Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to the fall edition of SLA Toronto’s The Courier, and my final letter as your chapter President.
Being your President in 2013 has been a wonderful experience. At our chapter AGM in late November, I spent time thanking the great team of people I’m proud to work with on the SLA Toronto Board of Directors. Right from the beginning of the year, I was surrounded by a highly capable, inventive, and nurturing team. This fantastic team is responsible for bringing you—our fellow members—the educational and social value you gain through SLA membership.
I encourage everyone to consider running for a position on the Board. In addition to gaining valuable skills that can be applied in your work place—present or future—it’s also a way to meet a great number of people who can make an impact on your career. But perhaps the best part of all is the friends you will make and the camaraderie you will feel. Truly, SLA is my tribe, and I think you will find it’s yours, too.
2013 was a year of trying new things—for instance, our focus on new skill adoption brought you our Stats Bootcamp in two parts, our Purely Practice series, and seminars on data management and negotiation skills. In total, SLA Toronto delivered 39 events to our members, and many broke attendance records.
At SLA’s Annual Conference this past summer in San Diego, I met with the presidents of the Canadian Eastern and Western chapters, Amy Buckland and Dawn Bassett, in order to form a partnership as SLA Canada with the intent to attract new partners with a larger audience. I’m pleased to report that our experiment has begun to bear fruit; this past fall, we secured The New York Times as a new partner, and we will be working with Emerald to deliver countrywide webinars to all three Canadian chapters. These webinars have the advantage of being available no matter your location, which means we can invite other chapters and divisions to participate as well.
As you know, the end of September marked the visit from SLA President Deb Hunt. We were fortunate to have Deb visit us for an entire week, and the visit was a great success. We showed Deb the best of our fine city, as well as locations outside of Toronto—she got a chance to chat with students from Western University and visit the city of Guelph and its university. She visited a wide variety of our workplaces—Maple Leaf Foods in Mississauga, McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business in Burlington, PwC, CBC, LibraryCo, Toronto Botanical Gardens, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and the University of Toronto. My sincere thanks to all members who made Deb’s visit such a success!
As I wind down my presidential year, I am so very pleased that your incoming board is made up of yet another group of enthusiastic, talented people. Your next issue of The Courier will contain a letter from incoming President Erin McDonald, and President-Elect Bernadette Roca will author Board Watch. Programming will be in the capable hands of Patricia Aspinwall and Emmeline Hobbs. Laura Warner will continue her great work as Partner Director, while Stephanie Quail continues to wrangle the tech gremlins as our Technology Director. Christine DeLuca takes over the helm of our First Five Years program, which continues to be a successful way to bring young professionals to the fold. Carmen Lee is your Membership Director and is ready to take excellent care of all of you. Helen Kula and Melanie Browne continue their solid work in their roles as Secretary and Treasurer, respectively. Finally, I won’t be going too far; while taking more of a background role, I continue to be nearby and ready to lend a hand whenever I can.
Thank you again for this incredible opportunity. I’ll never forget it.
Best wishes for 2014,
— Kim Silk
SLA Toronto’s President