Features

Your Chapter Needs You!

This is one of a series of articles on opportunities for serving your local STC community, the Rochester Chapter. The articles written by the Nominations Committee are intended to give you an idea of what the elected Council members and volunteer committee managers of our chapter do, and to introduce you to the people who currently hold those positions.

Program Manager, 2007 – 2008
We are looking for someone to lead the Program Committee. The Program Committee works together to develop educational programs and events which stimulate the exchange of information, provide opportunities to stay up-to-date on current trends in technical communication, and are a great way to network.

Recent programs include: “Book Publishing” by the president and founder of an online author services business, “Options for RoboHelp Users: The Future of Help and Doc-To-Help’s One-Click Project Converter”, “From Fortran to E-Learning—a History” by the father of CBT, and “What is this thing called ‘Flash’? Do I need to learn it?” For announcements of up-coming events, visit http://www.stcrochester.org.

We extend a big thanks to Agapi Theodorou, the outgoing Program Manager for making such fine programs possible.

The Rochester Chapter has a wealth of talent and experience. We may be calling on you to volunteer!

Betsy Christiansen
Estelle Holloway

Nonprofit organizations often stand on the sidelines during election season. Fears that they could violate IRS regulations and lose their nonprofit status are the primary reason, but the law actually allows 501(c)(3) nonprofits to engage in a wide variety of election activities including voter education, voter registration, and get-out-the-vote activities. There is only one one restriction: the activities must be nonpartisan.

What does that mean, exactly? A nonprofit organization can’t campaign for or against a particular candidate or party, or express a preference for or against parties or candidates who have stated particular positions on issues.

So, what can we do, as a chapter, to get involved in future elections? Here are a few ideas. It may be too late to pursue some of them this year, but we can keep these in mind when setting our chapter goals and programs for next election season.

• Post a voter registration link on our website.
• Encourage our members to volunteer, support, and vote for candidates of their choice.
• Participate as a group in non-partisan voter registration campaigns and ‘get out the vote’ efforts.
• Encourage our members (freelancers, retirees, and those who are able to take a day off for volunteer programs) to work as election inspectors at their local polling places.
• Solicit input from our membership on issues of local and national concern such as health care, social security, small business regulation, and other issues of interest to our members, and send a summary to platform committees, campaign staff, candidates, media, and the general public.
• Issue a candidate questionnaire to foster discussion among candidates, public officials, and voters about the issues that affect us.
• Attend candidate debates and pose questions about those issues.
• Organize educational events in cooperation with other local organizations to raise awareness of issues that affect our members.
• Sponsor a candidate forum at one of our fall program meetings, or as a special event.

None of these activities, conducted properly, will violate our nonprofit status. They do, however involve thought and hard work. Why should we bother? We live and work in a local community, a region, a nation, a world. We share the responsibility to help make those places better.

Halloween has crept up on us again. Witches, goblins, and super-heroes are descending on neighborhoods across America, and a few simple precautions can prepare them for a safe and enjoyable trick-or-treat experience. These suggestions from the American Red Cross are worth remembering.

For kids

• Walk, slither, and sneak on sidewalks, not in the street.
• Look both ways before crossing the street to check for cars, trucks, and low-flying brooms.
• Cross the street only at corners.
• Don’t hide or cross the street between parked cars.
• Wear light-colored or reflective-type clothing so you are more visible. (And remember to put reflective tape on bikes, skateboards, and brooms, too!)
• Plan your route and share it with your family. If possible, have an adult go with you.
• Carry a flashlight to light your way.
• Keep away from open fires and candles. (Costumes can be extremely flamable.)
• Visit homes that have the porch light on.
• Accept your treats at the door and never go into a stranger’s house.
• Use face paint rather than masks or things that will cover your eyes.
• Be cautious of animals and strangers.
• Have a grown-up inspect your treats before eating. And don’t eat candy if the package is already opened.

For adults
Parents of trick-or-treating kids can get so caught up in the fun themselves that they might forget some simple safety ideas that could save everyone some trouble.

Below are just a few common sense tips that can help.

• Know the route your kids will be taking if you aren’t going with them. The best bet is to make sure that an adult is going with them. If you can’t take them, see if another parent or a teen aged sibling can go along.
• Know what other activities a child may be attending, such as parties, school or mall functions. Know who they’re going with, and how they will get there and back.
• Make sure you set a time that they should be home by. Make sure they know how important it is for them to be home on time.
• Explain to children the difference between tricks and vandalism. Throwing eggs at a house may seem like fun but they need to know the other side of the coin as well, clean up and damages can ruin Halloween. If they are caught vandalizing, make them clean up the mess they’ve made.
• Explain to your kids that animal cruelty is not acceptable. Kids may know this on their own but peer pressure can be a bad thing. Make sure that they know that harming animals is not only morally wrong but punishable by law and will not be tolerated.
• Pin a slip of paper with the child’s name, address and phone number inside a pocket in case the youngster gets separated from the group.
• If you’re going to be driving anywhere tonight, the National Safety Council urges you to be especially alert.
  • Enter and exit driveways and alleys carefully.
  • Watch for children darting out from between parked cars.
  • Watch for children walking on roadways, medians and curbs.
  • At twilight and later in the evening, watch especially carefully for children in dark clothing.

I love the magic of Halloween. I love the tiny voices at knee level saying “twick ah twee,” and the creative costumes, and the grandparents taking flash photographs of their darlings as they come down the porch steps with their loot. I especially love knowing that the children I care about will be able to indulge their sense of fantasy and their greed for candy without danger. If we all use common sense and follow suggestions like those listed above, everybody can have a frightfully good time!

A colleague recently mentioned that their middle-school daughter had made a friend on MySpace. A few chat conversations made the child uncomfortable, and the father looked over her shoulder during her next conversation with the ‘friend’. After observing some leading questions and inappropriate comments, the parent cancelled his daughter’s MySpace account and reported the incident to the FBI. The ‘friend’ was a stalker, later arrested in an FBI child-porn sting operation.

Not every parent is this vigilant. Not every kid is as comfortable discussing things like this with a parent.

Here are some basic tactics that can help keep kids cybersafe.

1. Supervise your child’s online activities:
   • Limit the amount of time your child spends on non-school-related computer activity.
   • Monitor which sites they are surfing, either automatically (AOL Parental Controls, Net Nanny) or by daily discussions about what they’ve found online.
   • Keep your computer in a high-traffic area in your house, where you can see your children’s reactions to the sites they visit.
2. Set boundaries on what your child is allowed to do on the computer.
   • Discourage children from posting photos or giving personal information in a chat room, website forum, or email message to someone you don’t know.
   • Do not allow kids to use a webcam unless you are present.
3. Maintain open communication with your children.
   • Teach kids that not everything people say online is true. People can and will misrepresent themselves in email messages and chat rooms.
   • Urge them to talk to you if they recognize suspicious behavior on the Internet.
   • Warn children about personally meeting any online contact.
   • Remind children to always protect passwords and personal information.
4. Take action when needed.
   • Record usernames and passwords, and remind your children remember to change their passwords periodically.
   • Report messages that are suggestive or threatening to the service provider (MySpace, AOL chat rooms, etc.) and to local, state and federal law enforcement authorities. Both stalking and cyberbullying (criminal Internet harassment or intimidation) are illegal.
   • Install and regularly update anti-virus, firewall, and anti-spyware software. Develop a regular routine for maintaining the security of your home computer system. Nick Francesco’s “Security Tango” is a good way to start.
5. Take advantage of online resources for parents and kids to learn more about protecting yourself and your family online.
   • FBI: “A Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety“
   • FTC: “OnGuard Online“
   • US Department of Justice: “Project Safe Childhood“
   • “CyberAngels“
   • “WiredSafety“
   • “Cybersmart Kids Online“