Our Corner

As you read this issue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the East Bay Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication (EBSTC), it should be clearly evident that the sustained success of this chapter can be directly attributed to strong, committed leadership and a supporting membership body.

The current leaders are just as strong in their commitment to the success of the chapter and to ensuring that the chapter serves its members well. They have located outstanding meeting venues after careful consideration of convenience, menu selection, and comfort. They have brought in exceptional speakers, whose messages are current, useful, and appropriate. They have developed a competition-worthy newsletter.

Now, it's your turn. You can demonstrate your commitment by renewing your membership today.

And don't forget the International STC (the Society) level, where there are even more benefits. Here are a few:

Visit the Society's web site (www.stc.org) for more information about these and other benefits.

The funding for the East Bay Chapter comes from dues rebated from the Society based on our number of members. Your timely support allows our chapter to continue providing all these wonderful benefits.

Thank you for your continued support of EBSTC. It ensures our chapter will continue moving toward another successful forty years.

Happy

40th anniversary to EBSTC! You might not know that around three dozen enthusiastic members founded our chapter in 1962. The chapter has been very active ever since and has grown to 220 members. We have been delving into past newsletters to learn about our chapter and its history. It is fascinating to read the newsletters to discover how our profession has changed, and, more interestingly, how it has remained the same. Over the next few issues, we will share some of these intriguing discoveries.

In our quest to find out how our profession has changed through the years, we asked several long-standing members (who are also past presidents) to reflect on their years in technical communication and to share their thoughts.

Gwaltney Mountford remembers working with punched cards and how the I/O desk was a center for socializing. Diana Wilcoxson talks about going from archaic languages such as Script/370 to the WYSIWYG world of FrameMaker. T. R. Girill discusses how the basics of technical writing have not changed even though the writer's workday has changed dramatically. Bill Ardis offers his usual wit in interviewing the creator of DOS, which is 20 years old! And finally, to keep us up to date on our skills, Scott Wallace is educating us about writing for the Web with the first article in a series of three.

One recurring theme we found through the 40 years of our chapter is how important it is to seek out the company of fellow technical communicators. They can help us grow professionally, teach us new ways of thinking and problem solving, and provide understanding when others at work can't do so. This is undoubtedly one major reason that our chapter has thrived for all this time. In assessing your plans and goals for the New Year, we encourage you to renew your membership (or make the decision to join), and to seek ways to become involved with the chapter.

Our sincerest thanks go to June Schaefer, chair of the chapter Archives Project. She was kind enough to help us prepare by organizing a large volume of past newsletters and letting us come to her home to do research. We hope you enjoy reading about our chapter as much as we did!

Hello, readers. Our very first online issue was a success, thanks to all of you! We received a number of congratulatory e-mail messages, and we loved reading them. Keep writing!

Douglas

Dow, Managing Editor of Technically Write (STC Lone Star Chapter), writes:

Congratulations on your first HTML edition! NetObjects was a favorite tool of mine for some years, but when I became the Managing Editor of Technically Write, I turned to Author-IT. It has been very useful.

Thanks for the helpful tip, Doug. Our Production Editor, Don, has realized a long-standing dream with this issue—he did the entire project in Dreamweaver. He says that the conversion for the first page was a big job, after that he said the project became a lot of fun.

Thank you for posting the Devil Mountain Views online. It is excellent. Is there a link from the East Bay Chapter's home page?

This online newsletter is GREAT! You both have done a wonderful job in setting it up and in your choice of articles. Well done!

Nice work, very cool. My compliments to the chefs! I predict DMV will become a popular acronym in the Bay Area...

Well, Bill, your article did add the right touch of spice!
P.S. Keep looking for Bill's articles in our coming issues.

The newsletter looks crisp, interesting, and professional. I can hardly wait to read all the articles. You two have done a bang-up job, deserving of an award. I hope the international judges have good enough judgment to agree.
Keep up the good work. Thanks for your service to the chapter.

Congratulations on a job well done. A good publication just got better. It's especially impressive given that it's an all-volunteer effort. I know how much work goes into a project like this. You must be pleased with the outcome.