Touchstone is a regional STC competition, sponsored by the Northern California STC chapters. Proceeds from the competition benefit the Kenneth Gordon Scholarship, which supports technical communication students at local colleges.
We started as the Northern California Technical Communication Competition (NCTCC) and adopted the name Touchstone in 1996. If you know about the history of NCTCC before 1990, please send email to this address (mailto:[email protected]), so we can update this website.
For many years, the Bay Area chapters and the Sacramento chapter managed the competition in turn. Each year one chapter managed the competition and received an honorarium of $1000.00. It passed a nest egg of $6000.00 to the chapter managing the next year’s competition. Starting in 1991, all additional proceeds of the competition went to support the STC Kenneth Gordon Scholarship.
Starting in 2001, individual chapters no longer managed the competition. After that, all Northern California chapters sponsored the competition and shared an honorarium. Over the years, the number of Northern California chapters shrank from 6 to 1. The SF Bay Chapter now manages the competition. All of the proceeds go to the scholarship.
