communication department

Volume XX Number 4

Community Status Reports Get Updated

By Cindy Currie, Director, Region 1, and Chair, Communities Affairs Committee and Char James-Tanny, Society Secretary

As a community leader, you hear frequently about community reports, but do you wonder why these reports are important?

According to Cindy Currie, Region 1 Director and chair of the Communities Affairs Committee, the information contained in community reports is vital to the Board of Directors as well as to the STC office staff. The Board is able to read summary-level information about a community’s activities and status based on details provided in its community report, and is then more effectively able to prioritize how it provides assistance and guidance to particular communities. Executive Director Susan Burton also receives feedback about the office staff that community leaders provide in these reports, which ensures that action will be taken to clarify any questions regarding communication with STC staff.

Currie is looking toward those leaders who volunteer with the Leadership Community Resource (LCR) to compile information on the community reports after they are sent to the Community Status Reporting (CSR) team (csr@stc.org) to produce an overall summary of community status (this includes all communities, regardless of type). This way, the Board and office staff can be notified in a comprehensive and timely way about overall community health and status.

Upcoming Changes

In April 2007, STC will release an updated Community Status Report. Unlike previous years, when community leaders filled out three different reports throughout the year, the new report will be used for the entire year.

In addition, we have reworked the reporting year. Instead of filing your first report in August for the September board meeting, the first report will be filled out in April. The second report will be filed in August, and the third in December.

We hope to have this report online for the second reporting period in the 2007–2008 year, which will be in July 2007. Unfortunately, we were unable to get that part of the work done in time for the April reporting period. However, you can continue to use this file for all three reporting periods. (We hope that you will add the information online when we finish that part of the process.)

The April report is due by May 1, 2007.

Report Contents

The report contains the following sections:

• Community Information. Enter the name of your community, your name and other requested information, and the current date. Select the reporting period (April, August, or December). Finally, select the community information that applies according to your community type (Geographic, Virtual, or Student). Please indicate whether the membership level has gone up or down since the last report.
• Health and Status. Select the appropriate reporting period that applies to your community’s current status. Describe your goals for the year and select those that you have achieved. Select the reporting period that applies to your leadership team’s overall status.
• Community and Member Recognitions. Indicate which recognitions your community will apply for.

You need to fill out the previous items only once, not for every reporting period.

• Support. For each reporting period, tell us what you think about the support you have received from the office, the Board of Directors, the Leadership Community Resource or SIG advocate, or other mentors and volunteers.
• Successes and Innovations, Challenges, and Additional Comments. Please let us know about these items. Add rows as necessary (by pressing Tab in the last cell of the last row).
• April Check-up. Please select the appropriate answers in April 2007 for reporting at the May board meeting (which takes place at the Technical Communication Summit).
• August Check-up. Please select the appropriate answers in July 2007 for reporting at the August board meeting (which takes place in Berkeley).
• December Check-up. Please select the appropriate answers in December 2007 for reporting at the January board meeting.

Please use the Additional Comments area to add notes to the Board of Directors.

Sending in Your Report

After you have filled out the report for each reporting period, please attach it to an e-mail and send it to csr@stc.org. Use the same document when reporting for subsequent periods.

Thank you for your help in completing these reports.