Your Library

Thursday the 10th of September, I attended a Your Library Limited board meeting.

Tuesday the 11th of August, in my capacity as Deputy Chair of Your Library, I attended the Audit and Risk Advisory Committee meeting. We had a very solid, I think three-hour meeting, covering quite an extensive agenda of Your Library topics. And just today I had my monthly catch-up with the Your Library CEO and chair, Councillor Kylie Spears.

A couple of other items. I attended the Audit and Risk Advisory Committee for Your Library Limited on the 28th of May. We worked through all manner of audit, risk and finance matters. So I won't labour the detail, but I wanted to just note that work is being done.

On the 30th of April, I attended the Your Library board meeting as Deputy Chair of the Your Library board. We're continuing our work on governance and planning for the year ahead and the years ahead. I just thought I'd record my attendance this evening.

The 26th of March, as Deputy Chair of Your Library and a board member, I attended the Audit and Risk Advisory Committee meeting.

I attended last week a full-day planning day for the Your Library board, along with the Mayor, Councillor Kennett, in my capacity as Deputy Chair of the board of Your Library. We focused on the strategic direction of the organisation and discussed how we can strengthen and grow library services for our region, which we know are incredibly important for all our residents. A much-loved service of Council, our libraries.

Last Thursday, the 19th of February, with the Mayor, Councillor Kennett, we attended the Your Library board meeting. I was very humbled to be elected Deputy Chair of Your Library for this year. I accepted the nomination with hope to provide continuity and input for the Your Library board for some time to come.

We talked a little bit about the upcoming annual budget. And it was really interesting to see some numbers, just how well Your Library ranks in terms of visits and memberships and active borrowings and downloads. Number one in terms of several metrics. Not the biggest library group, but they're top of the leaderboard in terms of many of the metrics that we use to measure our library and services. So well done, Your Library, and I look forward to getting stuck into the work of the board this year.

Thank you, through you, Mayor. This afternoon I attended my first Your Library Limited meeting as the new Council representative, with Councillor Lockwood. We had the AGM and a board meeting after that this afternoon. So I wanted to acknowledge Councillor Baker's contribution to that board, and I look forward to representing the views of Council and celebrating our fantastic libraries in the years ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a very important engagement this morning at the Rowville Library, where I joined Book Week celebrations for preschool story time. It was an absolute delight and privilege to join the team at Rowville Library. There was a sea of smiling faces, which always builds the mood and helps with the resilience for the rest of the day. Michelle Tomazin is the Rowville Library children's librarian, a formidable performer when it comes to reading books and keeping the attention of young kids. I read a book, Spiro, about a hungry spider, to a sea of young, smiling and inquiring children.

It was nice to meet Federica, the team leader at Rowville Library, and all the staff there who do a fantastic job, whether it's behind the scenes or at the front counter, to make Rowville Library the treasured community space that it is there at Stud Park. And as I learned today, it's the fourth busiest library in the Your Library network on a couple of metrics.