Sign Off… By the President

Friends, I am almost at the end of my term as president. In the beginning of the year, I had talked about identifying the objectives and then working to fulfill them. I believe that this approach has been successful.

All of us have witnessed the activities at various geographical locations of our chapter throughout this year. We had a healthy number of city meetings, regional conferences, and workshops.

We are at the threshold of the biggest and the most important event of the year, the STC India Annual Conference (2005), at Hyderabad. The conference agenda is finalized and the Programme Manager, Uday Chava, and his team are working on the finer details of the event. I can assure that is is going to be another great conference.

In our continued effort to do something new this year, the STC India chapter and Oracle have come together to offer a free conference registration to selected candidates. STC India will offer a special discounted rate for such registrations and Oracle will pay this amount to STC India. Thus, the selected participants will attend the conference without having to pay a single penny. Thanks to Oracle for this generous gesture! I am sure this step will go a long way in helping a few enthusiastic communicators to advance their careers.

The theme for this year’s conference is making ‘written in India’ a brand. Although we might not realize it, our actions are directly responsible for making this happen. I am sure that this subject will be discussed in detail during the conference so I am skipping it.

I am glad to report a change in the Admin Council members’ election process. Previously, the elections used to happen at the time of the annual business meeting (the first evening of the annual conference). This was based on the assumption that a majority of STC members will be present for such an event. However, in the last two years, it has been noted that only 20 to 30 percent of the members attend the annual business meeting. It means that the Admin Council members are elected by 30 percent of the total members. It was therefore necessary to increase the voting base. Therefore, the Admin Council has decided to conduct the election process through snail mail. The voting slips will be mailed to all members (by post), and they will mark their votes and post them back to the Election Officer. The Election Officer will do the counting of votes during the annual business meeting and announce the results. Members will be allowed to cross-check the results on the spot.

This, we believe, should get more people involved in the election process. This will hopefully enhance support to the plans and activities of the elected candidates. We also considered web-based voting. However, since our current Web site does not support authentication, we thought that this method is not practical. While we are yet to see the results of this important change, I am optimistic about them.

During the current year as president, I received excellent support from all the volunteers. As I near the end of my term, I would say that we were fairly successful in what we had set out to do. I give the credit of the success to the volunteers and the members of the chapter. I am also glad to acknowledge the contribution of my predecessors. Many of their initiatives have come to a fruitful conclusion during my tenure.

I am now signing off! My best wishes to the new president and the new Admin Council. I will continue to support the chapter in the capacity of the immediate past president.

God bless us all!

Mak Pandit , President – STC India Chapter .