Peer to Peer: ILTA's Quarterly Magazine
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1293067
46 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | F A L L 2 0 2 0 "We are in a connection economy in which those who connect with others will succeed" — Charles Vogl A new direction In 2019 our focus was understanding our community and trying to make sense of ILTA's core values in order to be able to articulate this to prospective members in Europe. This year for the first time Europe volunteers attended ILTA's annual volunteer conference (Ascend) in January to brainstorm ideas to expand regional programmes and increase engagement with ILTA's virtual offerings. Sadly our plans, like all others had to be abandoned due to Covid 19. What happened next? ILTA Europe members and our small pool of volunteers became very busy very fast. Our local cluster of volunteers is close knit and we heavily rely on a few champions to keep the momentum going: This made it essential to limit volunteer time and contributions to programming designed for 'the new normal'. Despite challenging moments, we stayed steady on our course to facilitate a steady flow of educational and peer networking activities: Special Interest Groups (SIGs) welcomed members online Our litigation support SIG in particular saw 40 individuals attend (in person meetings usually have about 20 attendees) It was particularly important to keep special interest groups going during lockdown for members to have a safe space to voice any challenges or exchange knowledge with peers in similar situations: Most topics on the agenda in meetings were related to delivering remote services in varying capacities within business support teams. We had great feedback from our IT Trainers SIG meeting where an executive coach delivered a personal development piece on presenting with impact. M E M B E R R E S O U R C E S ILTA Europe: Staying Connected & Visible by Mercedes Brown