Howdy! Why, it has been a while, hasn’t it? I’m afraid the daily grind of work and life in general has caused me to let this blog slide over recent months, however, I thought it would be worth posting to say that I am now back on track with my chartership with renewed vigour!
Indeed, there is in fact a light on the horizon, shining away and beckoning me towards the finish line. I have been rather distracted along the way, a little detour which probably could have been avoided, but now that I am back on track and will hopefully submit before the end of March 2008, I feel a lot less stressed about it and also really motivated. It’s like the final burst of energy to get to the end of the race!
When I first started out on my chartership, I was determined to get it within a year. I had my PPDP all sorted out and kept detailed notes of everything I was getting up to. I actively sought out training courses which were either relevant to my work or which filled training needs that I had identified. After so long in the job though, various time pressures piled themselves on and the chartership was unfortunately pushed to the back of the pile for a while. I suppose this happens with a lot of people, the demands put upon them to get the actual job done has to come first, but it is so important to not forget about your CPD, as I have realised, and I regret letting this happen over the past year.
I feel that attending training courses, thinking about your development, and knowing how you want to improve gives you something to focus on, something to work towards, that gives you direction when you may feel like you are just trundling (is that even a word?) from one week to the next doing pretty much the same thing. So I feel really motivated at the moment, have taken on extra responsibilities at work, and sorted out a few training courses for myself in the not to distant future.
And more to the point, I have started to draw together my portfolio for submission. It’s amazing how many pieces of evidence you gather over the process of just doing your job! I guess that’s the point of the chartership really, actual work experience, but combining this with reflection about how you have progressed, the performance of the organisation, and of yourself, and how you intend to develop in the future.
The process of chartership can be daunting, but for anyone in a library/information related job, the pieces of evidence seem to come together fairly easily, even though it may seem like an impossible task at the moment.
So hopefully I will have mine together soon, there are a few really good examples on the CILIP website which have given me guidance about how to structure it etc so I’m feeling more confident about that now as well. Just need to get all the extra documentation, finalise what is to be included and finish writing up my evaluative statement and then create a contents page! Sounds simple when you say it like that, but it can be quite fiddly and will no doubt take a fair bit of time.
But you heard it here first, my deadline is set and I intend to stick to it - the end of March people. It will be submitted. Or I’ll buy you all a drink. Maybe.
