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As you will already know from our communication regarding the meeting with the National Library, the SLANZA National Executive met last weekend and below is a summary of some of the areas of discussion. These are not full minutes but rather some of the discussion points to keep you up-to-date with the work being done on your behalf by the National Executive.
Membership Our membership numbers remain strong with an increase to date compared with last year of new and renewed memberships. The regions are all working hard to increase members as there is power in numbers – the greater the number of fully paid up members means the more work SLANZA can do to support libraries and student outcomes. Talk to the people in your own personal learning networks and encourage them to consider a SLANZA membership. National Executive Meetings: Online or Face-to- Face Last year the NE trialled an online meeting using Google hangouts and although this can come with technical issues, it was still a useful and productive way to hold a meeting. Because face-to-face meetings can be costly (flights and accommodation), it was decided that NE would hold just two face-to-face meetings in 2015 and the third meeting would be online (July). We hope this will mean that the work of the Executive can be done but in a more cost effective way, enabling us to channel funds directly into projects for our members. Book Protection Products We are pleased to announce that once again Book Protection Products have agreed to sponsor SLANZA professional development in 2015 for $5000. BPP have done this for many years and SLANZA values and appreciates this ongoing support that they offer our members and school libraries. As the upcoming conference is our major professional development for 2015, it was decided to use these funds to sponsor members from all the regions to attend conference. We are very aware that in many cases schools will not fund library staff to attend conference and we hope to make conference accessible to some of these members. Watch for more information from your region on how you can apply for this sponsorship money to attend conference. Ministry of Education and the Future of School Libraries Karen Clarke shared a summary of her research into recent Ministry of Education documents and their position on school libraries. SLANZA is staying well informed with the MOE directions and ensures that we not only advocate for the school library and librarian, but also align our directions with current education thinking. If you are interested in knowing more in this area, below are some links where you might like to begin some reading. Future Focused Learning Report Digital Hubs in Schools Modern Learning Environments National Library and the Services to Schools Transformation Programme The outcome and information of this discussion has already been covered in an earlier communication. If you haven’t received this please click here. Collected Magazine The next issue of Collected is due for publication early next term. The theme will focus on reading and submissions for this issue will close on April 2nd. Articles on topics other than reading are also welcome and please don’t be shy about writing an article for Collected – we know there are some great things happening in school libraries all over the country and Collected is one way we can share and celebrate the work being done. As members of SLANZA you will be the first to receive your copy of Collected via an email link. It is important that we show how much we value your membership and Collected will be available for general release a few weeks later. Finance and Treasurer’s Report The financial report was presented and we are currently on budget for the 2015 financial year. We have received some income from downloads of full text articles from Collected and $700 from the Open Polytechnic for an article submitted by Karen Clarke and Bridget Schaumann who have kindly donated this income back to SLANZA. The National Executive are also considering a variety of other avenues for income which we hope will support initiatives such as Collected and our online professional development so these initiatives can continue to be free of charge to members. Conference: From the Ground Up: Growing Libraries for the Future The conference is shaping up well and we look forward to this event in September. For current information regarding conference, click here. Conference 2017 The National Executive had a lengthy discussion about the future conference in 2017 and the possibilities of alternative ways of providing professional development. Conferences are expensive, time consuming for our regional volunteers and a major undertaking for a small organisation. Because the future of a national conference and the possible alternatives is a major change for our organization, we intend to ask you, our members about how we can best provide professional development. After our conference later this year we will survey our membership and ask for your feedback before we move forward on this issue. President, Immediate Past President and President Elect Miriam Tuohy is currently our President Elect and will take over from Bridget Schaumann in July (the end of Bridget’s two year term.) Because the AGM will not be held until the conference in September, this will be a ‘soft’ handover in July and the reins will pass over officially at the AGM in September. A new President Elect will be confirmed at the AGM – watch for more information on nominations for this position. Online Professional Development Our very successful (and free to members) online professional development is about to get underway again. The format for this will change slightly. Rather than enrolling for all modules as a package, members will be able to just select individual modules to complete. We will let you know when enrolments open as NE are currently looking at offering this via a new learning platform in order to improve and streamline this service. SLANZA Google+ Community SLANZA is about to launch a Google+ community where members can “share resources and to join in discussions relating to the practical day-to-day running of a school library. We hope that members will share their knowledge and skills with each other and provide encouragement and help to those with questions.” This community will launch in the beginning of Term 2 where your request to join will be processed if you are a member of SLANZA. If you don’t currently belong to Google+, make it your holiday task to set up your Google+ account. If you are new to Google+ or Google products, click here for some helpful guidance. Thanks everyone and congratulations for making it to the end of this very long update on the work of your National Executive team. As you can see by the scale of issues covered over the weekend, we are working hard on behalf of you all but also value hearing from you. Please don’t hesitate to contact your regional representative with any issues or concerns that SLANZA may be able to assist you with. Cathy Kennedy National Executive Communications
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Re: Changes to National Library Services to Schools and the Curriculum Service
This weekend the SLANZA National Executive met with Geraldine Howell and Mark Stanley from the National Library. Geraldine is Director Literacy, Learning and Public Programmes and Mark is the project manager for the implementation of the Services to Schools Transformation Programme (SSTP). Firstly, thank you to everyone who attended meetings in their local regions, wrote their concerns to their SLANZA representatives by email, wrote letters and generated news reports regarding our concerns to the change in service. Throughout the country, 20 meetings were held by SLANZA to discuss this issue and were attended by 217 SLANZA members. The National Executive collated all your feedback from the regional meetings and correspondence. From this we created a list of major questions regarding the changes to the Services for Schools and the implementation of the SSTP. Geraldine and Mark were able to give us some clear answers and assurances to some of our questions and we are waiting on Geraldine’s written replies to these which we will then share with you, along with a summary of the verbal replies from the meeting. Many of the questions however, could not be answered at this time as some of the decisions made around the proposed programme have implications for National Library staff who must b (quite rightly) informed first. To this end, we are told that a major announcement and information pack will be sent to Principals on Thursday from the National Library, both by surface and electronic mail. Please make sure you ask your Principal to share this information pack with you and your teachers. This pack will outline the proposed plan and service offer for the remainder of the year and the coming years from the National Library Services to Schools. Geraldine assured the National Executive that our concerns have been listened to and expected we would see this reflected in this service offer on Thursday. The SLANZA National Executive also eagerly await this information pack on Thursday and the service provision it will outline. Once we have had time to read and discuss this document, we will send you further comment. Thank you again from the SLANZA National Executive and regional committees for your continued concern and commitment in ensuring we have services that continue to support our students and their learning outcomes. Cathy Kennedy Communications SLANZA National Executive The conference planning is well underway!
The planning for our conference in September is taking shape – or should we say ‘blossoming’! Here is a taste of what is coming. Remember registrations open in May: http://www.slanza2015.co.nz/slanza15 Keynote Speakers Here are some of the keynotes confirmed so far that you can look forward to: Janelle Riki Janelle’s expertise lies in Te Reo me ōna Tikanga Māori including the Treaty of Waitangi in Education, improving and enhancing Māori achievement, Māori Policies and Procedures for mainstream schools and Bilingual Education. Janelle will look at how our libraries of the future can support Maori achievement. Mark Osborne Mark is a Senior Consultant who works in Future-Focused Education, particularly in the areas of Modern Learning Environments, Leadership and eLearning. Mark will explain Modern Learning Environments (a phrase heard often) and discuss where he sees the school library fitting into future focused education. Tracie Mauro Tracie is Branch Librarian at the Parkes Shire Library and Cultural Centre, a library serving a rural community in New South Wales. Tracie and her staff have been exploring literacy based activities and stimulating learning through sensory play. Tracie is also co-author of a chapter entitled Monsters, Rockets and Baby Racers in the book: The Library Innovation Toolkit: Ideas, Strategies and Programmes. Helen Stower and Kathryn Schravemade Helen is Programme Leader and Kathryn is Teacher Librarian of the Mt Alvernia College Library in Queensland. Helen and Kathryn will share their journey of: Moving from a Traditional Library to a Contemporary iCentre. A journey which they admit is hard, has bumps in the road and is still a work in progress. Workshops You will be able to mix and match from a variety of workshops which cover the following three main streams as below. A call for abstracts is currently out (a summary of what you could present a 45 minute workshop on). I’m sure many of you have been doing some great things in your libraries which we would love you to share with your colleagues! Go to the conference website for the Call for Abstracts information and forms. Workshop Streams Growing Readers Kia whakatipua te kaipānui Workshops covering reading, literacy and promoting a reading culture in your school. Sowing Digital Seeds Kia ruiruia pū matahiko Workshops covering all things supporting and developing information and digital literacy. Cultivating Leadership Kia ngakia te rangatiratanga Workshops supporting library management, the library manager and innovation. Social Programme We are holding our conference dinner at the new Ilex Centre – a new visitor centre in the heart of our Hagley Park Botanical Gardens and on the banks of the River Avon. We also have some other events in the planning including author breakfasts, happy hour and hopefully some fun fashion and styling tips – for you, not your library! Click on the link below to read about our SLANZA President, Bridget Schaumann, from the latest Education HQ.
http://nz.educationhq.com/news/15262/president-profile-bridget-schaumann-the-school-library-association-of-new-zealand-aotearoa-slanza/ |
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