The mission: To eat, drink and be merry!

Event: STC UK Chapter Christmas Dinner 2005

Location: Browns Restaurant, Covent Garden.

Result: A great night out!

The evening of the STC UK Chapter Christmas dinner coincided with a visit to the Aylesbury office from one of our Indian writers and our Senior Technical Editor from Oregon. So, three of the McAfee Technical Publications team in Aylesbury decided that it was the perfect opportunity to take our visitors out for the evening; writing-related events are in short supply in our area! In total, there were approximately 20 STC people who met at Browns in a combination of STC members, their partners and colleagues.

Browns restaurant is in the former Westminster County Courts and provided an interesting setting, especially for our visitors - the Courtrooms are still upstairs and retain the Bench and Judges Chairs. There was the chance of a chat beforehand in the bar area which was very welcome after the day at work. When we moved through to the restaurant, the food was an excellent mix of contemporary dishes and classic Christmas fare which again was interesting to our friends from overseas.

For our party, the evening proved a big success! Apart from being able to swap stories with other writers (not all of the work horror variety), we got a lot out of meeting new people and finding out how they get over the issues that they face and how different organizations work. Our Indian writer has, until recently been working in the Bangalore writing department on his own and was delighted to have the chance to meet and talk to writers personally. The evening also provided the opportunity to meet some of the STC UK Chapter Board and Officers so we were able to talk about what's going on in the industry and discuss topics like new authoring qualifications.

In my opinion, if you get invited to another STC UK Christmas mission, there's a lot more to it than a nice meal!

Mission Accomplished.

Signing off:

Fiona Tayler