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by Ann Balaban, LSC Membership Committee
At this time last year the Lone Star Chapter had 691 members and the Society had 22,238 members. This year the Chapter has 567 members and the Society has 20,086 members! For the Society, that's a drop of almost 10%, but the Lone Star Chapter lost more than 18% of its enrollment.
Why is that? You’d think, in this very tough economy and tight job market, that everyone would rush to join professional associations, but as you can see, it’s not happening. This could be because companies paid the dues for their employees or because new technical writers feel they can’t afford to spend that extra money for dues. Not joining/renewing membership cuts off a primary source of information leading to future employment and development.
Thea Teich, in a March 2002 Intercom article, comments on the value of professional associations:
"...who benefits most from professional development? You do—not your boss, not your company, but you. Yes, your employer may benefit from the knowledge you acquire. But you take that 'expert within you' home every night of your life; you take it with you to the next job, or you use it as the foundation for starting your own business. You are the primary beneficiary of professional development, and the responsibility for it is yours."
Some of the benefits of membership include:
Finding jobs through the job bank and, most often, through networking with other STC members
That’s $125 plus a one-time $15 enrollment fee (for new members). That’s 15 months of Society membership for the price of 12.
We need your help in getting former members to rejoin and encouraging entry-level technical communicators to join STC. A major objective in this effort is providing support for current, new, and future members of our profession. Without active, growing membership, we stagnate and cannot do all that needs to be done to “design the future of technical communication”. So, if you know lapsed members or new technical writers, approach them about joining/rejoining STC.