If you’re active on Twitter you might be wondering exactly what #CATSofAPLIC is all about.

We understand it can be hard to network at the best of times and even harder as a conference newbie! Often you’re attending conference alone, you’re in a new city, or even in a different country – we want to make it easier for you to connect with like-minded people.

So, after some thought, we came up with “CATS” – Connect Achieve Together Socially to help bring people together online and in-person.

What are we doing?

ALIA Students and New Graduates Group are creating a fun way to engage with each other at APLIC. We thought this would be a good way to build professional and social networks and make the conference experience less intimidating.

ALIA SNGG national co-convenors Maddy Medlycott and Annette Messell will be at APLIC to facilitate a tweet-up discussion every afternoon at the conference. Questions will be posted throughout the day for you to think about, ready to tweet-up a storm at afternoon tea.

We will also have daily activities for you to participate in to make connections with other people.

How can you participate?

• Get on Twitter and follow @ALIAnewgrads for regular updates about student and new graduate events in Australia.
• Follow the hashtags #APLIC18 and #CATSofAPLIC to keep up with all the clowder goss. Questions for each afternoon’s tweetup will be posted throughout the morning. Make sure to check them out so you are all ready for the tweetup in the afternoon #beprepared
• To participate during the afternoon tweetups, have a read of State Library of Queensland’s blog post, How to partake in a live Twitter chat. This will tell you what you need to do to participate. ***Important note for all cats*** Don’t forget to use #CATSofAPLIC in every response, even if it is a retweet. We want all our cats meows to be heard!

But I can’t make it to APLIC….

You can still join the conversation by following the above hashtags. Tweet your questions, reach out to people online, and make some new connections.

Finally…

We have a pre-APLIC meetup! If you’re at the Gold Coast early come and meet us for some frivolous fun at Pacific Fair iPlay. Find out all the fun details on our Facebook page.

See you soon!