ALIA Students and New Graduates Group have an opportunity for ALIA Members to join ALIA SNGG as a Convenor or Co-Convenor.

Want to join but are not sure if you have the time? Or what to know more about what a Convenor or Co-Convenors do? Learn from former ALIA SNGG Co-Convenors Annette & Maddy, who share their experience as Co-Convenors!

Annette & Maddy- ALIA Co-Convenor post

Joining the ALIA Students and New Graduates Group (SNGG) is an excellent opportunity for students and graduates to make friends and network professionally.

SNGG group are students, graduates, and early to mid-career librarians who identify with the spirit of the SNGG group.

ALIA SNGG is a volunteer-run group of social media coordinators, regional coordinators, secretary and convenor/s who keep things running smoothly in the background. The team is spread out across Australia and works collaboratively online to stay in touch.

We began our journey with SNGG as regional coordinators and social media coordinators. From there, the opportunity to become convenors popped up – and we decided to give it a go!

Why did we decide to become SNGG Co-Convenors?

One of the main reasons we decided to become Co-Convenors was to give back to a profession we both loved. We were passionate about helping students and graduates find their feet and facilitating events for that to happen.
One of the other reasons was that we were early in our professional careers and looking for some experience in managing teams. We knew that managing a team and implementing projects for SNGG would give us something to discuss at job interviews and write selection criteria.

What do you do in the Convenor role?

Your Convenor role can be as much as you want it to be!
The Convenor ensures channels/ teams work harmoniously – checking in on team members online via Slack, email or video chat. The secretary will assist you to check that SNGG Social Media/sites are updated and are working.

You will be responsible for running team meetings via Zoom, Google Meet or Teams, assisting the SNGG Team in recruiting new members and planning ideas for professional development. You may also be required to attend meetings with the ALIA New Generation Advisory Committee to give advice or report on what has been happening with SNGG. The role itself probably only takes up an hour a week at most!

Benefits of being a co-convenor

● Practical experience managing a team of people
● Networking with established professionals within the ALIA and the GLAMR community

Challenges of being a co-convenor

● Unpaid. Volunteer role.
● Meetings are generally after hours to accommodate work schedules.

What we achieved

This role allows you to do as much as you like. Some of the things we were able to achieve during our time as co-convenors include –
● Creating and implementing the ALIA SNGG Code of Conduct
● Facilitating a national webinar for library and information professionals.
● Meeting and engaging with the SNGG team.
● Creating and facilitating fun and engaging networking events at various conferences, including Cats of APLIC (2018) and SNGG Bingo at NLS9 (2019).4511

These are just a handful of things we did. Being co-convenors allowed us to delve into and complete projects we would not necessarily be able to do in our daily jobs.

Why we think you should do it

If you’re sitting on the fence about applying for the role, why not give it a go? Or schedule some time to talk with the SNGG team to talk about it. You will have opportunities to guest edit for ALIA Incite (see May/June 2020), do random events at conferences, and make friends. We loved our time with ALIA SNGG and want to encourage anyone interested in learning more about it to contact the team.

Thank you Annette and Maddy.

Are you interested?
Email the SNGG Team with a brief bio about yourself and why you want to join to alianewgraduatesgroup@gmail.com