I've listened to a number of President's addresses over the years, delivered by presidents of CILIP (those of Maggie Haines and Debby Shorley stick in the mind as particularly fine examples) and of the precursor organisations, the Library Association and the Institute of Information Scientists; as an employee I have also heard several Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons presidents hold forth. There is a speech day atmosphere to these sorts of events, and, as with school speech days, unless a Maggie or a Debby speaks, the proceedings are usually dull. This year's presidential address, given by the current office-holder, Martin Molloy a public librarian from Derbyshire, chair of the Reading Agency and the government’s Advisory Group on Libraries, managed to be both dull and unpleasant..
Having said that he considered the important thing about CILIP to be the professional support and friendship it offers, he then made veiled and nasty attacks on other office-holders. He asserted that the role of President was undefined, (puzzling in itself, as in recent years I understand that the job has indeed been closely defined, as the presidential section of the website used to describe), that not enough people came forward to do it, that few vote in the elections, and that while the office should command respect, he implied that some presidents may use the office to advance personal careers and agenda, an extraordinary and irresponsible statement to make, and one which clashed oddly with his final statement, an appeal to support CILIP and its presidents. The rest of his speech was commonplace and uninspired.
The sourness caused by this was dispersed by the awards of fellowships, which showed the breadth of the profession, including public,m government, school, art , health and university librarians, as well as trainers, someone from the British Library and a bibliographer. Honorary awards went to Karen Blakeman, Maggie Haines, John Hobson, Sharon Markless, Karen Usher and Margaret Watson.
As for the AGM, annual general meetings provide lean pickings for the blogger. There were 107 members present, and we stumbled through a report on CILIP's work and the accounts. Edward Dudley made some points well about the way in which the current distribution of funds favours parts of the country with fewer members against the metropolis. The snappily named New Business Model Working *arty will consider this, promised Bob McKee, the Chief Executive.
Most of the AGM was taken up with finance. Nigel McCartney gave a clear account of the difficult position we find ourselves in, as the number of members declines and income from CILIP enterprises is unreliable. The £2 million deficit on the pensions fund has been resolved by mortgaging the headquarters and form now on CILIP will have three year rolling budgets and a business plan.
As described in the morning workshop, subscriptions for 2007 will move towards harmonised rates, finally achieving that in 2008. For most individuals, there will be a 3.5% increase [though in fact members on higher salaries will in fact have a reduction-TR] and the prompt payment discount will be abolished. An amendment on overseas members' rates was not put.
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