Canadian Children S Book Centre
IBBY Canada
Executive Committee Meeting
Canadian Children’s Book Centre
40 Orchard View Blvd., Suite 217
Toronto, ON M4R 1B9
(416) 975-0010
Date: Sunday, March 4, 2012
Time: 10:00am-12:00pm EST
Present: Patricia Ocampo, Vasso Tassiopoulos, Jennifer Dibble, Yvette Ghione, Helena Aalto, Meghan Howe, Ellen Wu, Jane Baskwill, Mahak Jain, Debbie Spring, Kay Weisman
Regrets: Jessica Fung, Susane Duchesne, Merle Harris
Item / Notes / Action1. Introduction / Welcome 2012 executive
-particularly new members Kay, Ellen, Mahak
Brief review of roles and responsibilities
-Susane would have been chairing this meeting as her first one of the new IBBY term but could not come due to a family emergency.
- Usually we start a new term discussing our focus for the next term of IBBY Canada, Susane will discuss this at the next meeting where she will be present
2. Approval of the Agenda / -No changes reported
Motion: To approve the agenda
Moved: Helena
Seconded: Meghan
Carried
3. Approval of Exec Minutes of November 8, 2011 / -No changes reported
Motion: To approve the minutes of November 8, 2011
Moved: Jen
Seconded: Yvette
Carried
2011 IBBY Canada National Activities/Awards/Events
a) Word on the Street / -Last year’s Councillor-Ontario, Kate Newman, has already booked us a booth for Toronto WOTS.
-In Halifax Jane reported that registration was late in coming last year. Patricia will be in contact.
-In Vancouver IBBY is already registered with other related groups. / Jane
b) Cleaver Award / -Quick background: This is an annual award to a Canadian artist of a picture book published in Canada in English or French. Selections are made by a three-person jury chaired by Lina Gordaneer.
-Cybele Young is this year’s winner for her whimsical work on A Few Blocks. The Councillor in the winner’s resident province is the person who coordinates the award ceremony, and since Cybele resides in Toronto, that would put the new Councillor-Ontario in charge.
-Mahak and Susane need to appoint a Councillor-Ontario as soon as possible or else you will have to coordinate this award ceremony. Kate Newman has made a suggestion and submitted a CV for the person who can replace her.
-Whoever plans the ceremony should contact the publisher—in this case Groundwood—to see if there’s an event they’re planning that you can piggyback onto—did this two years ago.
-Helena will send a press release by the end of March.
-Also, long-time Cleaver Award Chair Lina Gordaneer has reached the end of her tenure, so a replacement will have to be found. The Chair should be very familiar with the picture-book world and have to choose fellow jurors and lead their selection discussions. If anyone here is interested in taking this on, please let Susane or Mahak know and they will decide. If no one from the executive is available, then Susane or Mahak will find someone outside of the board to do this. / Mahak
Susane
Helena
Mahak
Susane
c) Russell Grant / -Quick background: An annual grant to support research for a book or paper on Canadian children’s literature. Selections are made by a jury chaired by Deirdre Baker, an instructor, reviewer, and author of kid lit.
-For those of you with connections in institutions, don’t hesitate to spread the word about this grant. Deadline for applications is May 1.
-Susane or Mahak or the new Councillor-Ontario needs to plan the ceremony for this year’s winner, Paulette Rothbauer, who teaches at Western but is often in Toronto. Again, you’ll need to find an event that you can piggyback onto.
-Remember that for any event, it’s important to take photos for the newsletter and website. / Mahak
Susane
d) Aubry Award / -Quick background: The Claude Aubry Award is given biennially to an individual for distinguished service within the field of children’s literature.
-Patricia is certain that Brenda has agreed to continue to chair the jury.
e) Joanne Fitzgerald Memorial Award / -Background: Talented Canadian children’s book illustrator Joanne Fitzgerald passed away last year, and to honour her memory, her husband Robert Young and their daughter, Laura, approached IBBY about setting up an award in her name. Initially we agreed—assuming it would be similar to our Cleaver, Russell, or Aubry Awards—and so her friends and family donated money to IBBY Canada in Joanne’s name. We set aside the money. But then we met with Robert and Laura and realized what they had envisioned was way beyond the scope of IBBY and our resources.
-Patsy Aldana has come up with an interesting proposition that Robert and Laura are excited about. They propose that IBBY partner with large urban public libraries and that each year, one of them—changing cities each year—will accept an illustrator for a week as an illustrator in residence. The library could then organize school visits as well as bring the illustrator together with people in the community who might want to work with a major artist. The residency could be for five days and include travel, room, board, and a stipend. Patsy believes it would help to give IBBY another strong connection to libraries, raise the profile of illustration, and be attractive to illustrators in a world that favours authors. Also, children’s publishing people are rarely invited for residency programs.
- Patsy has gone ahead and secured approval from the head of the Toronto Public Library, so it would be a matter of the IBBY Executive to decide the parameters of IBBY Canada’s work and whether you want to do it.
Some things to consider include:
-We already have $7,839.15 set aside from donations made in Joanne’s name right after she passed away.
-Patsy estimates the annual cost would be $5,000, so in negotiating with Robert and Laura it should be specified that they will need to come up with this money every year or it will not run.
-As a board you’ll need to decide exactly what IBBY is responsible for and what you are NOT responsible for. Will you select the illustrator? Will you choose a chair who will appoint a jury to select the illustrator? Will you organize the winner’s travel and accommodations or leave that to the library? Etc.
-All of this should be decided with Susane and Mahak leading the discussion.
Patricia would like to open up the floor to general thoughts, so Susane has something to consider when she reads the minutes.
Some suggestions that came up:
-Helena thinks that having the library make arrangements with the illustrator makes the most sense.
- Yvette noted that $5000 would cover travel and accommodations.
-Ellen noted that the library will also pay for program costs.
-Kay said that we should consider which illustrators would also be good presenters.
-Mahak noted that the program would raise awareness and applications for the Cleaver Award.
-Helena suggested that publishers can nominate authors based on whether they can present well.
-Yvette asks if a nomination fee would be required; Patricia notes that a nomination fee would reduce the number of non-serious applications; Mahak added that administrative work would require a fee.
-Helena suggested that we find out the cost of the library’s writer in residence program.
- Meghan asked if the illustrator has to be bilingual.
-Patricia notes that we need to figure out how much promotion IBBY Canada will do; including working out listservs, press releases, choosing a library before choosing an illustrator. Starting in Toronto would be easiest.
-We also need to speak with the family to figure out some sort of structure; how will the first year work.
-Meghan suggested that we may have enough funds to hire someone to organize the event; a coordinator.
-We need to have a plan worked out for the next meeting. / Mahak
Susane
f) Newsletter / -Quick background: We issue newsletters quarterly and electronically.
-Jes is our Newsletter Editor but could not make it today. The next newsletter is scheduled to come out in May, so she will be in touch over the next two months with article assignments and deadlines.
-Councillors must write a report for each newsletter, as does the VP and President, so it’s important that you keep active so you have something to report.
g) Website / -Quick background: Please become familiar with our website so you’ll know what’s on there in case you get questions from people looking for information. Useful reference documents and marketing materials can be found on the IBBY Executive Only page. To get there, go on the homepage and scroll to the bottom. There is a hyperlink in very small font on the left side saying “IBBY Executive Only.” The username is IBBY. Password will be changed to executive12. All lowercase. ALWAYS check there for materials before asking Susane or Mahak. It would save a lot of time if you checked this page first before asking for info via e-mail. If there’s something that you think should be up there, send it along to Jen for posting.
-for the next month Jen will need to update the current site with a few things—namely the new Cleaver winner and the exec-only documents like this contact sheet and the minutes. After that Jen will continue to work on an archive, tracking stats, and translating the website. / Jen
h) Finances/Membership / - IBBY Canada would not survive without donations and memberships. Councillors and everyone else, your main job is to talk up IBBY Canada and try to secure new members and donors whenever possible. We used to host annual fundraisers here in Toronto that would bring in several thousand dollars and also raised our profile in an already publishing-saturated city. It would be wonderful if this were taken up again, either here or in other cities, or both.
-IBBY Canada used to take part in the successful fundraiser with Twinning ‘Hot Hot Cuba’ but the event was exhausted over time due to the same people always being asked to make donations.
Some new ideas for fundraising activities include:
-Theo Heras has suggested that IBBY should ask the CCBC to include a piece of art, that was/will be donated to IBBY by Anne Laurel Carter in the upcoming CCBC auction, the proceeds from the sale of this art would go to IBBY Canada with 15% of sales going to the CCBC
-Jane suggests that we establish a student chapter with materials available in other places and we should consider how to recruit from a student perspective.
-Patricia noted that networking through students used to have a lot of activity in BC.
-Jen notes that with student chapters having them come up with a project would make involvement more interesting to them.
2011 IBBY International Activities/Awards/Events
a) Hans Christian Andersen Award / -Quick background: This is the oldest international children’s literature award, honouring an author and an artist biennially. IBBY Canada is the only body eligible to nominate Canadians for this award.
-The 2012 winners will be announced at the Bologna Book Fair in just a few weeks, so keep your fingers crossed for our nominees—Tim Wynne-Jones and Stephane Jorisch.
-Longtime chair Josiane Polidori has asked if she could have a co-chair to help her out with logistics. Patricia said this would be fine. Please be in touch with her if you’re interested in this.
-the next award will be in 2014; please contact Josiane if you are interested in co-chairing
b) Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award / -Quick background: This is the world’s largest kid lit award, honouring authors, artists, storytellers, and reading promoters (individuals or organizations).
-we had skipped a nomination for 2010.
-The 2012 winner will be announced in a few weeks, and our nomination was Jean Little. The 2013 nomination deadline is May 15, which means we should have the dossier complete by mid-April to mail it over cheaply.
-Mahak and Susane will have to decide if they want to work to put together a dossier this year or wait until next year when they’ve had more time. The board will have to decide together who should be nominated. Obviously, this doesn’t give us much time, so either the discussion will need to be conducted over email or we’ll need to skip nominating this year. / Mahak
Susane
c) Asahi Reading Promotion Award / -Quick background: The Asahi is given biennially to two groups or institutions whose outstanding activities are judged to make a lasting contribution to reading promotion programmes for youth.
-You will need to decide if you want to nominate for the 2014 Asahi Award and who you want to nominate. Our last nomination was in 2010—the OSU Children’s Library Fund—and they won! It’s very gratifying to know that just by doing some research and writing up a nomination dossier, a worthy organization in need received $10,000 in US funds.
-ibby.org will have more info and a list of nominees to refer to
d) IBBY Honour List / -Quick background: Every two years, IBBY National Sections are asked to select a list of outstanding books for the prestigious IBBY Honour List. The list acknowledges writers, illustrators, and translators, that we feel represents the best in recently published Canadian children’s literature.
-Patricia is happy to announce that longtime IBBY Honour List committee head, Lisa Doucet, has agreed to continue chairing, so she will handle the selection for the 2014 list.
-We have to issue the official press release.
-presentation is at the congress. / Helena
e) Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities / -Quick background: This is a biennial list of exceptional books for and about children and youth with disabilities. The books are listed in a catalogue that is mailed around the world, and a display of the books travels around the world at various exhibitions before finding a permanent spot at the IBBY Documentation Centre of Books for Disabled Young People in Norway.
-Mahak or Susane will need to send out a blast email to our publishing friends in April notifying them about the list and telling them to submit directly to the IBBY Documentation Centre of Books for Disabled Young People. This letter along with the accompanying documents are included in the batch of electronic files Patricia has passed along to you. Publishers need to submit books by October.
-two Quebec publishers have submitted to IBBY directly. / Mahak
Susane
Wrap-up / Miscellaneous
-PLEASE be as resourceful as possible. If you have a question, first check if the answer can be found on our Executive-Only page on the website. If not, ask yourself WHO might best be able to help you. For website stuff, ask Jen. Helena is a fantastic editor and has a way with words, so please feel free to contact her if you need help writing something for IBBY. Meghan here at the CCBC might be able to help you with general children’s publishing questions. Please use each other to bounce off ideas. Last year Patricia received many emails that she ended up just forwarding on to the appropriate person. This is time-consuming, so she is hoping you can save Susane and Mahak a couple of steps.
- Councillors, remember that your main responsibility is to act as liaisons between your community and IBBY Canada. Keep thinking of ways to get more members or engage your local publishing/bookselling/scholarly community. Please know that you do NOT have to get Susane’s permission to do anything before you do it, so long as it doesn’t involve finances. As an example, Lisa Doucet, as our longtime Councillor-East, would often report to us after the fact that she had given a talk about IBBY at a local university that was studying international children’s literature. Our Alberta Chair spoke with her local bookstores to sponsor IBBY displays. Please feel free to work with autonomy and creativity in making your regions a hotbed of IBBY activity.
Conclusion / Questions and comments
-Yvette clarified finances from AGM:
$14,600 in operating account; Cleaver $8000; Russell $4700.
-Patricia noted that in the past consideration was given to what would happen to the Cleaver and Russell Awards if the accounts ran out of money; only a name was awarded with no funds given.
-Yvette noted that bank interest and continued donations would keep the awards going; we have $9000 to repay to the Russell account; we are trying to balance things out by the end of the year.
-Kay suggests that we should send out a list of reasonably priced hotels for AGM travelers, in the past members have hosted.
-Schedule of Meetings for 2012 (April; June; August; November)
-Usually at the end of these meetings we decide on the next meeting time, but this is something Susane has to do, since it’s most important that it fit with her schedule. I’ll leave it to her to email you about the date and time for the next one, but bear in mind that they are on a weeknight starting at 6 p.m. Toronto time. This means that for our western officers, you will have to figure out how to join the call at 3 p.m. It might help to tell your employer that it is only for two hours four or five times a year.
-make sure to identify yourselves over Skype next meeting.
Thanks, everyone! Best of luck!