STC France held an open house meeting on September 21 and drew a crowd of about 20 people.

We opened with a short introduction of the STC for all those who were not yet members and announced our main objective for this year: Raise our profile. To help us reach this goal, we presented attendees with a wide range of volunteer opportunities and invited everyone to sign up to participate. We are extending this invitation to all our members, so even if you did not attend the meeting, please consider signing up as a volunteer. Areas where you can contribute include:

• Speakers - Give a presentation. Share your experience and expertise. Tell us what you've done, good experiences, bad ones, what you'd like to do better. You can also help find good speakers and topics.
• Program - Working on programs for meetings and the conference involves doing lots of small (and large) tasks. Sharing the tasks makes it all easier to handle - from making sure we have a venue, to signing on the speakers and sponsors. It's a lot of fun and you gain valuable experience.
• Sponsors - Meetings and the conference cost more than you might imagine. STC France has always tried to make its events as inexpensive as possible, especially to members. Help us find sponsors so we can maintain the tradition.
• Education - There are not many programs for technical communicators in France. We need to reach out to them. We also need to create educational opportunities in the STC France Chapter.
• Membership - We have recently welcomed some new members and some returning members. Help us continue the membership drive.
• Competition - The Trans-European Competition originated as the France Chapter Competition. Our chapter is still a major contributor. Volunteer to be a judge or enter the competition. Help us organize the awards ceremony to be held in conjunction with our annual conference.
• Web - If you are interested in making our website even better, please sign up.
• Newsletter - The newsletter could use an editor and contributors. Distribution via the website makes publication much easier.
• Volunteer coordinator - A volunteer coordinator helps match the volunteers with the best position.
• Elected board members - STC France must have an elected board. Please volunteer to be our new secretary or V.P. Programs.

The meeting provided plenty of time for informal discussion and ended with a free cocktail for all attendees. Several people were able to hook up with former colleagues or exchange contact details with other attendees with similar interests. When you consider that the vast majority of jobs in our profession are found through word of mouth, networking opportunities such as these are great for finding out what's going on in the industry, who's hiring and what skills employers are looking for these days. If you find yourself asking yourself these kind of questions, then why not come along to one of our future events, or better still get involved in organizing one of our events or education programs and help raise your profile, and the profile of your profession.