To chair or not to chair

That was the question at the last Cilip East of England branch committee meeting, held in Bury St. Edmund's last week. It is a double-faceted question, in the sense that:

1. I was asked to chair the meeting as Darren, our Chair, was involved with an event the branch had organised on the same day. Being the Vice-Chair, I couldn't say no, so I feigned a lot of confidence and said "sure, no problem" as if chairing meetings is something I do every day. I studied the agenda and planned the structure of the meeting quite meticulously, and I also looked for some advice online, stumbling on this great link that gave me a lot of good points to think about.

CPD23 Thing 7: Real life networks

I wasn’t feeling much inspired for this one, but Helen’s post and, above all, the comments to it woke me up. Totally agreeing with what Jo, Bethan and LJ Hutchins have said in the comments, and bearing in mind that I know everyone is different and at different stages of their career / life, this is what wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t signed up for CILIP membership - and it's not an exaustive list. I wouldn't have...

Queen: stop this nonsense!*

Having been "caught" taking loads of notes at Annie Mauger’s talk at the UL yesterday evening, here I am, with my thoughts and observations. First of all, I must thank Annie Johnson for writing a very well structured blog post, that gives a perfect summary of the concepts touched by the CILIP CEO in her talk: if you don’t know what I’m talking about, please read that post first and then come back.