Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!
As we celebrated our country’s independence last weekend, YALSA, too, has sought to break free from past models of association work and is currently exploring new ways to engage our members that better meet their interests, skills and busy lifestyles.
It was with those #teensfirst and members’ first ideals in mind that the 2015-2016 YALSA Board approached our work before and during ALA Annual last month as we worked on aligning existing YALSA groups, programs and services with the association’s new Organizational Plan.
Here are some highlights:
– The Board adopted the following consent items, which were items that were discussed and voted on previous to annual, including:
- New Summer Learning Position Paper
- New Mission, Vision and Organizational Plan
- Change to Jury Appointments
- Filling Board Vacancy
- Endowment Proposal Adoption
- New DC Metro Interest Group
- Board Diversity Taskforce Recommendations
– The Board also approved a more concrete structure to support and revitalize interest groups.
– The Board approved experimenting with new kinds of member engagement opportunities, especially virtual and short-term ones.
As part of its effort to align YALSA’s existing work with the new Organizational Plan, as well as update member engagement opportunities so that they better meet member needs, the Board began a review of all existing member groups at our June meeting. While the Board was not able complete the review, we did come to decisions about some of the groups.
– The Board agreed that the following committees’ structure and workflow will remain as they currently are:
- Alex Award Committee
- Editorial Advisory Board for YALS/YALSAblog
- Financial Advancement Committee
- Margaret Edwards Award Committee
- Mentoring Task Force
- Michael Printz Award Committee
- Morris Award Committee
- Nonfiction Award Committee
- Odyssey Award Interdivisional Committee
- Organization and Bylaws Committee
- The Hub Advisory Board