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President's Letter
By Dee Magnoni, dianna.magnoni@olin.edu

Welcome, everyone, to a new year in the chapter! Some years feel longer than others, but this year will be longer. The board voted in the spring to change our fiscal year from the academic to the calendar year. This allows us to match the same change that was made at the association level. This means that the current association year will run from July 2005 – December 2006. We will not have our annual business meeting next May, but rather next November or December. We are discussing the possibility of a different networking event in May, as well as in September 2006.

Tom Clark, our new President-elect, is busy with his program planning committee. Stay tuned for a full selection of programming throughout the year. Our New Professionals group is also busy planning, and will go beyond programming to dinners and other focused events. The chapter will be sponsoring the SLA virtual seminars in various locations. If you would like to serve as a host, let me know. Hosting is as easy as alerting me and Tom Clark to your intent, signing up for the event, publicizing the date and location on the chapter list, and asking for reimbursement from our treasurer, Dave Ware. After the event, let me know how many people attended. I am hoping we’ll see these virtual seminars offered in every region of our chapter.

Hope Tillman, as past-president, will be leading strategic planning for the chapter. She’ll be looking at SLA’s plan, pulling in members to participate, and drafting our own document. Chapter input will be critical at various stages, so if you are asked to contribute, answer a survey, or participate in a focus group, please say “yes!” Our chapter began shifting direction last year with electronic registration for events, the acceptance of walk-ins to programs at non-secure sites, and the adoption of our new Chapter Practices manual (http://www.sla.org/chapter/cbos/about/practices_manual.pdf). This document contains a great deal of important information on how the chapter is run, and I encourage members to read through its contents. We will continue our current course, with the strategic planning process guiding us toward our future.

Building on last year, I would like to focus on communication and community this year. Good communication is the hallmark of an outstanding organization. I would like as much of our chapter business as possible to be transparent, and for all to feel a sense of ownership, involvement and community. Amongst our communication toolkit is our web site, newsletter, discussion list, Communities of Practice site, and Board of Directors list. SurveyMonkey is used for invitations and meeting time coordination. We are experimenting with evite, as well. We have a liaison to the Simmons student group, as well as representation within the leadership to headquarters. Our regions have people who participate in program planning. In all, we have more than a dozen people making sure we stay in touch. And yet, we do not always reach all of our members or hear everyone’s voice. How can we improve? What best practices should we develop? I’ll be exploring these questions throughout the year.

To increase our sense of community, the chapter will be participating in occasional community service events. A group of us volunteered at WBUR over the summer, and enjoyed an evening of service, good food, and great company. Our chapter was even thanked on the radio. We will look at other projects for this year, and also return to WBUR. Do you have a project that you feel will work well for the chapter? Contact me and we’ll pursue our options. I’d also like to encourage breakfast/lunch/dinner gatherings for groups of members. The new professionals will be hosting dine-arounds. Some of our subject specialists may also want to meet for a meal and networking. One group that I particularly want to encourage is a new technologies group. We have a number of chapter members with state-of-the-art expertise in this area, and I think we could have great fun by meeting every couple of months and discussing and playing with the most recent toys. Are you interested in joining this group? Let me know! Are you interested in leading this group? Let me know soon!

Finally, mentoring is something that the association has encouraged and nurtured for years. Many of us are fortunate to have had wonderful professional mentors who had tremendous impact in our lives and careers. I am one of those people. Many more people have not had those opportunities. Sometimes a relationship needs to start with something small, with simple coaching moments. I would like to build a database of members who would be willing to spend 15 - 30 minutes on the phone or over e-mail/IM/etc answering questions of other members. These coaching moments would be discreet and high impact. Please look for a separate announcement and form launching this initiative.

I want to thank Hope Tillman and the past leadership of the chapter for building such a strong and vibrant group. I am honored to be president, and hope that each member will feel free to contact me with ideas, suggestions, or concerns. There will be times when I reach out to each of you for input. Please respond!

Many thanks, and I look forward to a wonderful year.
Dee

Dee Magnoni
Phone: 781-292-2389
Fax: 781-292-238
E-mail: dianna.magnoni@olin.edu
AOL IM: dmlibrarian

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