazing a trail for the entire Society.
And when W.C.’s and chapter president Karen Lane’s venues are dark, they will team up to regale you with a behind-the-scenes account of our chapter’s many awards, share some fascinating chapter history, and provide the “narration” for a “looping” PowerPoint slide show of conference photos, including the banquet where we decided Chicago really was “our kind of town.”