April 2009
Hello!
I am pleased to report that members of our Chapter's Executive and Advisory Boards are working diligently to ensure your Chapter membership continues to be a professional asset. During our April 2nd Executive Board conference call meeting, Cindy Sheffield, Chairperson of the Strategic Planning Committee, presented an update about the goals and objectives being identified for the next 3 years of our Chapter. The draft plans have been matrixed across the different functional committees, and are now being reviewed by committee members. We expect to have the final Chapter Strategic Plan this summer, ready for early implementation this fall and fully integrated into Chapter activities by the first of 2010.
Board members received an informative briefing by our Chapter Archivist, Lorette Weldon. Lorette has created an energetic plan for sorting and processing our Chapter's archives housed in the Special Collections section at the University of Baltimore. Once finished with processing the more than 16 boxes of archive materials according to SLA guidelines, Lorette will investigate how they can be digitized and posted to a section of our Chapter website.
Our recent series of "Chat" sessions successfully brought together University of Maryland iSchool students with practicing information professionals who are members of SLA in the area. This was a new initiative for our chapter and we intend to continue it. The last Chat for the Spring school semester was held April 16th and featured healthcare and medical information professionals. The next series of Chats is scheduled for this Fall. Judy Tapiero, a Director on our Board, is organizing the Chat sessions. She can be reached at judith@theorganizedlibrary.com, and is looking for members interested in participating in the next series of Chats.
In an effort to give students opportunities to "plug" into our Chapter network, the Board discussed and approved 2 immediate endeavors. The first activity is a drawing for a free ticket to the SLA Annual Conference in Washington DC.Any University of Maryland iSchool student who is a member of SLA is encouraged to enter their name into the drawing. The drawing will be conducted on Friday, May 1st and a full conference registration ticket for the winning student will be purchased. The winner is to provide a photo essay and a written brief from the conference, to be published in our chapter blog, The Cutting Edge.
Our second Chapter initiative targeting students provides up to 10 free seats at our upcoming May 14th program on Strategic Planning. These free "Angel Seats" are being sponsored by Members of the Maryland Chapter of SLA, and we look forward to welcoming students who take advantage of the free ticket to this professional development program.
Speaking of programs, have you signed up yet for the May 14th strategic planning program? Tickets are still available to this low cost and highly beneficial event. And yes, I know strategic planning isn't as sexy as the cryptographic museum, but you know you've got to bite the bullet and create and then follow a strategic plan in this economy, otherwise you might be needing an Angel Seat yourself. Additional information about the program is at http://units.sla.org/chapter/cmd/strategicplanning09.htm.
Our next board meeting is Friday, May 1st, with both Executive and Advisory Board members. We have a full agenda including presentations by our Membership and Public Relations committees, both of which are at the epicenter of Fall chapter initiatives. Once again, I invite you to volunteer to help with Chapter activities. Like Sara Witman, our newest volunteer contributing to Chapter Public Relations plans, you too will find our chapter initiatives exciting and professionally rewarding!
Best regards,
Chris
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