Friday, April 22, 2011

Thank you!

Thanks, Meredyth, for comment posted to last blog entry and many others, especially TL colleagues, for notes of congratulation.  For those who haven't heard, I had the pleasure of opening my email this week to find that I have been awarded the Angela Thacker Award in which CASL (national body for TLs, a ) recognizes leadership in the field demonstrated in publications, productions or professional development activities that deal with topics relevant to teacher-librarianship and/or information literacy.  What an honour.  From everything I have heard, Angela was remarkable.  Thank you to nominators Parungao and Zubke, and thank you to selection committee of CASL for this recognition.

My thanks, too, to VSB Board Chair Patti Bacchus whose tweet I just read and to Trustee Mike Lombardi, Gino Bondi, administrator extraordinaire @JO, and Aaron Mueller, ever encouraging, whose re-tweets I do so much appreciate.  Being a member of the VSB Tweeps Team @VSB39 is always educational but reading "RT @pattibacchus: Congrats to @VSB39's Moira Ekdahl @tlspecial the 2011 CASL Angela Thacker Mem.Award recipient! #bced Long time coming" is really special.  Your support for teachers' and teacher-librarians' work, Gino, Mike, and Patti, really makes a difference.  Right, Aaron?

I would like to congratulate Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort for her winning the CLA/CASL's Follett-International TL of the Year Award; Judith joins an amazing group of TLs from across Canada in receiving this recognition, including our own Michele Farquharson, Pat Parungao, Mary Locke, and Karen Cordiner.  And congratulations are due to Heather Daly, for leading BC's TLs into another year as President of the BCTLA.  We are all inspired by your commitment as well as your visionary and dedicated leadership.

I'm sure Judith will agree that such honours in April are a wonderful way to end a bleak winter and begin to anticipate Spring which can't be far behind! There are more good things coming for BC TLs, I just know it. Can't you feel it, an end to the "10-year winter"? The Supreme Court decision which finds for the BCTF in the Charter challenge around Bills 26 and 27 which stripped our hard-won ratios and numbers for class size and composition and thus, our rights to representation, bodes well for a return to a system where educators can set aside the fight to speak for what's best for our students and return to a focus on building the capacity of schools and school libraries to deliver quality education. 

The new Ning is gathering our rank and file; thanks, Arlene Anderson, for giving us a place to meet and share.  Need an invite?  Contact a member of the BCTLA Executive.  We rise again!

2 comments:

Aaron Mueller said...

You are so right Moira!

Awards and presentations are a wonderful way to highlight all the good work you've done and will continue to do for us here in VSB and throughout the province for T-Ls.

Its such a good, positive way to celebrate the great things you do, (and all T-Ls) when we awknowledge our leaders and role-models!

Proud to work with you around the district and glad you have recieved some public recognition.

PippaDavies said...

Thank you Moira for welcoming us into your learning commons last week. We were amazed at what you had done in your library and how space had been transformed into rooms with character. This gave our learning commons team hope for the future. Thanks for your time, information and advice! Blessings to you! Pippa and Learning commons team of HCOS.