At its last meeting on 23rd March, the ADSO Board agreed that Directors would take turns to prepare the weekly message to accompany the bulletin: this week, it’s our Company Secretary, Peter Sass:
The ADSO Board has decided to have an ‘away day’ in June to discuss a number of matters. In particular, we want to discuss how best to deliver the administrative functions that are so essential to keep our association going and also to ensure that we have robust arrangements in place for succession planning; finding willing volunteers to become the next generation of Directors and regional representatives. Overall, we want to ensure that the association continues to grow and thrive for the future, long after the current cohort finally hang up their quill pens!
We believe that the work undertaken in the regions is vital to the association’s success and we will be putting in place a process for at least one ADSO Director to be present at as many regional events as possible, to support your vital work and to give further information about what the Board does on your behalf.
We are also very pleased to announce that Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive of the Local Government Association (LGA) is attending the Board’s September meeting, to talk to us about how ADSO can further grow its presence and influence on the national stage so that, for instance, ADSO is seen as the ‘go to’ organisation to consult about emerging legislation in the area of local authority governance in a similar way to the Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) is for changes to electoral law.
Planning for the 2018 conference is well underway. Ideas and suggestions for speakers, workshops, facilitated discussions, panel discussions etc. are most welcome, so please contact your regional representative or e-mail any Board Member. We want to ensure that the conference is designed by our members for our members. Once again, we are confident that it will be a great success. Keep an eye out on the website for booking information in the coming weeks. We will be doing the ‘ADSO Awards’ at conference this year: ‘Team of the Year’; ‘Learner of the Year’; and ‘DSO of the Year’, so start thinking now about your nominations.
If your Council has elections next month, I wish you all the best with that and the resulting Member Induction events to follow.