From the committee
by Susie Pilkington and Julie Ganner AE
For a committee still operating under lockdown conditions, there was an extraordinarily large agenda for our May meeting. Much of it was to do with, of course, the online presentations: how to go forward, continuing to move physical meetings to online and for how long? We need two plans for each event, and also an idea of when we have to make the call on which form the presentation will take. For a small committee it is a huge amount of work, which leads to …
Call for committee members
Plans are underway for our Annual Branch Meeting (ABM) in August. At that time, all committee roles will become vacant and we will seek nominations to fill them for the next committee year. The ABM will be held by Zoom this year for the first time, so that all Editors NSW members can participate, no matter where they are.
At the May meeting we took the decision to hold our branch committee meetings online from now on too. This ensures all voting (professional) members, including those who are unable to attend physical meetings in Sydney, still have the opportunity to take part in the important work of the branch. Being a committee member is also lots of fun, not to mention a great way to broaden your skills too.
We also have some support roles available for non-voting (associate and student) members, so there are plenty of ways to join in. Many hands make light work!
Full details on this will be sent out soon, highlighting which roles are suited to remote participation, so please look out for the email and consider joining the committee. We meet once a month, 6–8pm by Zoom.
Branch budget
Going online also helps the bottom line of the branch budget. The latter is currently being prepared by Budget Officer Russell Noakes for the coming financial year to cover branch activities and operating costs. While each branch is responsible for its day-to-day operations, the IPEd financial officer needs a clear picture of IPEd-wide income and expenditure to consider the company as a whole. It is somewhat of a moveable feast, and we are grateful to Russell for crunching the numbers for us so efficiently.
Speaker meetings
Our speaker meetings will continue to be presented on Zoom until it is safe for us all to meet in person again, and we continue to look at ways to ensure the best value for participants. Members are urged to check their email for the latest information on any event.
For copyright and privacy reasons, we have so far been unable to share recordings of the presentation with those who registered for the talk but were unable to attend on the night.
Our meetings coordinator, Caroline Hunter, is seeking permission to do so from our remaining scheduled speakers for the year, so stay tuned for news of whether this will be possible in future.
Social media
Now that our member meetings can reach a greater audience, thanks to the magical powers of Zoom, our social media coordinator, Sara Kitaoji, has some fresh ideas for extending our reach online.
IPEd newsletter
As a branch we are working with the IPEd newsletter editor to present our news and views each month in the newly named Gatherings. We watch developments with interest as the branches IPEd-wide enter the next phase.
Website
Last, but not least, the committee has also begun reviewing each page of our current website. The task is to identify which pages we would like to keep when we transition to a fully IPEd-wide website and the individual branch websites close down. While we do not yet have a date for that transition, we are checking carefully now to make sure we do not lose anything valuable when we do – not least our precious back copies of Blue Pencil.
Overall, it was very much an online-focused discussion, which took us over time but set us up well to continue the committee work and branch presentations remotely. And as a committee, we are not turning back from the virtual world.