Welcome! Thanks so much for stopping by to get the latest update on what's happening with your professional organization. One of my short term goals (see last month's update for more information) was to implement a web based membership management system. The advisory group chairpersons and the executive committee are currently experimenting with Memberize to determine its effectiveness for our organization. I am very excited about the opportunities this system can offer STSN and its members. Adopting this system for use by STSN was on the agenda for discussion and voting approval at the Board Meeting in July. We voted to approve the use of Memberize for accepting new and renewal memberships and we are currently involved in an electronic board meeting to discuss adopting other features of the Memberize system. As you know from my e-mail update last month, I met individually with each of the advisory group chairpersons to establish a work plan and time line. The outcome of these individual meetings helped us establish an organizational plan and time line that will guide the STSN leadership team and its work for the next two years. Detailed below for your information are the objectives of each advisory group and a brief summary of what was discussed in our meeting. Continuing Education Membership Advisory Group Professional Standards Advisory Group Public Relations Advisory Group Continuing Education Jennie Bourgeois, Chair This group coordinates STSN's Professional Development Project and oversees the Professional Development Unit (PDU) system for STSN members. This group is focused on increasing continuing education opportunities for speech-to-text service providers. The members of this group are exploring the possibility of a national workshop with a general focus that offers administrators and speech-to-text service providers relevant information for our profession that is applicable to all speech-to-text systems. Another area of exploration involves the possibility of regional workshops that can focus on specific speech-to-text systems to offer speech-to-text service providers an opportunity for advanced training and networking within their geographic community. This group will also offer digitized training materials on the STSN web site as self-guided study options for STSN members. These self-guided study opportunities would be eligible for PDUs. Membership Advisory Group Glenna Bain, Chair This group oversees the STSN membership process and its primary focus is on addressing the needs of our members. Our membership process is changing as we move to a web based membership management system. One of the major changes with this new system involves our ability to accept online membership applications and credit card payments for yearly dues. The new system will also generate automatic reminders to our members to renew their membership and offer members access to a calendar of speech-to-text related events around the country. Professional Standards Advisory Group Pam Francis, Co-Chair Marcia Kolvitz, Co-Chair This group is focused on developing professional standards for speech-to-text service providers and is researching the process to establish state licensure and national certification. When the professional standards are established, this group will work with the Continuing Education Advisory Group to offer the speech-to-text community an understanding of the ethical codes and guidelines. The goal of this collaborative effort is to provide the community with tools that support individual decisions (and corporate policies) that promote ethical behavior. This group will generate a report from the information they are currently gathering on the process to establish state licensure and national certification. Our goal is to have this report available for the speech-to-text community by June 2009. From our initial research, we know the certification process is extremely expensive (and cost prohibitive at this point for STSN) and our goal with this report is to communicate to our members and the community at large exactly what's involved (how much it will cost, how long it will take for a professional testing company to create, etc.) and explain how corporations and individuals in the speech-to-text community can help support our certification efforts. Public Relations Advisory Group Cindy Camp, Chair This group is focused on increasing an awareness of speech-to-text services as an accommodation option and promoting STSN as a leading professional organization within the speech-to-text community. The chair of this group created a tri-fold brochure and a one-page flier for distribution at professional conferences and workshops that informs people about STSN and our mission. This group is also developing a calendar of conferences and events with that are happening around the country with information about the advertising costs and deadlines so we can identify our advertising focus in the next two years. Another area that this group is exploring is the possibility of including articles about STSN in various publications within professional communities related to our own. This information too will be compiled along with publication dates, deadlines for submitting an article, and associated costs so that we can identify which publications we want to focus our efforts in the next two years. Thank you for your involvement in STSN! I look forward to our work together to reach our goals over the next two years. Please feel free to e-mail me at president@stsn.org with any comments. Sincerely, Shannon Aylesworth STSN President, 2008-2010

Shannon Aylesworth STSN President 2008-2010 Previous editions of President's Corner