Subcommittee Updates
2007 SLAQ President’s Report – Gold Coast
2007 was another successful year for our Gold Coast Branch which culminated in our Vice-President, Helen Reynolds, being awarded the ‘Teacher Librarian of the Year’ award. Those of us, who have worked with Helen over the years, can testify to her dedicated service to our industry, her apparent seamless ability to organise and ‘cut to the chase’ and to the outstanding work that she has carried out at her School and at local and state level. We wish Helen all the best in her new challenge and hope that she remains a beacon for fellow Teacher Librarians on the coast.
SLAQ Gold Coast continued with its ‘Termly and Timely’ dinners which provide a regular social outing and a relaxed atmosphere for networking and idea pooling. These are always successful events with upwards of fifteen attending most dinners. Coral Tullock was a guest at one of these dinners when we had over thirty members join us for a very successful evening. Four evenings were held in total throughout the year.
On the PD front we started the year by supporting the Somerset Festival of Literature, Breakfast with the Authors and by attending the Somerset one day conference for Librarians and teachers.
This festival always provides us with an ideal opportunity to start the year in a positive light and again, on the Coast we are indebted to talented people with vision and brilliant organisational skills.
In Term 2, SLAQ supported the Syba Signs Seminar, ‘Designing for Learning’ which was held at Emmanuel College. Our grateful thanks must go to Deanna Pienaar for bringing this one day seminar to the Coast and who almost single-handedly took on the role of organising venues, catering, gifts, transport and made the day, which was oversubscribed at nearly 100 participants, an extremely successful one. This proved an ideal opportunity to highlight SLAQ’s role in PD for TL’s and one in which we relished. The ability of SLAQ to ‘tag’ on to major events like this seminar and provide much of the labour and organisation, allows our membership to have access to PD that would otherwise be very difficult to obtain.
Kings Christian College hosted our next PD on the CBC’s shortlisted books. Liz Derouet entertained and informed us with a judge’s insight into the short listed books – those that made the cut and those that didn’t. We all left that afternoon well informed and with a nightmarish understanding of the life of a CBC judge. Certainly not one for the faint hearted. We hope this make this an annual session as it is growing in popularity yearly.
In Term 3 by popular demand, the Saturday ‘Smart Art’ workshop run by Annie White from Saint Stephen’s College was held. This is an all day hands-on workshop with art and literature activities based on the short-listed books. It is held very early in the term in order to give schools an opportunity to have displays and activities well underway by the time Book week arrives. Twenty-five people donned aprons, welded paintbrushes and created amazing pieces of art work, all refined to cater for activities that can be done by a class and in the library.
Term 4 proved to be a difficult term to organise with both the President and Vice President away overseas on long – service leave. The annual Christmas gathering was shelved in order to make way for a larger social activity early in 2008 to be used as a way of recruiting more members.
In retrospect, 2007 was a huge year for many of the committee; long service leave for two members, and two members with heavy study commitments. Congratulations Andrew, our local councillor, who has completed his MLT at QUT. Well done! SLAQ gold Coast appreciates the huge role that being the councillor demands and to undertake this, while studying, is an achievement in itself. My grateful thanks go to Deanna Pienaar, secretary, and Pat Case, treasurer, for your fantastic work throughout the year. We look forward to 2008 with renewed vigour and the opportunity to continue to foster and develop our professional lives.
Annie White, President, SLAQ Gold Coast Sub Committee
Andrew Smith, Councillor SLAQ Gold Coast Sub Committee
Last updated 25 February 2008