SLANZA Life Membership Award - call for nominations

Life membership is SLANZA’s ultimate award and honour, recognising a SLANZA member whose contribution to school librarianship is so outstanding that it is of lasting importance to the advancement of the whole field of school library service.

SLANZA National Executive would like to call for nominations for our Life Membership Award. Information and criteria for the award can be found on the Award Page on the SLANZA website.

As always, the awards are presented at the discretion of the Awards Committee. If a recipient is selected, the Life Membership Award will be presented at SLANZA’s National Conference in Auckland this July.

Please send nominations with all the required documentation to admin@slanza.org.nz by Friday 23 June 2017.

SLANZA Awards Nominations - due next week

ONE WEEK TO GO, ALL NOMINATIONS 

DUE NEXT THURSDAY 1^ST JUNE!

SLANZA encourages and rewards excellence in school libraries, recognising the success and achievement of those working in and with school libraries, with a series of annual awards.  Therefore the Slanza National Executive would like to call for nominations for our Awards of Merit  to be presented at the upcoming National Conference in July at King’s college, Auckland.  Further information about the criteria for each award can be found on the Awards Page on the SLANZA website.

As always, the awards are presented at the discretion of the Awards Committee.

Please send all nominations with all the required documentation to admin@slanza.org.nz no later than Thursday 1^st June 2017.

SLANZA Awards 2017

SLANZA encourages and rewards excellence in school libraries, recognising the success and achievement of those working in and with school libraries, with a series of annual awards.  Therefore the Slanza National Executive would like to call for nominations for our Awards of Merit, and Life Membership to be presented at the upcoming National Conference in July at King’s College, Auckland. 

Further information about the criteria for each award can be found on the Awards Page on the SLANZA website.

As always, the awards are presented at the discretion of the Awards Committee.

Please send all nominations with all the required documentation to admin@slanza.org.nz no later than Thursday 1^st June 2017.

Trish Webster

Life Memberships 2015

The SLANZA National Executive is delighted to announce the Life Membership awardees for 2015.  These were first announced at the SLANZA conference in Christchurch.  This year's recipients are:

Kaaren Hirst (Auckland) and Barbara Murison (Wellington)

You can read about their ongoing work on the SLANZA blog.  The National Executive congratulates Kaaren and Barbara for their achievements over many years.

Bridget Schaumann

Immediate Past President

SLANZA

SLANZA Awards 2015

One of the nicest parts of being on National Executive is the presentation of the SLANZA annual awards. It is a chance to recognise the great work that is being done in school libraries all over New Zealand.

I would like to thanks all of those who took the time to nominate their peers for awards and  in this way ensuring these SLANZA members get the recognition they deserve.

Some awards were presented to those in attendance at the SLANZA Meet and Greet prior to the SLANZA Conference. I’d like to extend a big thank you to the Christchurch Conference Committee for helping us to organise that opportunity.

Regional NE representatives will arrange for those who did not attend the Conference, to have their awards presented at a local Function

The current list of award winners and their award citations can be found on the SLANZA website. Slanza.org.nz

Congratulations to all the Award winners.

Greig Daniels

Awards Committee

Nominations for annual SLANZA Awards

This is just a reminder that Nominations for the annual SLANZA Awards are open now and will be closing on the 15^th of this month. If you feel a SLANZA member’s professional work needs to be recognised, this is a great opportunity to do that.

The awards SLANZA  presents are:

Award of merit for information literacy

Award of merit for literacy and enjoyment of reading

Award of merit for promotion

Award of merit for research

Award of merit for library assistant

Principal's award

Certificate of appreciation

Certificate of recognition

The award nomination forms and criteria are available on the  website slanza.org.nz. The closing date for nominations is August 15 2015. Nominations should be forwarded to the address on the form. Awards will be presented at this years “ From the Ground Up” SLANZA Conference in Christchurch in September

Greig Daniels

Awards Committee

If you have any questions or queries don’t hesitate to contact me and I will forward your inquiry to the Awards Committee

Congratulations to Clare Giesbers

Congratulations to Clare Giesbers, Library Manager at Northland College, who was awarded the SLANZA Award of Merit for Library Manager at the 2013 SLANZA Conference.   

The Award was presented to Clare by Northland College Principal, Jim Luders, at a full school assembly, and he expressed his appreciation, on behalf of staff and students, for the services and programmes Clare provides through the library to support teaching and learning.

Clare has worked steadily, with an unflagging resolve, to make the library welcoming and accessible for students to discover the pleasures of reading, to engage with resources in print and online, and to make connections with all that the library can offer, within and beyond the four walls. 

SLANZA Lifetime Member Award - Jeannie Skinner

Lisa Salter, Jeannie Skinner and Fiona Mackie - SLANZA Conference - July 2013

Congratulations to Jeannie Skinner for being awarded a SLANZA Lifetime Member Award at the recent SLANZA Conference.

This was awarded in recognition of the tireless effort Jeannie has put into the development of Te Tai
Tokerau as a region, for her advocacy and passion for the promotion of literacy and
reading, and the unstinting support Jeannie has provided to all involved in school
libraries across Northland.

Jeannie’s nomination was accompanied by several heartfelt testimonies, outlining the dedication Jeannie has shown to SLANZA and the invaluable support she provides to all people involved with school libraries across Te Tai Tokerau. Jeannie is known for her love of and advocacy for all forms of literature and has been instrumental in assisting schools to apply for grants to improve their libraries and collections. She is a moving force in ensuring Northland has author tours and the Storylines festival, to the envy of other areas. She has served on the committee since it began and one of the testimonies said “Since Jeannie returned to Northland, she has always been on the SLANZA committee, and it will be a sad day when this is not so.”

Well done, Jeannie.  You really deserve this award.

--

SLANZA Award for the Promotion of Reading to Trina Yuretich, Ahipara School

Trina Yuretich, Teacher with Library Responsibility and Deputy Principal at Ahipara School, is an active and energetic teacher who is always seeking new ways to engage students with reading for pleasure, through the library, her classroom and the school community. She was the recipient of the SLANZA Award for the Promotion of Reading in 2013.
 

Amongst various reading activities, Trina has been promoting summer holiday reading for students and staff. Last year she organised a fabulous summer reading photo competition which had many wonderful entries, and here is Trina herself, reading for pleasure in the summer sunshine at 90 Mile Beach, Te Oneroa-a-Tohe...

There was a great article in the local paper, The Northland Age, about Trina getting the Award,  and also in the following week's editorial  by Peter Jackson, where she was lauded :

Petrina Yuretich is one of those teachers who, far from simply teaching their pupils, shares her passion with them. And her particular passion is reading.  A few weeks ago she won an award for that, but her real reward is still to come. She is planting seeds that will grow, making a huge contribution to enabling the children she teaches today to become intelligent, inquisitive adults. Reading is the key that arguably unlocks every other form of learning. It does so in a fashion that hasn't changed since the first book was printed, and will not change despite social media.

A teacher can give her pupils no greater gift than the knowledge that between the covers of a book lie not only knowledge but wonder, the opportunity to experience people, places and events that no lifetime of actual experience ever will. Books can transport the reader far beyond their own immediate world, in a fashion that social media never will, and a child who develops a love of books early is truly blessed.
Petrina Yuretich knows that; she wants to see children reading not simply as a means of gaining knowledge pertinent to their education, but for pleasure. That is a wonderful thing. In the vernacular, it is cool. Uber cool....

She is the sort of teacher who, despite the unions, bureaucrats and politicians, gives her profession a good name, and who children will remember fondly, and with gratitude, long after their school days have ended.
We've all had great teachers at some point in our academic careers, no doubt - the writer and his contemporaries benefited immensely from some stunningly good teachers at Kaitaia Primary, Intermediate and College all those years ago - and it is gratifying to know they are still being produced by a system in which many have lost faith. Long may they continue to introduce their charges to a world that only they and parents can unlock for them, so that they too might experience the lightness of being that books and education can offer...

SLANZA Principals' Award to Lee Whitelaw, Ohaeawai School

Lee Whitelaw, Principal at Ohaeawai School was a recipient of SLANZA’s Principals’ Award in 2013.

Lee has placed the library at the heart of literacy learning at Ohaeawai since she arrived at the school. She understands the vital importance of creating enthusiastic, fluent, engaged readers and writers, and sees the library as integral to achieving that goal.  At Ohaeawai, a decile 2 school of 160 students, 55% Māori, 96% of the children are reading at or above National Standards. 

The library is well staffed and supported, has strong and collaborative partnerships with the classroom programmes, and is actively creating readers and supporting learners throughout the day.  The library is also providing positive library experiences for the whole school community with parents regularly visiting to select books to share with their children.  

To hear Lee talk about her view of the library at Ohaeawai, see the Leading a learning community video on the Services to Schools website, and for more about the library and its school community relationships, see this short interview with Liz Christensen talking about how the library is involved with the Reading Together programme. 

Congratulations to Julia

Congratulations to Julia Smith from Kerikeri High School Library, on her SLANZA Award of Merit for Literacy and Enjoyment of reading, presented at the SLANZA Conference by the SLANZA President, Senga White and pictured here with the Conference Co-convenor and incoming SLANZA President, Fiona Mackie.

Julia's Award was given in recognition of the great Kerikeri High School Library blog Cover to Cover which Julia created and manages - check it out if you haven't visited this wonderful resource.

If you know someone in the school library community who is deserving of an Award, have a look at the SLANZA website for more information about the various possibilities - recognising work in reading, information literacy, promotion etc by library staff, teachers, principals...