Thing 15

Attending, Presenting at and Organising seminars, conferences and other events.
Yes - I've done them all, mainly attending, which I do frequently and have blogged about before, as part of Thing 7 (http://traceytotty.blogspot.com/2011/07/thing-7-face-to-face-networks-and.html), so i'll concentrate on the other aspects.

Presenting at, I have done this only once so far, a Lib TeachMeet earlier this year. I think I mentioned this in an earlier blog post too. In any case the point is that yes I was nervous, I have presented to learners before and to people involved in the library HEBP group but not to peers whom I don't know. It wasn't as bad as I expected and as it was recorded and is available on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipWBEE9uONo&feature=feedwll), I had the most dubious of pleasures in being able to watch myself. This has actually turned out to be a huge positive, as I can see the flaws and work to remedy them. I am going to present again in November at Mini Umbrella, so I am working on my skills for then. Both of these presentations I have / will have co-presented, for the future I would like to try presenting on my own.

Organising, I have organised training days, meetings and events within my workplace, some involving external partners. Although this can't possibly be as demanding as a whole Conference etc, it is still stressful, especially since i'm a bit of a control freak. Endless e-mails, hospitality, instructions on how to find us, who is coming, car park arrangements... the list goes on. In order to help me, I made a to do list of all the things I needed to check, put in place or just basically do and scheduled my online calendar to remind me when these things needed to be done by. OK I probably went on overkill but it worked. I don't have any plans or desire to organise bigger things, although there is a possibility I maybe asked to help in some small way with next year's CoFHE / UC&R Conference.