Greetings Everyone,

Firstly I would like to thank everyone who contributed to our fantastic Annual General Meeting earlier this month at the Arts and Letters club, particularly the executive who organized the event. It was a great evening with lots of shared memories and insight about the importance of CASLIS and CASLIS Toronto in our professional community.

With that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to look to the future of the chapter.  Having just taken on the presidency of the organization, I am about to step into some uncharted waters. In March, the CLA issued a press release indicating financial challenges at the national level, and informing its membership of a significant restructuring in reaction to this. At the time, the local chapters and divisions were told to pursue “business as usual” until the June 30, 2010. With this deadline fast approaching, it would appear that we are soon to begin conducting business as unusual. In short, it is highly likely that CASLIS Toronto, in its current form, will likely be no more as a result of this restructuring.

The full CLA press release can be seen on our blog at: http://caslistoronto.blogspot.com/2010/03/message-to-cla-members-cla-presidents.html

Details from CLA have been slow to emerge, but many of these changes will likely come to a head at the 2010 Annual General Meeting in Edmonton next week. I, along with my colleagues Maggie Weaver and Lily Mac will be attending the conference, as well as both the CASLIS and CLA AGMs as representatives of our Toronto Chapter.  As I stressed at our AGM, my current priority as President is communication with the membership. This message will be cross posted to our blog, listserv and website, as will all further information as we receive it; expect extra activity on the blog and listserv in the coming weeks. Additionally, I invite members to contact me directly with have questions or comments which they would like to see represented by us in Edmonton next month. My email and telephone number can be found below.

Regards,

Eileen Lewis
President
CASLIS Toronto
(t) 416-325-6294
(e) eileen_lewis@ontla.ola.org