CILIP Ireland Committee Meeting...my first!

I admit I was a little nervous coming to my first Committee Meeting but was delighted with the turn out and the welcome. Attending were Adrienne Adair, Claire Milliken, Alex McIlroy, Marion Khorshidian, Helen Kielt and Lorna Reid...and myself of course!

Our Chair Adrienne started with the introductions and the apologies as there were some new faces and some unable to attend. I did a little spiel about myself and also gave a mini-presentation about the facts and figures of our CILIP Ireland Membership (see below for a sample) which generated some discussion about what areas of membership we should target with our events and how we can attract new members. In order to get more specific ideas about the interests of our membership we agreed on sending out a short questionnaire to CILIP Ireland Members.

CILIP Ireland Member Sectors

I then went through some of the items that were discussed at the Branch and Group Forum, points of interest were the advent of the Virtual Learning Environment on the CILIP website and how we can participate in the  CILIP Professional Registration Launch which will run from the 24th of March to the 4th of April. (Any suggestions welcome!) The next practical steps in creating our Regional Member Network and how it will work in Ireland was another area of discussion but it was decided that this could be looked at in more detail at our next meeting.

Something that I have been working on is the CILIP Ireland online presence....e.g. this blog and out Twitter account, making more use of the CILIP website is another definite aim also. The Committee were keen to give a little more information about themselves on the website.

The LAI/ CILIP Ireland Conferences 2014 and 2015 were also highlighted. The 2014 Conference will be held in the sunny south-east of Waterford on the 10th and 11th of April and then it's back up North in 2015 to an as yet undecided location. Other items of interest were the CILIP Ireland University of Ulster Bursary and a guest speaker spot for CILIP Ireland in the University of Ulster Library course (April 2014).

I felt it was a very positive meeting and we are all enthusiastic about generating more interest in CILIP Ireland and giving more back to our members. We will be coming up with a specific 2014 work-plan for the Committee shortly so watch this space....