Western Australian School Library AssociationPresident, Strategy and PolicyReport AGM November 2011
This has been a year of consolidation for ASLA and the Board and significant effort has been invested in educating the Board as to their roles and responsibilities.
The new structure of ASLA and Role statements for the Board were developed in February. This involved sessions on governance led by John Peacock from Associations Forum, who deal with Not for Profit Organisations on a national basis.
Project Teams were developed in the areas of: Finance, Awards, Conference, Access Editorial, Policy Advisory, Publications and Professional Learning. Short term Project Teams were established for: By Laws, National Year of Reading, School Library Inquiry Implementation and Director Induction.
A vision statement and a mission statement for the association were developed in May and placed on the website for all members. ASLA’s Strategic Plan for the current year was also drawn up and priorities were established.
Discussion began in May on the design of Access and feedback was sought from members over the subsequent months through an online survey. The Board later reviewed the results at length, deciding eventually to pursue the publication in colour in 2012.
In August an advocacy campaign was begun to support the tabling of the Federal Government Inquiry into teacher librarians and schools in Australia,targeting principal’s associations, government and non governmentdepartments of education, education unions and national parent associations and councils. This campaign was led by the “Round Table” group, established last year, with membership from ASLA, ALIA and other stakeholders such as universities in ECU and CSU, the Children’s Book Council and corporate bodies such as Softlink. This campaign is ongoing, but will be taken over by the Advocacy Project Team in the future.
Two new Directors were accepted onto the Board in August: Georgia Phillips from New South Wales and Anne Girolami from Victoria. Due to the resignation of the ASLA President, Darlene Hill, procedures were put in place for the Board to appoint an interim president until the next AGM. Subsequent to this, Isobel Williams from Tasmania took up the president’s position and Sandy Amore from Queensland took up the vice president’s role.
At the November Board meeting, an information session on Sponsorship for not for profit organisations was held and the Board decided to pursue this line of investigation through other possible speakers. The purpose of sponsorship is to bring in funds for professional learning opportunities and other general costs to keep member fees lower in the future. Vera Visevic from Mills Oakley Lawyers presented two workshops related to governance of the Board to alert directors to the legal aspects of their role which are quite different from the roles of the ASLA councillors in the past.
The By Laws have been worked and reworked during the year and are now ready to be submitted to the Board for acceptance. The document will be notified to members on the website as soon as they are accepted by the Board.
Project Team business:
The Policy Advisory Team is currently mapping the Highly Accomplished strand of the AITSL standards and will report on their progress to the Board in February 2012.
The Advocacy Project Team:
(previously Inquiry team)will continue to inform the wider community through the advocacy wiki, Facebook page and website. The teamhas begun work on two advocacy projects: stickers/ bookmarks and video stories and this will be publicised soon. The AEU has also agreed to work with ASLA to produce a statement on the importance of Teacher Librarians as part of the teaching and learning team in schools.
National Year of Reading Project Team:
The National Year of Reading (NYR) receivedpromotion through the ASLA XXII Conference. The project team is seeking several more ideas to contribute to the NYR 2012 website and are particularly seeking units of work for secondary students.
Conference Project Team:
The ASLA Biennial Conference was held at Riverview St Ignatius College in Sydney in October and from preliminary reviews it appears to have gone well. Numbers were reduced from previous years, but outstanding reports came from conference attendees. It was a very successful conference and there will be a detailed report in the next Access journal.
The ASLA Citation 2011 was awarded to Pru Mitchell (now from South Australia) at the national conference and the Teacher Librarian of the Year Award was won by Maureen Toomie (from QLD). Congratulations to these two very deserving winners and also to our WA nomination Brenda Clover from Perth College.
Mary Hookey
President, National Strategy and Policy, WASLA