Chartership Progress: February 2012
Since my last post about my progress I've had another meeting with my mentor. These meetings have been very helpful to check that I'm keeping on track and doing the right things. I thought I hadn't made enough progress but my mentor thought otherwise. Having these meetings in my diary is also a good target for me to work to so I get things done as I'm very good at procrastinating. I do feel more focussed after I've talked things through and raised any questions I have.
One of my main concerns has been how my application would be affected if I was no longer working in a professional job (or possibly unemployed). It was helpful to talk this through and get some advice. Hopefully it won't be a problem. I'm aiming to submit during the summer and should have completed most of the work before the change in my circumstances.
I've also been wondering about job descriptions and organisational plans and objectives. I've had two job descriptions in the eight years I've been in this job but the current one doesn't really represent what I do. The current job description is a legacy from a TUPE takeover four years ago. I think I'll need to combine them and perhaps reflect on the descriptions in my personal statement.
Although I've had some training for the volunteering I'm planning to do I haven't actually been able to make a start on the work. I still intend to go ahead with it as it will be useful experience whether or not I include it in my chartership portfolio.
In January I co-delivered a lot of training on an online system we have been using called Soboleo. It's based around tagging so I have been reading up on the subject of tagging and uncontrolled vocabularies in the professional literature. This has been useful to confirm my thoughts on the pros and cons of the system and provide some new ideas that I hadn't thought of.
I've also been trying to gather more evidence. My mentor suggested that using the chartership matrix document would be helpful and it has been, although perhaps not exactly in the way it's supposed to be. I think I'm supposed to collect the evidence and then use the matrix to check it against the criteria. However, because I've been collecting evidence from a few years of previous experience I've listed the evidence (going back through old diaries to check on the events and training that I've been on), reflected on how they meet the criteria and then looked for the evidence. For some of these events I may not be able to find anything but I think doing it in this order will save me from having to sift through a lot of paper.
There have been some drawbacks to this method. To my shame, although I am a librarian/information professional I must be the most disorganised person in the office. My desk is piled with papers and once I file things away I forget where. I work/have worked people who are very tidy and organised who like to schedule housekeeping days where I feel compelled/obliged to tidy up and throw things out. Now I am discovering that some of my evidence has vanished into the bin at some point over the last few years. I am hoping that the gaps won't be too large.
I also only have five and a half weeks left in my current job. The service is closing so we will need to throw out/give away/shred most of the equipment, resources and paperwork and won't have access to IT or telephones in the last week. It's suddenly starting to feel very imminent even though we have been aware that this was going to happen for a while.
My next steps will be to finish collecting this evidence, amend a version of my CV for inclusion in the portfolio, decide on a structure and begin to think about the personal statement.
