President’s report
by Margaret Trudgeon AE
Where did winter go? We seem to have skipped part of it and landed in spring, with blossoms blooming everywhere and many of the trees either in bud or bursting out their new leaves.
August was a month of exams and events, with the Accreditation exam being held on 12 August. Good luck to all the candidates who sat the exam!
Editors Victoria had a busy week in late August, with an event on Biotext on 21 August, followed a few days later by our “Ask an editor” student cuppa. Both events had healthy registration numbers, so I’m hoping that means more of you are checking out the weekly email bulletin to see what’s coming up.
Carrie de Haan spoke at the Biotext event, organised by Events Officer Kylie Howard. Carrie enlightened us on how to create an effective website with user-focused content. She was able to effectively explain the language commonly used for content design, along with the features that make up an effective website. Kylie has written a report on the event, which you can read in this issue of Gatherings. The talk is also available as a recording if you missed it.
Around 30 students attended our “Ask an editor” session organised by Steph Huddleston, our student adviser. I was host and also sat on the panel alongside Sharon Mullins and Justine McNamara AE. It’s always interesting to see the questions that students come up with and to delve deep into the memory to recall what it was like when starting out in the profession. I hope we were all able to assist the students in their quest for that first editing job, as many of them will be graduating from their editing and publishing courses in the near future. Steph’s position is finishing up soon and we are on the lookout for a new student adviser. Thanks to Steph for the wonderful job she’s done in the position and her professional manner during the panel session as she fielded the various questions and kept everything running smoothly.
We have some PD workshops coming up. In October, Linda Nix is re-running her popular “Grammar Refresher for Editors and Writers” workshop via Zoom. This time it will go over three sessions on three separate weeks: 9, 16 and 23 October. It will be advertised in the Friday events bulletin email soon. Hilary Cadman will be running her successful workshop “Editing tools for editors” in November too.
Our Inclusion and Access Adviser, Thirangie Jayatilake, is organising a speaker event via Zoom for October, where she will interview Valerie Guagnini about creating an anti-racism toolkit. It promises to be a thought-provoking session!
We hope to see you at some of these workshops and events! Meanwhile, enjoy the warm days.
New members
Welcome to last month’s new members.
Associate members:
- Austin Sheehan
- Janine Wilson
- Ruby Brooks