The group met 4-6 times this quarter.
Recent Activities
First Activity
Sponsorship Subcommittee and past chair of Forum Committee met with current chair on June 7, 2019 to discuss:
* What to expect in terns of a timeline
* Sponsorship process and opportunities to get more sponsors with a joint forum
* Leads for Sponsors and the entire committee is encouraged to participate by sharing personal contacts of potential sponsors/leads
* Action items for a prospectus and sponsorship tacking spreadsheet
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability
Second Activity
Small portion of the Forum Planning Committee met during ALA Annual on June 22, 2019 to discuss high-level ideas about themes and keynote speakers, in addition to growing the committee to fill gaps in subcommittees.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement
Third Activity
Forum Committee met on July 30, 2019 to discuss:
* Updates to the RFP
* Forum Site Splash Page
* SubCommittee Charges
* Using the Slack Channel for brainstorming of ideas
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability
Fourth Activity
UX/Sustainability subcommittee met with Chair to discuss charge on September 12th.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Member Engagement
Fifth Activity
Forum Committee met on September 19, 2019 to discuss:
* Updates to 2020 Forum Location and Dates (in contract negotiations)
* LITA Forum Slash page
* New Members added to the Committee
* Brainstorm as a committee on Purpose/Theme of Joint Forum (in selection process currently)
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability
What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Main focus will be on:
* LITA Forum website – adjusted the language to reflect a joint forum, adding dates and location (once contract is set)
* Call for Proposals with selecting them
* Sponsorships
* Communication Plan – Fill out a CAM request form so that the word/buzz for Forum is spread about happening in November 2020, so that people have ample time to ask for budgeting to attend.
Is there anything LITA could have provided during this time that would have helped your group with its work?
Before Mark left he mentioned that branding for LITA Forum was happening with an ALA graphic designer for the website (SEE minutes from July meeting). What became of that? The splash page that was started by the WCC still has LITA branding and doesnât take in account a joint Forum. The Web/PR subgroup of Forum Committee will need to adjust the LITA Forum splash page to reflect that but need permissions to the WP site for those committee members, as well as the chair.
As chair, I would like to have a one-on-one meeting with LITA office (copying Emily) on some internal deadlines to suggest to ensure the committee is meeting its planning milestones and in a timely manner.
Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work.
Last yearâs Forum wrap-up discussed mentoring speakers in order for them to give better session talks that are interactive/hands-on, and engaging, especially since most Forum speakers are new presenters. It would be great if the committee can partner with Dorthea Salo to lead an encore Forum-tailored speaker webinar (with the help from a sponsor) to bring it free to speakers whose talks/sessions are accepted. She currently has a Keynote talk in November that appears helpful (http://www.ala.org/lita/you-can-keynote). Also, Jill Binder recently gave a Drupal Diversity Speaker Webinar the last two weekends that have similar material that would be of interest: diversein.tech/drupal-sept2019 while the call for proposals for DrupalCon 2020 are still happening.
Additional comments or concerns:
Currently having a hard time reaching veteran members of the sponsorship subcommittee who are on the Forum Committee this year. Their leadership and ideas are needed to make sponsorship happen at a larger scale with ALCTS and LLAMA this year. They havenât responded to any of my direct follow up emails in the past 2 months and as chair, Iâm concerned.
Submitted by Berika Williams on 09/30/2019
