April/May 2005

Volume 45, Number 5

STC RMC Technicalities Wins Award of Excellence

by Martha Sippel

Congratulations—the Rocky Mountain Chapter's newsletter, Technicalities, received an Award of Excellence in the 2004-2005 STC Newsletter Competition. From highest to lowest achievement, STC presents the following awards: Distinguished, Excellence, and Merit. You can view the STC newsletter competition results at: http://www.stc.org/chapterCompetitions_NEWS_winners.asp.

Thirty-eight chapters and special interest groups (SIGs) entered this year's competition. Judges classify the three levels of award winners according to the chapter, SIG, and student chapter entrant categories. The judges also identify Most Improved awards.

This year's newsletter competition included 20 judges from 3 countries. A team of up to five judges—one or two statistical judges and up to three qualitative judges—evaluated newsletters in each category. All award-winning newsletters will be on display in the STC Newsletter Competition traveling exhibit.

Technicalities was cited for its Features page that caught the judges' attention and enticed them to read the complete newsletter. Judges also rewarded the editorial quality in the articles selected for each issue and the choice of STC-related news. One judge indicated that the "news is timely and provides the membership with enough information about the current events within the Society."

In the statistical evaluation, the judges pointed out that the newsletter team satisfied all of the functional elements and met the required number of recommended topics. Areas of Excellence included the following:

• Left navigation
• Back and Next arrows to continue through the newsletter
• Well-designed layout
• Chunking information that keeps scrolling to a minimum and makes reading each issue enjoyable
• Active hyperlinks to jump to specific areas in each issue
• The use of white space around lists and tables that enhances readability

One area for improvement is adding the recommended topic of "Employment News" and including hyperlinks to area job boards and the STC job bank to assist newcomers who may download the PDF to read later. Other areas identified for improvement are to avoid using slang words, including more images in the newsletter (mostly photographs), and improving the PDF version of the newsletter.

The following people are members of the winning newsletter team:

Managing Editor: Ron Arner
Assistant Editor: Kristy Lantz Astry
Article Editors: Bridget Julian, Jay Mead, Lynnette Reveling
Newsletter Staff: Deb Lockwood

Congratulations to the team for winning this STC Award of Excellence. While STC RMC members who read the newsletter are aware of each issue's quality, it is now apparent to all STC members that we have an excellent newsletter.

If you see an article that you think might interest other STC RMC members, please recommend that the editor request permission to reprint it in Technicalities. Or better yet, write your own article to add to this award-winning newsletter! It is your newsletter and you can make it even better by contributing your ideas and articles.