[aisle] personal response re. virtual conference, open leadership positions

[Christy Semande]

Hello Friends,
First and foremost, I need this to be absolutely clear: this is apersonal reaction to issues I want to address as an AISLE member and as someone with a "behind the scenes" point of view. It comes from my experience from serving on the AISLE board and on severalconference committees.

Many of you are probably not aware of this, but there areabout twice as many listserv subscribers than dues-paying AISLE members. Thepurpose of the listserv is to promote communication and resource sharing forthe betterment of school libraries. The Board has deliberately made the choiceto keep the list open to members and nonmembers because that is what is bestfor Illinois school libraries. 

However, the AISLE Board’s first and foremost responsibilityis to the people who pay to be members. The board is obligated to be fiscallyresponsible with the dues the members pay. The board takes this chargeseriously and tries to do the most good they can with the limited funds thatare available.  

Keep in mind that AISLE only has two paid staff members. To beblunt, these ladies make a pittance for the amount work they do for us.  Without them, the organization would cease to function. They deserve our respect and our most sincere gratitude. Theirpart-time jobs often require more than full-time hours—which they do becauseschool libraries have remained their passion even after retirement.  The rest of the organization’s work is done byvolunteers-- with full time jobs, families and other commitments. People justlike you.
You might have noticed in the last few elections that mostnominees ran unopposed. We have struggled to find members willing to run for primary leadership roles.  The mostcommon excuse that people give for not running for those leadership positionsis that they do not have time. My gut response is that we find the time to do what really matters to us..  Our volunteers dothis for the benefit of all Illinois school libraries.  They don’t sign up for personal gain. They do it for the "us" - they doit for you.   
You don’t see the discussions, the planning,the policies, or hours of background work that go into making the organizationoperate. It's not always a well-oiled machine, but it is a machine that has been running successfully for 33 years. It is easy to complain when your only perspective is that of the enduser. Please do not dismiss the organization's efforts because the result is not thesolution that best fits your personal situation.  
The virtual conference last year was great, and the AISLEleadership team is actively looking at ways to can incorporate that model inthe future. They realize it is an option that makes the conference availablefor some who could not otherwise attend. However, we also have pre-COVID contractsin place with our venues that we are required to honor or suffer financialpenalties.   These contracts arenegotiated years in advance in order to secure the dates we need. That is justone of the reasons switching from an in-person to virtual conference this yearwould not have been fiscally responsible. There were multiple other reasonswhich, to save space, I will not detail here. Trust me- we looked at thenumbers and crunched them in a hundred different ways before making thedetermination to have an in-person conference.
The conference planning committee also has looked at waysto offer full conference virtual options- either concurrently with thein-person conference or after the fact.  After examining the technical requirements, the time involved to manage/presentdigital access, and what AISLE has to do to just meet ISBE’s requirements forproviding professional development hours, the conclusion was that it was not awise way to prioritize our time and resources. Keep in mind there isn’t justone session each day- there are dozens. Each presenter has a contract and some of those do not allowrecording.  It sounds simple to just say,“offer a livestream” or “just record it” but- as someone who saw the behind thescenes work that went in to last year’s virtual conference- it is an incrediblycomplex and tedious process. Ask yourself, what would happen if AISLE had offereda digital attendance option and then not been able to deliver a worthwhileexperience?  Once we weighed all of the factors involved, we committed to providing the very best, most educational and safest in-person conference that we possibly can. 
Let me be clear: AISLE members have every right to question the leadership's decisions, policies, or practices.  Infact, I encourage members to be as engaged as possible, and am glad that participants feel the listserv is a safe place to share thoughts, questions, and resources.  The board does not always share the “why”behind the decisions that are made- but you can trust that there are solid,practical, and responsible reasons that have been discussed and debated beforeyou saw the result. A bit of grace, understanding, and trust that theleadership has the organization’s best interests in mind would go a long way.
Sorry for the rant. I cannot express how much my AISLE membership and time in leadership have helped me- both professionally and personally.  I hope you can say the same. If you want to respond to this, I welcome the discourse (csemande at yahoo.com), just be respectful of the dreaded "reply all" that clutters everyone's inbox. (I made that mistake last week).
Thanks for listening-Christy
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://list.railslibraries.info/pipermail/aisle/attachments/20211013/a5e8868a/attachment.html>