Hello PAMily,
It has been my privilege to serve PAM as president these past two years. And it has been an adventure I shall never forget. I want to begin my final presidential message by acknowledging the people who have helped keep PAM vibrant and active during my term.
First, my thanks to Chris Doty for also taking on the extra year of service, and being an indispensable advisor during my presidency. I appreciate all that you have done, and most certainly would have gone nuts at some point without your counsel and voice of reason. Most significantly, thank you for taking up the reins in my place when I had to miss Charlotte due to that pesky heart attack I had.
During that same episode, Donna Thompson stepped in to also shepherd the Charlotte conference in my absence. Not only that, Donna has been a constant advisor and willing volunteer whenever I have called on her for aid and the PAM 50th Anniversary Task Force was a success in large part thanks to her turn leading that group. Thank you!
My sincere thanks to everyone who accepted a role on the Board, in committees, moderating, or on our working groups, during my term. I am not going to call everyone out for the sake of brevity, but did want to specifically mention Emma Moore who has agreed to serve an extra year as Bulletin editor. All you volunteers, please know that you have my endless gratitude. You are the REAL reason PAM is awesome!
And thank you to Sarah Siddiqui for jumping in to be president after me! PAM is in great hands for 2024, and I look forward to working with you as advisor in the year ahead. Anyone interested in volunteering this next term should reach out to Sarah at ssiddiqui@library.rochester.edu .
As we look to 2024, I can share a couple updates. A new sponsorship program has been rolled out by Association Headquarters (AH), the new management company of SLA. Communities will need to outline their plans for the year in January, and submit them to AH to register sponsorship opportunities. AH has a form that we are to send to industry partners when we reach out with sponsorship requests, and our vendors will need to send that form back to AH to initiate invoicing. The process is quite different than we are accustomed to, but I think once we work through it, we will find it is more efficient than past methods.
There is still some uncertainty around plans for SLA Annual in 2024, but the tea leaves seem to strongly indicate that we will be at the University of Rhode Island in mid-July. I know the fiscal timing is not IDEAL for everyone (see what I did there?). But I am encouraged by the fact that our association finally seems to recognize we need to be hosting annual conference at smaller, more affordable venues. I do think it is possible we may see some limitations on how many sessions we can have, as a result of a smaller venue- but this truly is a necessity if the association is to survive.
And that does it for me, folks. You all are fantabulous and my life is enriched by each and every one of you, my PAMily!
Love, Lance Utley
PAM Bulletin 