From the President

September 2017

Meredith Evans

Well, Spring is making an appearance here in the South and I’ve had just over a month in this role. While I’d love to say I’ve been busy coming up with grand ideas and exciting endeavours, in reality things have been moving a little slower. It’s been great to have so many messages of support over the last few weeks and I really do appreciate it!

Hit the Register button for Taxonomy with Joe Gelb

If you haven't registered yet for this Friday's free-to-members webinar Hitting the Target with Taxonomy - Getting the Right Answers to Your Customers, there's still time. Joe is well-known and respected on the tech comm speaking circuit and I'm looking forward to hearing him on this important subject.

Branch events

The other week I went along to the Christchurch Branch event, where Helen Maskery, from Synlait Milk presented on Change Management. I’ve been very slack getting my report in, but by the time this newsletter goes out, it should be available on the blog.

Our Christchurch branch is doing so well, and always has a strong turnout of old hands and new members. I love catching up with old colleagues and contacts as well as meeting those new to the industry. Emma does a really great job of organising these events and she has an easy system for planning her speakers for the whole year. She tells me it’s really not a huge job to organise branch events and there’s also a small stash of money available to help with costs. So maybe you could be inspired to help out or get something going in your area? Get in touch with me or another Board member if you are keen or have some ideas.

Board activities

I thought over the coming months I would use these reports not only for updates but also to give an overview of how the Board works and what we get up to.

The Board consists of a President, Vice President, Business Manager, Treasurer, Secretary, and committee members. Our new board has a great mix of experience and age, and has all main regions represented. We have face-to-face meetings once every other month, and an online meeting in between. Our face-to-face meetings are usually held in Auckland, Wellington, or Christchurch. To avoid conflicts with our paid jobs, we meet on Sundays, which usually means some rather early starts for the travelling members, and occasionally late finishes if there are flight delays.

The new Board will have its first face-to-face meeting in September, in Wellington. The main objective at this meeting will be to finalise workshops and webinars for 2018 and to plan the timing and venue for the next conference. If you would like to raise an issue or idea for us to discuss, please get in contact as early as possible.

Thanks

Before I go, I'd like to thank Luke Pivac whose August issue of Let's Tech Communicate! is sadly his last. Luke established LTC! in 2014 and it continues to be a popular feature of TechCommWire. We wish Luke all the very best.

Meredith