New and returning Chapter and Division leaders were introduced or reminded of their key responsibilities (support their members with great programming, recruit new members, manage their finances, mentor other chapter and division leaders who were unable to attend). There were about 300 of us at the summit and you would have been proud of our SLA if you'd been able to join us.
Things I heard:
"We are about curation – providing access to actionable information that is edited to its valued source bits" (Cindy Romaine)
"None of us are as smart as all of us." (Satchel Paige via Cindy Romaine)
"It is a time to optimize rather than maximize – go broad with our skills." (Cindy Romaine)
"We are on a membership journey." (Janice LaChance)
The new fellows and rising stars were announced to much applause. Serving on the Awards committee is the best, because it reminds you of what accomplished colleagues we have.
Some of the topics discussed at the Summit: Building community with social networks, remote and virtual programming, expanding community outside our current membership, enhancing the community with new alignment tools. There was much participation and many question and answer sessions. We learned that Daniel Lee and team have developed a new template for all divisions and chapters to convert to Wordpress to create a more consistent SLA presence, which will encourage all to update their content and provide much more effective functionality.
We enjoyed much conviviality at a reception at the Navy Memorial Museum thanks to the DC Chapter, who manned information desks and worked closely with SLA staff to make the meeting run effectively.
We heard from Susan Robertson, CAE, about the decision to volunteer and the decision to join. She said "engagement is essential." All of us need to connect to our organizations in some way for them to be relevant to us. We are influenced by the "mission" of our organizations - whether we support it or not. Organizations are made up of local leaders, shapers (help people connect), teachers, and writers (produce knowledge). Each of us can choose which area to contribute in. Most people don't volunteer to go on a "busman's holiday" - we prefer enrichment. Many people are only waiting to be asked to join or contribute. We want volunteering to be fun.
The conference theme will be about practicing agility in an open world economy. This translates for all chapters and divisions to focus on collaboration and co-sponsoring – so we ensure members benefit most from program planning. Stephen Abrams is developing an interesting presentation for our caucus in Philadelphia – hope to see many of you there. The agenda for the meeting will follow to remind you when and where to come, and what we will discuss at our business meeting. Let me know if you have an agenda item.
Many SLAers are interested in Encore – and we will set up a Linked-in profile as well as a Facebook presence. We need to explore these social medias to share information and help define our personalities in our disconnected world. Expect to receive a survey monkey link to enable you to vote on updating our name from KRET: Retired Members Caucus to ENCORE: Retired Members Caucus.
Best to all. Susan
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