Present:
Maureen Wade (Chair), Abigail Edwards, Fiona Middleton, Kathleen Pounder, Tim Hoof (Administrator)

Apologies had been received from Carole Pickaver.

2. Visits for 2002/03
a) Peckham Public Library
It was agreed that visits should be arranged in November. This would be aimed to tie-in with the Space Planning Seminar; see next item. Fiona Middleton would be the lead member for this visit, supported by Abigail Edwards.

b) Forest Gate Public Library
It was agreed that visits to this fully self-service library should be arranged in April. This would be aimed to tie-in with the Operating a 24/7 Service Seminar being organised by the User Resources & Services Task Group. Kathleen Pounder would be the lead member for this visit, supported by Maureen Wade.

3. Seminar Programme for 2002/3
It was agreed that members would work in pairs with each member leading one meeting and supporting their pair for the other. The first named person in each of the paragraphs below would be the lead member for that event.

a) Space Planning
It was agreed that this event would be held in November 2002 and would be co-ordinated by Fiona Middleton and Maureen Wade. This one-day seminar would be targeted at middle and senior managers. It was hoped to arrange this event at an academic library, which had recently been re-organised in order to include a 45-minute - 1-hour tour. The seminar would look at planning stock moves and refurbishment as well as new buildings.

b) Project Management
It was agreed that this event would be held in January 2003 and would be co-ordinated by Maureen Wade and Fiona Middleton. This one day workshop would be a repeat of a course successfully organised for the M25-SDG this year and would be aimed at those who are about to begin project management or who want to apply project management skills to everyday tasks.

c) Financial Planning for Middle & Senior Managers.
It was agreed that event would be held in March 2003 and would be co-ordinated by Abigail Edwards and Kathleen Pounder. It was noted that Jules Winterton would be speaking a Chartership event on this topic. It was important that delegates were clear that this would not be a beginners' course on financial planning but an advanced one for middle and senior managers. It was possible that this course would cover more than one day with a 1-2 week gap between dates. Members agreed it was important to get an accountancy based speaker and that it might, therefore, be necessary to hire in an experienced trainer. Further investigation was needed of potential speakers, who would be asked to provide a summary of what they proposed to speak on, before this could be finalised.

d) Communications Management
It was agreed that this event would be held in April 2003 and would be co-ordinated by Kathleen Pounder and Maureen Wade. Members agreed that there were not many courses available within the library context on this important topic. More investigation would be necessary before a decision could be made on the length of this seminar. Suggestions for London-based speakers were sought by Kathleen.

e) Overhauling the Efficiency & Effectiveness of Your Service
It was agreed that this event, discussed at the Forum under the title "We've Always Done it That Way (Not", would be held in June 2003 and would be co-ordinated by Carole Pickaver or Nicola Wright and Abigail Edwards. After much discussion it was agreed that the content of this event would have to be carefully monitored to avoid overlap between this event and others organised within CPD25. It was stressed that this would not be a seminar on change management. Instead it would concentrate on the processes needed to work out whether, or not, any changes were needed to ensure a service was efficient and effective. This was likely to be a whole day event but would need to include workshop sessions.

f) Benchmarking/Quality Systems
It was agreed to hold this seminar in reserve either for if another seminar proved to be non-viable or for the 2003/4 year. There was some concern that much of the potential content of such a meeting was readily available in the industry press and that, as a result, there may be a limited audience.

4. Any Other Business

Tim Hoof would circulate the draft guidelines on meeting organisation with the minutes.

The importance of sharing ideas and "bouncing" draft ideas round on email was discussed. It was agreed that this could only be done if members took an open attitude to this.

It was agreed that slightly fleshed out topics should be sent to the administrator for circulation by email on Friday 16th August with comments on these topics to be returned by Friday 30th August.

5. Date of Next meeting

The next meeting would be held during the week commencing 16th September. Potential dates would be circulated to all task group members in the near future.