Tai Tokerau Literacy Association Presidents Report for 2019

Another year passes by for the TTLA, another year of stepping up to bring literacy to the North. Writing this Presidents report highlights what we have achieved, and the different ways we are working with our wider community.

Working at a NZLA national level has shown the many challenges that are facing councils and the Executive currently.

Often, I will relate on where we are at as an organisation. Yes, we do have our challenges, but we have a solid base to work from, a good reputation in Northland and lots of possibilities and ideas to follow up on.
2019 has been another solid year of organising events with a great spread focusing on teachers, children and supporting our community.

Events & Activities in 2019
 Jeannie Skinner, our National Library Rep in the North joined us to share about Great Reads for the start of the year. We also celebrated Jeannie winning the Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award, which acknowledges an exceptional commitment to the promotion of Children’s Books. We all headed out to dinner afterwards to celebrate.
 Our Saturday Seminar day, Languages of Literacy, saw Dr Rae Si’llata(Lecturer in Biliteracy at Auckland University and Donovan Bixley(Successful Author & Illustrator) as our keynote speakers. This year we tried something new with our keynotes running a break out session as an addon to their keynote. We ran as one round or workshops and had excellent support from our Traders.
 In partnership with the NZ Book Council, we brought Donovan Bixley to the North to run author/illustrator events with children. Events were held in Whangarei, Kerikeri and a public event at the Whangarei District Library.
 We organised and supported a Whangarei Speech Competition and invited Year 7,8,9,10 students to participate. Secondary students is an area that we not operated in before, so this is a good start.

 The TTLA was very fortunate to have Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey visit the North to run a book launch and workshop on their new book, “The Reading Book.” This was a very well supported event.

group of us attended the well organise NZLA National Conference in Christchurch. We also funded a couple of teachers to go to this conference as well. The Arts as a Bridge to Literacy had a great mixture of speakers and an incredible environment in Rangi Ruru Boarding School, a school with a mix of incredible history and also the most up to date technology.

We also put funding in to support a Pacifica teacher to attend the NZ Literacy Association National Conference.

This year the TTLA will be donating books to the Salvation Army Christmas Appeal.

To the team, this is a dedicated and committed team, we all have our strengths and weaknesses but combined we all support each other to organise excellent events, no matter how big or small. Thanks team!
I am happy to serve in the role of President, but acknowledge that someone else may wish to step into the job.

A special thanks also for the financial efforts of Glenice Andrews. We all realise and appreciate that this role is always ongoing as well as managing the Charities’ financial documents. Thanks Glenice!
Looking forward to a great 2020, promoting Literacy in the North!

Warm Regards,
Scotty Delemare
TTLA President 20/3/2019