Committee Spotlight: Reaching Forward South Committee
October 23, 2024
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Reaching Forward South is an annual conference for front line library workers in central and southern Illinois each spring. We understand that library staff may wear many hats like programming, marketing, cataloging, and managing at the library. The committee is comprised of library staff from all departments and communities of every size throughout central and southern Illinois! Our diverse library experiences help us create a conference that is tailor made for the libraries of central and southern Illinois.
Planning begins in September for the spring conference. The committee currently consists of 10 people: Beth Smilack, Jerseyville Public Library; Heather Gaines, O’Fallon Public Library; Erica Hanke-Young, Six Mile Regional Library District; Bobbi Perryman, Vespasian Warner Public Library District; Joel Pikora, Mascoutah Public Library; Alanna Sablotny, Chatham Area Public Library District; Crystal Snyder, Columbia Public Library; Cassandra Thompson, Illinois Heartland Library System; Terry Pierson, Mississippi Valley District Library and Betsy Mahoney, Six Mile Regional Library District.
The committee discusses program ideas based on the feedback from the previous year and library trends. Each year we strive to have sessions that entice all library workers. The committee solicits and reviews all the proposals that are due in December. This is where the hardest part of the committee begins – choosing between all the wonderful proposals for conference. There are only so many timeslots, and the committee looks to balance session topics and tone so every attendee can take something valuable back to their library. Once the sessions are confirmed, the committee works with the ILA staff to ensure the smooth running of the conference. Committee members work at the conference by welcoming speakers, answering questions, and encouraging everyone to fill out surveys. After the committee has recovered from the conference, there is one last meeting to wrap up the RFS conference year and review the surveys submitted.
If all of this sounds like fun, we hope that you may consider joining us in 2025 to plan our next conference! Please fill out the ILA committee interest form if you would like to be a part of the RFS committee.
This committee spotlight was written by Beth Smilack, chair of the Reaching Forward South Committee and Betsy Mahoney, past chair of the Reaching Forward South Committee.
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