A warm welcome to the branch Annual General Meeting.
Thank you for taking time out this morning to attend the
respective Interest Group AGMs and then staying for the branch AGM. Judging
by the LIASAOnline listserv postings about AGMs elsewhere in the country, quite a number of branches are holding their
AGMs this morning, but also their
interest groups. Western Cape led the
way with this last year! The idea was to enable members to take time
out on one morning, attend their primary interest group business meeting and
then the branch AGM, and take the
opportunity to do some good networking and sharing. The only interest group not able to meet
today is SLYSIG as their membership is mostly teachers - and according to WC Department of Education
regulations, meetings need to happen after hours, so their meeting happened on
Wednesday.
This is also an
election year for national, branch and interest groups. A
little later in the proceedings, we will hand over to Nazeem Hardy, who is the
Electoral Officer for the Western Cape to take us through the proceedings and
announce the new incoming BEC as well as the results of the elections for the
interest groups.
The current BEC has continued unchanged since the AGM last
year.
EVENTS
The Western Cape Branch has had an exciting and busy year
thus far, with the branch and the active interest groups offering opportunities
for ongoing professional education and development. We
had some great plans for events, which didn’t happen for a variety of reasons,
but which we hope the new incoming BEC will take up. Nevertheless, there were quite a number of
opportunities which very quickly became oversubscribed . Within hours of an event being posted on the
listserv, we had to put up “Fully
Booked” “Sold out” signs. It
certainly seemed that members had to move quickly to secure spaces to avoid
disappointment.
- Our successful end of the
year Recruitment Breakfast which has become a tradition on the Western
Cape LIASA calendar. The special
guest was author, S E Partridge, prize winning author of youth
titles. We probably all went back
to our libraries to check that we had the books! I know I did! The venue was Durbanville Hills Winery.
- LIASA, in conjunction with US Embassy
American Libraries, offered a range
of free workshops on Consumer
Health Information, across the country during SA Library Week. Visiting University of Tennessee Preston Medical
Library Librarians Cynthia Vaughn and Martha Earl presented workshops at
the MRC and at UCT’s Health Science Library.
• SSIG took the Customer Care Workshop to Worcester which was
also “sold out”. A Dewey Decimal Workshop was held a few weeks
ago, and that proved to be very
popular. There were 50+ attendees at a
workshop.
- E-books was the topic of the two sessions
run by LiSLIG this year. Again,
both times “Sold Out”.
Interestingly, the second
workshop was indeed over tea, at a restaurant.
- WCHELIG organised a
workshop on “Thinking about Teaching and Learning” which was presented
by Prof Jeff Jawitz from the Higher &
Adult Education Studies and Development Unit (HAESDU) and Centre for
Higher Education Development (CHED) at UCT. The workshop was fully booked within
hours of the notification going out to members. This was the second time this
workshop had been offered.
WCHELIG also organised a colloquium on Information Literacy
Practices which was also very well attended.
- PACLIG held a workshop on
creating a Reading Programme.
Plus held a very exciting
competition asking librarians how they see themselves. The winner was announced at their AGM
earlier on.
- SLYSIG (School Libraries
and Youth Services Interest Group) Western
Cape hosted a two-day workshop on School Library Management for
teachers and other individuals working
in school libraries within the Western Cape. There were over 100 attendees.
MEMBERSHIP
As of 16 August 2012, we have 297 signed up members. At last year’s AGM, our paid-up members
stood at 261 members.
LIASA has a couple of membership campaigns on the go which
you would have seen in the LIASA-in-Touch and on both the Western Cape listserv
and LIASAOnline.
Campaign No 1: And
if the branch increases its membership by 25% (based on the 2011 stats), then
the branch gets a reward. The Western Cape 2011 stats was 274. 25% of that is 69 new members. (well 68,5 ….). We are currently at 297 and the target (if we are to get a
reward) is 343. 46
more members. The closing date for
this is 15th September.
Any prize money that
the branch wins (no matter where and for what) is ploughed back into subsidies and
sponsorship for continuing education programmes and workshops - such
as the School Library Management Workshop,
"Librarians as Teachers" Workshop, "E-books Over
Tea" and the "Dewey Decimal
Workshop".
If you as a member, recruit 10 new members, then you stand a
chance of winning some prizes.
Campaign No 2 is the Winter Campaign where, if you recruit 2
new individual members, you’ll get 25%
discount on your membership fees for 2013.
The new recruits must join for this year and again in 2013 for the
discount to be applied.
Campaign No 3 is our own campaign. We know how popular the end of the year
recruitment breakfast is , so we have come up with an offer that the first 10
Western Cape members to recruit 5 new members (or get lapsed members to renew)
for this year - 2012 - get
to go to the breakfast for free, as a thank you. Our
deadline is also 15th September.
The BEC considers that all events held in the Western Cape
are , in fact, recruitment opportunities.
FINANCES
Sue Hardy, our treasurer, will present a financial statement
during her report. The financial
statement has been audited, but Sue will talk to this.
LIBRARIAN OF THE YEAR
Christelle Lubbe was
named 2nd place runner up in
the national Librarian of the Year competition in 2011. The
prize, generously donated by Ebsco , was R20 000 which she used to become a 2013 Summer
Associate at the Mortensen Center for International Programmes at the
University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
She will be sharing her experiences with us shortly.
We will also be announcing the Western Cape Branch Librarian
of the Year for 2012 this morning.
THANK YOU
Our thanks need to go to our sponsors and supporters, not just
at this event, but all our events over the past year. We acknowledge and thank our institutions
for their support which has ranged from financial sponsorship for events to
providing venues for meetings and training.
One of the strengths of the Western Cape branch is the
number of active interest groups we have -
without them, it would be very difficult for the branch to provide the
range of opportunities to members. We
acknowledge and thank the interest groups and the committee members for their
enthusiasm and commitment to LIASA, and to serving the LIS sector in the
Western Cape.
I would like to say thank you to a fantastic team - “the Win Team” . The spirit of co-operation, camaderie,
friendship and professionalism is alive
and kicking! You are truly
awesome! These are indeed “LIASA members who are Leaders! “
A special mention needs to be made of those BEC members who
are stepping down. Julian Schroeder
who has served on the BEC, first as
treasurer and then as Vice Chair; Lulama
Langeni, PRO and Dr Reggie Raju, the branch’s Second Representative. We would like to thank them for their
services, support, professionalism
- shining examples of LIASA Members who
are Leaders! And just because they no
longer serve on the BEC, they will still
remain active members of the branch and organisation.
We would also like to acknowledge our President, Naomi Haasbroek, whose term of
office comes to an end at Conference. It is going to be strange not to have Naomi
around, serving LIASA in some capacity -
whether in the branch or at national.
LIASA, in my mind, is synomous with Naomi. The two are really intertwined. The incoming President has big shoes to
fill!
Naomi - in honour of
LIASA’s 15th birthday, we
would like to hand over this birthday card signed by LIASA members here at the
AGM.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Please diarise 28th November
2012 for the End-of-Year Recruitment Breakfast. The venue will be Anura Vineyards. Details will be made available a little closer
to the time.
Ingrid Thomson
Chair: 2010 - 2012
