In January the UK Chapter played host to the Awards event for the STC Trans-European Technical Communications competition, reported in more detail elsewhere in this Newsletter. It was a truly international event, with participants from Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Italy, and Finland, as well as the UK, and with a very strong delegation from the STC Board, including Paula Berger, the 1st Vice-President.

Paula becomes STC President in May, and one of her duties is to select a venue for the autumn meeting of the STC Board. To reflect her commitment to the STC's new drive to establish itself as a truly global organisation, Paula has decided to bring the entire STC Board to London in October 2006. Board meetings are open to any STC member who wants to attend as an observer, and this will be a fantastic opportunity for members of our Chapter to meet Society leaders face-to-face, and we hope to organise some social events to allow Board members to meet Chapter members in informal settings as well. As you may have heard, the UK Chapter is also taking part in planning a Regional Conference for STC's Region 2, which includes some Chapters in Maryland, DC, and the Carolinas, as well as in Europe and Israel. This conference will take place in London immediately after the Board meeting, and there will be plenty of opportunities for chapter members to help with organisation before and during the event.

But the Board meeting and the Conference are far ahead in the future and as you will read in this newsletter we have plenty going on between now and October, with a meeting in Sheffield at the end of March and in London at the beginning of June, as well as Northern and Southern LIG meetings.

A thriving Chapter like ours depends entirely on its volunteers, and I am proud to have such a great team working with me during my year as President. As you can imagine, 2006 promises to be a particularly exciting year for our Chapter, and that means it's a great opportunity for you to get more involved. I'm delighted to announce that Steve Rawlinson has joined the Chapter team as Education Manager, and has started researching what education and training courses are available in (or near) the UK. Although Steve is not the first new face to join the Chapter team this year, I hope that more members will now follow his example. If you look at the list of Chapter Officers you'll see that we still have a couple of vacancies for the current Chapter year, which ends in June. After June, our current 1st Vice-President (VP), Nancy Halverson, will take over as President, and Nick Rosenthal the 2nd VP becomes 1st VP. Although some of the remaining Chapter Officers are happy to volunteer for a further year, there are some who are thinking of standing down, so I would be delighted to speak to any member who thinks that there is any Chapter role that they'd consider taking on.

Finally, I'd like to thank John Clarke, a great friend of this Chapter, for his time and effort in developing the CSS style sheets for this new-look online Newsletter, and I am sure you will agree with me that he has done an excellent job.

With all good wishes,

David Farbey