By: Bethany Aguad
Treasurer
(Orlando Central) Florida Chapter, STC
treasurer@stc-orlando.org
Time for an update from your friendly chapter treasurer! Last month, we submitted our 2016 Financial Report to the Society to show how we used our chapter funds for last year. Rather than boring you with numbers, I thought it would be helpful to walk you all through what we made, what we spent, and why it matters.
What We Made and Why It Matters
The STC Office provided community funding based on our number of members from the year, as usual. This has served as our primary source of income since we switched to a no-cost meeting strategy. If you are an STC member, make sure you have joined our chapter!
Amazon pass-through revenues and United Way contributions also served as major sources of income from the year. These contributions might seem small, but they really add up throughout the year. Use this pass-through link when making your Amazon purchases, and Amazon will rebate a percentage of what you spend to our chapter.
Last year, the STC Suncoast chapter merged with the chapter, bringing their bank balance with them. Since we also merged with the former Space Coast not long ago, our chapter has a broad membership base across the state of Florida. President Alex Garcia gave background on that merger in his President’s Corner last year. Our Administrative Council (AdCo) made the decision, along with former Suncoast leadership, to use some of this money to invest in equipment to improve remote access to our meetings and to expand our student-mentoring program. We are currently the sole chapter in the state, which gives us a lot of room to grow.
What We Spent and Why It Matters
In the end, we started acquiring equipment for remote meetings with the purchase of a laptop to use with Meeting Burner. This allows us to share our meetings online with our members who live throughout the state. This investment has continued into 2017 with additional equipment purchases.
One other significant investment was in our students for the mentoring program. In 2016, we had enough pairings to justify multiple kick-off meetings and increased membership reimbursements. If you want to read more about outstanding success of that program, read the 2016-2017 Mentoring Program Recap.
We also had our usual chapter expenses for supplies, our mailbox, and meetings, particularly our annual leadership retreat. This is the annual meeting where we plan our chapter activities for the year. Never attended the leadership retreat? We would love to see you there this year. You can read about last year’s meeting in an MtM article from RD Sharninghouse.
Our final major expense was in community awards at our June banquet. These awards consist of recognitions from the President to members who went above and beyond for the chapter. However, the active member program is the highlight of our annual member recognitions. Throughout the year, chapter members are given points for activities they participate in with the chapter. The members receiving the highest point totals receive the coveted active member shirts. For more on how this program works and how you too can earn a shirt next year, check out W.C.’s article on the Active Member Program.
Final Thoughts
This financial report provides insight into what we are investing in as chapter and how we are striving to serve our members. We want to provide the greatest value possible for everyone, so that we can grow together as community. If you have any thoughts to share about this report, I would always be happy to .