Notes from the meeting held at King's College London Present:Judith Cattermole, David Gee, Christine Muller, Janet Smith, Maureen Wade,Jean Yeoh (Chair)

The Chair welcomed members to the first meeting of the Steering Group.

The Chair explained that both the M25 - Steering Group and the University of London Libraries Committee had accepted the Training Implementation Report (The Report). The purpose of this meeting was to discuss how the new CPD25 Steering Group would operate and how planning of events would be divided between members.

2. Modus Operandi of CPD25

Portfolio division. A number of potential ways of breaking the meetings down to provide an even workload were discussed. Currently the M25 Staff Development Group (SDG) members organise 1 or 2 events per year and the University of London Libraries Staff Training Group (STG) members organise 3 events per year. It was agreed that having 5 themed Task Groups would be the most efficient manner of planning events.

The suggested task groups were:

Career Development

Chartership Workshops (9), career pathways, interview skills, training for 'non-trained' staff (links to NVQ and other schemes), training for Staff Development Officers

Statutory Requirements/Legal Compliance

Human rights, equal opportunities, special needs & disability, health & safety, copyright, data protection

Operations Management

Outsourcing, knowledge management, restructuring (inc. options & theories), operational/manpower planning, strategy, quality

Personal Effectiveness & Management

Time management, assertiveness, Management Development Programme for supervisors and junior professionals (MDP), management for other levels of staff

User Resources & Services

Training for information desk staff, best practice for subject librarian staff, information skills teaching, distance learning, "hot topics", generic training for systems librarians

Each task group will also be responsible for identifying a proportion of the Visits sector of the programme.

It was further agreed that the Chartership Workshops were a "stand-alone" area since the same topics were covered each year.

It was believed to be better that more than one group came up with a suggestion of a topic than that the topic was missed out altogether. The Steering Group could then co-ordinate where any overlap had become apparent.

Task Chairs. The Chair explained that each Steering Group member, with the exception of the Chair, would chair one of the Task Groups. Members were asked to email the Chair with their preferred Task Group.

Task Group composition. Members noted the list of people who had expressed an interest in helping with planning CPD25 events. Suggestions of others who might have an interest were sought from the Steering Group members. The chair agreed to send emails to all the M25 Staff Development Officers, and to those on the SDG & STG who had not indicated whether they wished to be involved, inviting them to join the Task Groups.

It was agreed to aim to form the Task Groups before the end of April.

Meeting frequency. It was proposed that the Steering Group would initially meet on a monthly basis but that this would be reduced later in the session. The Task Groups would meet 4 or 5 times during each year. The importance of synchronising the meetings of the Task Groups and Steering Group was stressed.

Reporting system. It was suggested that once a year there should be a joint meeting of the members of the Steering Group along with all of the Task Groups. Minutes from each task group would be submitted to the CPD25 Steering Group.

The chair would report to the M25 Steering Group and University of London Libraries Committee. There was also a suggestion that an advisory group of senior staff would be established to support the Steering Group.

Administrator. It was noted that the new administrator post had been advertised with a closing date of 8th April and that interviews would take place on 25th April. The new post would come into effect on 1st August and until then the SDG/STG administrator would support CPD25.

It was agreed that the administrator should aim to attend and minute all Steering Group and Task Group meetings.

3. Events

Members agreed that the increase in events should be carried out incrementally. It was believed to be better to run a smaller number of meetings successfully then to overstretch the Group and fail to deliver. It was suggested that a regular pattern of event would make it easier to ensure that a regular attendance was created; e.g. a seminar for Library Assistants on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.

Although the TIG Report had suggested a series of seminars aimed at different levels of staff it was agreed that, initially at least, a number of the events should cover more than one tier of staff and that it would always be necessary for a number of the seminars to be available to all staff.

It was unclear from the TIG Report whether 3 different visits were proposed each month or 3 visits to the same venue.

The need to be able to leave "spaces" in the programme for matters, which become prominent at short notice, was felt to be of importance.

It was agreed all Library Assistants should be treated equally and that there was, therefore, no need for a specific Graduate Trainee Programme. It was noted that the number of libraries running separate graduate trainee events was much lower than it had been in the past.

Events for Staff Development Officers and System Librarians were also considered of importance when planning the programme of events.

It was agreed to aim to produce a draft programme for the 2002/03 session during May & June 2002.

4. Finances

The Chair was looking for pump-priming money from both the M25 Steering Group and the University of London Libraries Committee. It was noted that each event would need to break even and that consequently the costs of any hired in trainers should be included when planning any meeting charges.

5. Web pages

It was noted that CPD25 pages could be found on the M25 Consortium Website under "Working Groups".

6. Any Other Business

No other business.

7. Date of Next Meeting

9th April in Room LG39 of the King's College London.

TH - 26 April 2002