Message from SLA Europe President, Seema Rampersad:
With the Covid-19 pandemic continuing to cause uncertainty and disruption globally, I hope this update finds you in good health, safe, and well. I am sure you are feeling overwhelmed with information, but I hope you’ll find this blog post useful. We are in unprecedented times for all of us.
At SLA Europe, we have cancelled our most immediate physical events and we are working now to offer some virtual events, such as webinars. We hope to advertise these in the next few weeks.
We are also in the process of working out the next steps to our now closed ECCA Awards and LMD Mid-Career Awards applications for 2020. These are likely to be postponed until next year due to government advice, travel restrictions, and impact of the virus over the coming months. Your safety and well-being are paramount to us, and we will confirm the positions of these awards soon.
Please do continue to use SLA and SLA Europe online communities for your own ideas, advice, and thoughts on how we can continue to support and learn from each other. This is an ideal time to use our digital skills, communities and reach out to everyone! SLA HQ are also running several online learning web presentations on various topics. For example, I attended the Zoom conference call hosted by SLA President Tara Murray last week and it was great to see and discuss issues that affect our profession, industry, communities and the services we provide – be it video-conferencing, project work, virtual team, our local communities, technology questions and tips etc. I am inspired to host a online chat in future for SLA Europe to demonstrate our togetherness.
There are also plenty of online resources, courses, and webinars being hosted by other organisations to continue your professional development. If you’d like to recommend any particular resource, we will be sharing these across our social media channels. Mental health and wellbeing is also paramount – Mind have put together several tips, guidance, and advice to dealing with anxiety and working from home. If you are feeling overwhelmed, please reach out to other SLA members for a chat or support!
Stay updated and please check our SLA Europe digital channels for updates and virtual events. Most of all, share your ideas and thoughts in this difficult time for all of us, and do take care.