The wonderfulness of the National Executive

At the recent SLANZA conference, we farewelled several members of the National Executive who have been working for you and the regions, as well as giving up their time to be on the Executive. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Bridget Schaumann, Di Eastwood, Wendy Ballard, Kim Slack, Maree Pavletich, Cynthia Francombe, Sarah Fordyce and Joyce Richards, for all the work they've put in to the development of ways to communicate with and support you as members, as well as developing SLANZA as an organisation. Without their dedication and commitment, SLANZA would be poorer indeed.

I'd also like to say a huge thank you to our immediate Past President, Senga White. Senga has led the Executive for two years and represented SLANZA on a number of committees across the library sector, as well as managing a Y7-8 library and a Y9-13 library on two sites, and in her spare time persuading me to stand for President Elect! I'm very fortunate to still have Senga on the Executive and really appreciate her support, knowledge and experience, which continues to benefit all of us.

A very warm welcome to the new members on the Executive - Greig Daniels (Otago), Jude Cosson (Waikato/Bay of Plenty) and Bharathi Char (Auckland). I'm looking forward to working with everyone on the Executive as we look to the future of SLANZA and school librarianship in New Zealand. Joyce Valenza and Judy O'Connell gave all of us a very clear message at the recent conference - we cannot afford to be complacent about our role, services or environment, and I know the Executive is very mindful of that too.

The fabulous Donna Watt and Miriam Tuohy are working away at putting the next edition of Collected together, which will focus on conference and share lots of what went on and of course some very interesting photos... Midnight feasts in the hostel, lots of laughter and dancing at the dinner, catching up with friends and making new ones, celebrating achievements, being amazed and inspired by our keynotes and presenters - we had a great time!

Ka kite ano,
Fiona.