Notes from 56th International STC Conference
Atlanta, Georgia, May 2-5, 2009

Leadership Day

The Economy: Strategic Issues Facing the Society and Communities: Background, Feedback, and Ideas You Can Use

Mark Clifford, STC President
Cindy Currie, First Vice President
Mike Hughes, Second Vice President
Larry Kunz, Chair, Strategic Planning Committee
W.C. Wiese, Treasurer

Session Description: Charting a path for the Society out of the quagmire of the recession.

• STC is more reliant on dues and conference than most associations our size; little revenue from seminars; less than average on “Other” (investments, endowments, etc.)
• We lost $324K on investments, despite minimizing the impact by going from 80-20 to 50-50 in March 2008
• We lost another $317K in operating expenses
• Conference loss is staggering: revenue down by $1M, attrition fee $130K ... this despite all efforts to minimize the loss.
• FY 2009: Borrow $200K line of credit; generate $1.1M to cover conference losses
• FY 2010: Generate or save $460K to break even
• Need strong action immediately and major assistance from communities, or the Society faces dissolution within the next 6 to 18 months.
• Some communities’ reserves would be enough to keep the Society afloat if the Society “confiscated” them. That obviously would create extreme resistance.
• Suggestions
   
• Accept “the new normal” (Barker: recovering from a disaster; in our case, the recession); redefine what we can and can’t do.
• Hold lotto for conference ticket.
• Tap student power, university resources (e.g., FTC funding members to conference), especially in exploiting the new media, where they bring expertise.
• To get chapters to “return” money, give the chapters a benefit … ideal situation would to press the free conference registrations, because that (1) increases conference revenue and (2) reduces conference exposure (hotel commitments).
• Provide some free content to stimulate non-members to join (e.g., webcast of one of the best conference sessions, “Article of the Year” from Technical Communication)
• For many other good suggestions ... URL to permanent repository of brainstorming session on STC blog: http://www.scribblive.com/events/STC_TCS_2009. It will also contain links to other blogs.