Have a great festive season everyone

Wherever you hang your Santa hat this Christmas have a very merry time.

See you in the New Year!

Introducing Geoff Chamberlain - Treasurer

"Felt it was time I got back to direct contact with LIANZA activities, and this looks like a fun committee to work with to produce an exceptionally good conference."

Penny Carnaby, CEO National Library NZ

I was at the National Digital forum (great work organising team!) and managed to corner Penny Carnaby, the National Librarian and ask her for her thoughts on Conference 2008.

Apologies for the quality of the video - I only had my phone with me.

Introducing Kris Wehipeihana - Communications

"This will be my second stint on a conference team and my first as a team leader. I’m really looking forward to seeing how all the ideas that have been flying around come together over the 4 days that will be Poropitia Outside the Box. I'll also enjoy using social technologies to chat with people before conference even starts - finally a real reason to be on Facebook at work. :)"

LIANZA Waiata

E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga matawaka o nga hau e wha, tenei te mihi atu ki a koutou katoa

E pehea ana koutou i te mahi waiata? Ka pai, ka rawe, ka kino, e pai ana. He patai tenei ma koutou katoa. Pehea o koutou whakaaro e pa ana ki te waiata o LIANZA. E mohio ana ai? Ae/kao. No reira, e hiahia ana matou, ko te ropu Maori o te komiti whakahaere, ki te tono ki a ratou, ko nga manu tioriori, kia whakatika ta tatou waiata pai. No reira, homai o koutou whakaaro.

How are you at singing? Good, bad and the ugly? Do you know the LIANZA waiata? The Bicultural Portfolio are asking your thoughts on the waiata and what we could do to help you learn the waiata. If you have any ideas, then please send them through. All suggestions will be taken back to the portfolio for comment and suggestions on how best to achieve this.

No reira, ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takimano, no reira, hoea ra nga waka ki te ara tika o nga iwi katoa. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa.

Introducing Kirsty McMillan, Communications Sub-Committee Sub-Mover-and-Shaker

"Kirsty McMillan is Manager of Service Development at Manukau Libraries. She is on the Communications Sub-Committee for the LIANZA 2008 Conference.
Kirsty is new to libraries having dabbled and detoured through the arts, education, and not-for-profit organisations.
She will help us count down to conference in Library Life from December 2008."

Introducing Mark Osborne - Programme sub-committee

"Mark is the Director of Library Services at St. Cuthbert's College in Auckland. He works in online learning, teacher education and as an English teacher. Particular areas of interest are school libraries, reading, teaching and learning and thinking schools. His role on the programme sub-committee is advocacy for schools, young people, education and information technologies."

Winners of the free stuff for commenting

Wow. I've just updated Define LIANZA 2008 with the suggestions that have been coming through on the blog. There are quite a few and they all sound fantastic. I'm not sure whether we can fit them all into the limited amount of time that conference will be on for...maybe we should extend it to a full week? :)

The winners of the free stuff are Sharon King and Pamela from Auckland. Email me with your choice of one of the following and I'll arrange to have it sent to you...

• Jaffa pack - regular Jaffas, giant Jaffas, Jaffa biscuits
• Auckland wine - a bottle of something alcoholic and delicious
• Small wooden box

There isn't any more free stuff on offer (for the moment) but we'd still love to hear what you have to say about conference. We'll be here posting our thoughts on topics relating to Poropitia Outside the Box and keeping you updated on progress.