Hosting

Thanks to my involvement in the Career Development Group I am gaining confidence in event planning. This started when I volunteered to help plan a childrens book themed fundraising party, there was a team of us so no pressure on an individual and most importantly it was fun, this has inspired me to take on more serious events. I recently hosted CDG National Council meeting and am planning this years sponsored walk.

National Council
What I found was that this was far easier than I had anticipated. The only things I had to do was find somewhere to have the meal on the night before the meeting, find a room to have the actual meeting in, the chair takes care of booking hotel rooms, and be available for any travel questions.

I identified 2 mid price range and 1 cheap restaurant, one Italian, one Chinese and a Wetherspoons, this offered variation and most people will find something they like at an Italian restaurant, Chinese can be a bit tricky and Wetherspoons is fairly varied so will suit most tastes. The group decided on the Italian and off we went, I counted the number of people attending the meal and booked a table for that number, couldn't have been easier. After the meal people went their own way and I went home to make sure I had a copy of everything I needed for the meeting.

The library I work in has a number of rooms of various sizes, I found a small sized one (only needed for 16 attendees) which had a window (very important if you're sitting in the same room all day) and booked it months in advance to make sure we got it.  To make the day more comfortable I bought a small selection of refreshments - a box of biscuits and 2 cartons of juice (apple and orange) and had a pitcher of water available. Again, so simple, why had I not offered sooner? Mostly because I didn't have the confidence, I didn't know what it involved and that put me off. The day went well and I would be happy to volunteer to host National Council again, assuming it still exists after the CILIP rejig of SIGs.

Sponsored Walk
So far this is going really well - the walk has been decided, the travel arrangements investigated and the mid-walk refreshment point plotted into the walk. I have started designing a poster to display in staffrooms so that we can start fundraising and get volunteers to take part and will add a piece on the CDG divisional website promoting the walk. Once that's finished all that's left to do is the walk itself, oh and collect the sponsorship money!

One of the best parts of being a member of the CDG is that you can volunteer to do new things, I would never get the chance to plan meetings or events through my job, CDG lets you do as much or as little as you are comfortable with. I also get the support of more experienced members who offer advice and suggestions to make the learning process as quick and as easy as possible, but with CDG it is support rather than having someone force their way of doing things on you.

The highs and lows of planning a fundraising party

Wednesday night was the night, people dressed up as their favourite children’s book character (see below for some pictures), prizes were won and fun and merriment was had by all. It was also one of the most rewarding nights of my life. I had helped plan this; I had helped raise over £300 for charity, not bad for one night!

The party planners

 

Even though the night itself was a success there were hard times along the way, it was not as easy as we made it look on the night! Trying to get people to donate food and prizes, even for a charity event, is difficult. Quite a few larger companies have a designated cause and won’t donate to other charities. About 50% of people approached didn’t respond, while I knew from the start that not everyone would be willing to donate something it was so disheartening to get rejection after rejection. None of the cake companies that I approached were willing to donate anything, however, when I started looking at family and friends I managed to get a few good prizes, success at last! (see below for a selected list of sponsors) When the whole planning group put all of the prizes together on the prize table it was actually really full.

'Cruella' winner of the fancy dress competition receiving her prize

 

Here is a selection of generous sponsors:

Lily Oak

Kirsty Ferry

The Front Room

Aubergine Hairdressing

 

Things learnt for future fundraising parties-

• Be aware that while the cause is important to you it’s not necessarily important to potential sponsors
• There are highs and lows, prepare for some stress outs
• Get a good team of people to plan the event
• Have a good theme, children’s book characters is a good one as you can create a good costume with minimal effort, or for the more creative types you can go all out
• Start planning well in advance and have regular meetings to discuss progress
• Get a good venue, the function room we used was long and thin(ish) with it’s own bar so drinks were handy and the shape of the room meant people could cluster in groups without the room looking empty, and most importantly it was free!
• Have a flexible timetable with events planned, for example, we had a guess the number of sweets in the jar which was a good icebreaker as someone went round all the tables asking people, a quiz and a raffle

The 'Wallies'

 

Experience through Volunteering

Months between posts then 2 in the same day!!

I have always preached about the value of volunteering, you can learn so much by simply donating your time. It doesn't cost you anything and you gain so much, plus, you don't have to go through the dreaded interview, there is no wrong.

The latest voluntary thing I'm doing is helping to arrange a fundraising party through CDG. What I have gained through this-

• Project working - my job does not involve any sort of projects, despite repeatedly asking to be picked for projects I have yet to see my name come out of the hat. I now have experience of working as part of a project team.
• Liaising - while I do some liaising as part of my job and through CDG as Website Officer I am now developing my liaison skills, especially important when you're trying to get freebies as prizes!!
• Time management skills - I am helping to organise a party, a raffle, do my job and have recently moved into a flat which needs gutted, it would have been impossible without good time management skills.
• Networking - again, it is often overlooked but I have worked with people I would not normally even meet so it's been interesting.
• Advertising/publicity - I have helped to advertise this event by creating a Facebook event and promoting it on CDG event pages.

I have gained and developed valuable skills through something which I am actually enjoying doing, organising a children's book themed fundraising party, how many people can actually say they developed professionally by doing fun activities? My advice, if you haven't already tried it, sign up to a voluntary group and get involved, especially if you're in a situation where you feel you have done as much as you can within the confines of your job. Your time will be appreciated.

Volunteering

Thing 22 - Volunteering to get experience

I have not yet been in a position where I can volunteer the way it described in Thing 22, the need to be able to provide for myself has meant that I need to earn money, volunteering is not a luxury I can afford. This does not mean that I am against volunteering, given the opportunity I would love to gain more skills and develop my experience outside of my customer support experience, I would love to work in Content Services, working on e-resources and cataloguing. Opportunities for extra hours do come up in that team from time to time but due to the hours they would conflict with my current post so are not something that I can do.

It is important to realise that volunteering does not just mean working a job for free, it can also be joining a SIG. I joined the Career Development Group a little over a year ago, so far the benefits have far outweighed the costs, I have made contacts, gained skills such as networking and liaising (not possible in my current post) and get to be a part of something. The only downside of this is that I have to take holiday to attend the meetings as they take place during my shift, which I don't like doing as I run out of holiday for doing things that I would like to do for fun rather than professional development.

I have also joined University, College and Research Group as my university rep. This has been useful for current awareness although I feel completely out of my depth! I have only attended one meeting so far and at the regional round up session where people talk about what is new at their instituition I had no idea how QR codes are used in libraries, I vaguely remember reading an article about it and not really understanding what QR code was! Needless to say after that meeting I went and read up on QR codes and now know they are a way store information, ways this has been applied in libraries include: floorplans, catalogue entries and audio tours, all of these can be accessed via a QR code. I have a feeling that a lot of reading will take place as a result of my membership of UC&R! This will be great for my current awareness.

I think that if you can't afford to volunteer then joining a SIG is the best way to develop skills and knowledge. Networking and liaising skills are important management skills and not ones I could develop much in my current post so CDG has been very useful. Having a direction for current awareness is useful and cuts down on the amount of reading to do, or adds to it? Not really sure how that one works.

The joy of networking

I really like the networking opportunities presented by professional bodies. I got involved with my local CDG group as I wanted to be more involved in the library community and have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to network within the group, especially for someone like me who doesn't find meeting new people very easy. When I represented the division at National Council I also got to put faces to names which was useful. I have also become the workplace rep for my local division of UCR group, even though I haven't yet been able to get to a meeting (just joined last month!) I have already talked, or 'networked', with the other UCR members at work.

As far as training and development goes I have benefitted greatly from my membership of CDG, I became Website Officer for the group which has already improved my web skills and liaison skills, as division rep at Council I gained a better understanding of how information moves throughout the organisation which I could translate to work. Being a member of the group and attending meetings means that I get to discuss possible training events so if there is something that I feel would be useful to me and other new professionals it is possible to raise this at meetings. This is fantastic as most CILIP training takes place in London which would mean either a very early train and thus a very long day or a stay overnight which increases the price, neither is an optimal outcome, but as CDG organises events within their own region this makes attendance much more likely.

I am also demonstrating my dedication to continuing professional development and applying for Chartership, another good reason to be a member of CILIP.