From the President

June 2018

Image of Meredith Evans, wearing a smart black jacket and blue scarf. She has brown hair in this photo cut into a short bob. She is smiling at the camera.

Hi everyone,

Much like the daylight hours this month, I’m keeping things short.

Thank you to everyone who completed our Southern Communicator survey. It's always great to see collaboration between our New Zealand members and our Aussie friends. I look forward to seeing the new and improved Southern Communicator rolling out later this year. A big thank you to Steve Moss for all his hard work on this! Steve and Katie are the TechCommNZ representatives on a newly formed SC subcommittee and I can't wait to see what the new Southern Communicator looks like.

Thank you Libby and Rebecca for your recent nice feedback on the President reports and on TechCommWire in general. I can’t take much credit for TechCommWire as our editor Katie does the real work on this, along with excellent contributions from our wider member base. Thank you Melissa Mebus, Grant Mackenzie and Earnsy Liu for your contributions this month!

I’m really proud of our newsletter. It looks professional, contains relevant information, and provides a great snapshot of our industry. When it comes to renewing your membership in the next couple of months, don’t forget that the membership fees help to keep TechCommWire going, as well as offering access to lots of other benefits. But more on that next month…

What am I looking forward to this month?

I’m not a skier, or a fan of winter in general, so I normally struggle a bit with June and July. Luckily there’s plenty of events coming up to keep things interesting.

In early June, TechCommNZ presented Sarah McLean’s accessibility webinar. By the time you read this, the webinar will be over, so I hope you signed up and listened in. I’ll be honest with you here and say I quite often register for webinars, but I don’t listen in on the actual day. Instead, I’ll access the recording at a later time. That’s the bonus of a webinar, and of course you can always return to the material when you need a refresher!

The TechCommNZ board aren’t meeting in person till July (at ITx). But we do have a Zoom meeting towards the end of June. If you want anything raised at this meeting, or have questions for the board, get in touch and I’ll make sure it goes on the agenda.

I’m off to the North Island for a couple of trips in late June. On 21 June I’ll be attending the Promapp conference in Auckland. Maybe some of you are going too? It would be great to catch up if you’re heading to this event. Then on the weekend of 29 June to 1 July, I’ll be in Hawera judging a dog agility competition. Yes, that’s one of my other interests (obsessions) that takes me to all the glamorous parts of the New Zealand. It’ll be my first visit to Taranaki in a very, very long time!

Of course we can’t mention July without talking about the ITx conference. It’s happening soon, everyone! I’ll be there to judge the Technical Communicator award on Tuesday 10 July throughout our conference. Most of our board will be there for parts of the conference, and we’re also having a stand. So if you are based in Wellington (or even if you’re not), you should definitely consider attending part or all of the conference, as well as coming over to chat at our stand.

Need more details? Check out the conference website.

Reminders for you this month

  • Don’t forget to register for ITx! Go to https://itx.nz/Register and click Register Now.
  • Get in touch with me or our editor Katie (comms@techcomm.nz) if you’ve got an idea for a newsletter article, or even just some interesting links to share.
  • Enter the Plain English Awards.
  • Prepare to pay up your TechCommNZ membership (don’t worry, you’ll get an email!)

Save the date!

And lastly, I’d like to announce that we have a venue and date for the next TechCommNZ conference! Save the date – 16 to 18 October 2019 in TAURANGA at the gorgeous Trinity Wharf.

If you’re interesting in joining the organising committee or helping out in some way, let me know.

That’s all from me this month, so stay warm and I hope to catch you over the next few months.

Meredith