Kia ora koutou

Summer sure is making its presence felt today… take care all, and rest, hydrate etc. as need be.

It’s been a busy week, and I’ve had a number of one-on-one catch ups with many of you.  I’m finding these kōrero a wonderful way to broaden my understanding of our service, history and context, and to get to know people!  Please feel free to book in a future catch up with me, if you’ve not had the chance already.

In other highlights this week, I spent some time in our Te Rua | Makerspace (ngā mihi Jessica and Rachel!), sewing myself a wheat pack. I really appreciated the chance for some hands-on experiential learning in our primo ‘bump space’.

A couple of Finance meetings took place, giving me a deep dive into our 2023 budget and financial reporting.  And I received an introduction to library projects and Project Board (ngā mihi, Stuart!).  I’m really impressed at the rigour here, to support us all to progress, monitor and deliver on various initiatives. Fab to see.

On that note (initiatives to deliver on), library managers will looking in detail over the next couple of weeks at finalising our Operational Plan for 2023. We have a hui coming up next week on our bicultural services mahi, and then the week following another hui is booked to draw all themes together for the coming year.

I’ve also been invited to present to SLT next Tuesday on my background, initial impressions here at UC Library (as described in my first “kōrero with Kat” column) and thoughts on our focus areas for the coming year.  This is essentially headlines from our 2023 Operational Plan, and as this takes further shape, we’ll look forward to sharing this with you all!

For now, I hope you’re finding some way/place to keep cool in this sultry weather. Have a safe and happy long weekend.