Divisional Perspectives

Yorkshire & Humberside Division 2002

LAURA TASSONI

This has been quite a busy year for the Yorkshire and Humberside Division, with lots of opportunities for committee members to get involved in activities and events.

We have organised several visits to different and varied information services.
These included the library of Bretton Hall College near Wakefield and the attached National Arts Education Archive, the Calderdale Royal Hospital Learning and Development Centre in Halifax, and two visits to Yorkshire Television Studios in Leeds. Each visit allows committee members to plan an event, arrange publicity, coordinate responses, and liaise with the hosts - all valuable transferable skills. When planning visits we try to cover a range of interests and geographical locations. People who come on the visits range from those who work in that particular sector and want to exchange experiences, to those who have a general interest and are keen to meet new people.

In addition to visits we also put on training events. This year we arranged for Anthony Brewerton to come and give a workshop in Barnsley on presentation skills. This was really well received with delegates appreciating both the topic of the event and the style of the speaker.

Our Registration Liaison Officer has set up two Introduction to Chartership workshops, one in Leeds and one in Sheffield, at which Susan Kay and Marion Huckle from CILIP came to talk about the process. There was also the opportunity to meet other candidates and to look at previous successful submissions.

We have had seven committee meetings at various locations and held a joint AGM in Bradford with the Yorkshire and Humberside branch of CILIP. We try to get a representative to as many of the branch's committee meetings as possible, giving yet more scope for networking!

As a CDG division we have a part to play in attracting students to take part in professional activities, and are pleased to have had a succession of excellent student representatives from Sheffield University. We had a presence at the Sheffield CILIP Student Roadshow to try to raise our profile and in February organised a student pub quiz as a social event.

Our division has a web-site, and a newsletter called Up The Ladder which gives information about the committee, information on upcoming diary dates, and a questionnaire completed by an interesting member of the region's library and information community. We also include write-ups of our events by the delegates, who get that something extra out of attending by having an article published.

All our publications and events include open invitations to join the committee and requests for ideas for events, so as to make our plans as relevant to CDG members and other interested parties as possible. Personally I have found membership invaluable, specifically as part of my chartership process – committee members can be as involved as they wish, they get to develop skills which they may not have a chance to in their particular job, and it is a fabulous way to meet people and get your name known professionally.

Laura Tassoni
Yorkshire & Humberside Division
E-mail: L.Tassoni@shu.ac.uk
 
See Yorkshire & Humberside Division webpage for further details