Reflecting on Symposium 2016

The Literacy and Learning Symposium 2016 is a wrap! What a fantastic week of new connections, reuniting with our CALP neighbours and our brains being filled with so many interesting tidbits of information. I always return to the office with tons of new ideas and people to call to ask “What was that you said about….?” Thank you to the team at the CLN and the Centre for Family Literacy for hosting and organizing the event of the year for our CALP partners.

My first year on the CLN Board is a wrap as well. I was asked to Chair the Governance Committee back in November. This means I get to work with a great little team in reviewing the CLN policies to ensure they stay relevant and up-to-date. I know, most of you are cringing at the idea of policy review, but I love it!

The team that makes up the CLN Board of Directors is wonderful to work with and Lisa keeps us motivated, engaged and in the loop about all of the wonderful things the CLN is doing throughout our province. Be sure to check out our 2015/16 Annual Report with just some of the highlights of this last year.

Now we are back at our desks ensuring Final Report for 2015/2016 is complete and ready to send to our Grant Managers, making sure our programs are ready to go for the fall and our teams return to their regularly scheduled eating habits!

Great work to all of the CALPs in the field and award winners from the banquet. We have a wonderful network and your work does not go unnoticed.

Jana Thomson
CLN Board of Directors

Introducing the 2016-17 CLN Board of Directors

On September 26th, 2016, the Community Learning Network held our 29th Annual General Meeting. During the AGM, the membership elected the Board of Directors for the 2016-17 year. The CLN Board includes:

Brenda Adams, Chair
Tri-County Community Adult Learning Association, Stony Plain

Karen Plourde, Vice Chair
Slave Lake Adult Education Committee, Slave Lake

Doray Veno, Treasurer
Hanna Learning Centre, Hanna

Lil Radley, Secretary
Read On Adult Literacy, Lethbridge

Jana Thomson, Director
Rocky Community Learning Centre, Rocky Mountain House

Lois Polege, Director
Flagstaff Community Adult Learning, Killam

To get to know the Board members a little better, please visit the "About Us" page on the CALP Portal.

Recognizing Outstanding Contributions from the Field

Without a doubt, one of the highlights of the Literacy and Learning Symposium every year is the gala Awards Banquet, to recognize the great work being done by adult literacy and learning practitioners across Alberta. We were delighted and honoured this year to be joined by the Minister of Advanced Education, the Honourable Marlin Schmidt. Among the awards presented throughout the evening, the CLN presented our "Outstanding Contribution to Community Adult Leanring Awards".

Since 1999, the Community Learning Network has recognized the valuable contributions made by Community Adult Learning Program employees and volunteer board members with this annual award.This year, the CLN Board of Directors received such strong nominations that the 2016 Outstanding Contribution to Community Adult Learning Award was presented to 3 winners.

For the first time in our award’s history, one of the deserving recipients was a team - the Bow Valley College Adult Literacy and Essential Skills team at the Centre for Excellence is Foundational Learning.

 Berniece Gowan and Darmody Mumford accept the Outstanding Contribution award on behalf of Bow Valley College, presented by Terri Peters.

Also recognized by the CLN Board of Directors this year was Bonnie Caron, Literacy Coordinator at P.A.L.S. (Project Adult Literacy Society), for the examplary work she has done and dedication she has shown to supporting learners in Edmonton.

 Bonnie Caron, P.A.L.S.

Finally, the CLN Board also recognized Karen Plourde, Coordinator for the Slave Lake Adult Education Commitee, for the work she has done in her community to embrace and promote the renewed CALP Guidelines and to improve access to adult literacy and foundational learning opportunities in her community.

Karen Plourde, with her husband Lawrence and Tanis Harms

All three of this year’s award recipients have really shone over the last year - they have inspired their Programs and their communities, shown exceptional leadership and vision, and have gone above and beyond to address meeting the literacy and foundational learning needs of adult learners in Alberta.

In addition to the CLN's Outstanding Contribution to Community Adult Learning Award, we were delighted to be part of the ceremonies to acknowledge Wendy Peverett from the Centre for Family Literacy, winner of this year's Dr. Ruth Hayden Memorial Family Literacy Practioners Award.

Wendy Peverett, Centre for Family Literacy

And of course, everyone in the room was moved by the presentation of the Council of the Federation Literacy Award to University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills, accepted by Vincent Stienhauer, University Pesident.

Honourable Marlin Schmidt, Minister of Advanced Education with Council of the Federation Literacy Award Winners from
UnBQ. President Vincent Steinhauer (centre), Valerie Cardinal and Gale Nahnepowisk.

Thank you to all who were able to join us for such a wonderful evening!

Regional Training Updates

This year we promised to keep bringing training and Professional Development to the regions, and we are happy to report that the Training and Events calendar is filling up with great learning opportunities. There is still time to register for these events in October:

October 12-13: Momentum Financial Literacy - Train the Facilitator (Rocky Mountain House)

October 21: Rhymes that Bind (Edmonton)

October 25-26: Introduction to Adult Foundational Learning (Airdrie)

October 31: Storysacks (Edmonton)

Full details for these and other trainings, including another offering of Introduction to Adult Foundational Learning in Vegreville in November, are available under the "Training and Events" tab on the CALP Portal.

We've also made some changes to the Events page on the Portal to help you find the training you are looking for. You can still use the "Relevancy Settings" filters on the left hand side of your screen to search for training and events by Region, but now we've added some other ways to find what you need.

You'll see a new box on your screen, called "Find Training by Topic". From here, you can select any of the standardized trainings that CLN coordinates or provides to see what is scheduled around the province.

In addition to this new way to search, we've also added a "quick link" to existing events in these training topic areas so that you can quickly find all the dates and locations a particular training is being offered.

Be sure to check back to the Training and Events page often, as we have got more trainings in the works for November!

CLN Goes Digital - 2015/16 Annual Report Now Online

The CLN recently released our Annual Report for 2015-16, and this year we decided to go digital! Our Annual Report is an interactive, online "micro-site" where you can click and scroll through the highlights and accomplishments of the last year. To launch the full screen experience, just click the image below.

Quote of the Day

Shoot for the moon.

Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

Norman Vincent Peale