Lively Participation and Sneak Preview of Website at May General Meeting
By Naomi Baer, Secretary
The energy of new ideas was in the air at May’s General Meeting! A half dozen people attended the New Member Orientation, and everyone participated in a very productive brainstorming session in small groups of old and new members.
Laura Blijleven started out the meeting with a presentation of NCTA’s new website, to which we’ll be migrating in the very near future. She announced that we’ve signed a contract with Affiniscape, a company that creates websites for professional associations like ours. Their focus on this area allows them to create cost-effective designs for the range of services that most professional associations need and will allow us to bring our features up to date in a variety of ways.
Laura presented some of Affiniscape’s existing websites for other associations, and introduced various modules that can be integrated into our site. Some of the new capabilities could include online registration for workshops, more extensive search capabilities, and a members-only section, where, for example, archived back issues of Translorial could be accessed. Members were asked for their suggestions about the design and features of the new site, and the feedback that was received will be posted on the NCTA member list.
For the brainstorming session, members broke up into small groups and generated many new ideas, including upcoming events, workshop topics, speakers for General Meetings, member recruitment, and variations on the traditional meeting formats (see Feedback Session Report in this issue). Of course, this wasn’t the only opportunity to contribute; new ideas are always welcome! Board members or the NCTA Administrator can be contacted any time with your suggestions.
After this lively discussion, the small groups presented some of their key ideas to the meeting as a whole, and finally, some great door prizes were given away. Several reference books were awarded, as well as a gift certificate to L’Arc-en-plume.
Several announcements followed, including NCTA’s participation in the Public Television pledge drive, one of the events that’s become an annual tradition for socializing with other members while generating some publicity for the organization.
This meeting also marked our second General Meeting at the San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Center, and we’ve moved upstairs into a bigger space. The new environment allowed us to hold the entire meeting in one area, and made it easier for everyone to find a comfortable seat during the presentation, as well as to circulate before and after the meeting.
We look forward to seeing everyone for another uplifting General Meeting on September 18.
