Staff Meeting September 26th 2018

COLLIER REGIONAL LIBRARY

STAFF MEETING SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

9:20-9:50AM

In Attendance: John Hong, Cyrano Machey, Teresa Eshelman, Kameshia Smith, Nichole Lewis, Richard Ford, Britney Scott, Janice Gomez

Birthday: Congratulations Nichole and Eric.  We will celebrate lunch with tacos.

Staff Meeting Activity: The purpose of the activity is to build leadership skills in our staff.  Staff can develop public speaking and planning skills.  One group will lead a meeting once a month.  Cyrano and Raymond will go first on October 24.  John shared the format for the activity to all staff.  Format would be either an ice breaker or team activity, discuss 2 library topics and 10 min open discussion.  Examples of library topics were; properly processing meeting room reservations or discussing solutions to keeping stats.  John said that staff will develop their own topics but it would be a good idea to request topics from staff for consideration (at least a week before the meeting).  Each partner should share the duties for each component of the meeting agenda.

Staff Appreciation Fund:We have $220 to spend for the upcoming holidays. Last year funds were split for two pizza parties.  Staff suggested purchasing a fried turkey for Thanksgiving and Mexican enchiladas in December.  John responded that funds would expire by March but it would be best to spend the funds earlier.  Janice suggested hosting Secret Santa or White Elephant this year.  Janice agreed to email the choices for staff voting and to handle the activity.  Staff agreed that it would be good to have a staff Halloween party where we would share spooky snacks.

Open Discussion: Kameshia said that Sam was no longer volunteering as a shelver.  She is currently interviewing a student volunteer as a replacement.  She mentioned that Doreene doesn’t shelve due to health issues.  Staff will have to pick up the shelving in the meantime.

Cyrano requested that staff enter their stats.  He has noticed that stats are down despite our busy days.  Teresa added that it is okay to record multiple questions from the same customer.  John said HPL uses stats to justify its budget to the City.  Library staff are only hurting themselves by not recording their stats.  Cyrano credited the passport agents for keeping up their stats.

John mentioned that we want to make a good impression with our visitors such as the new hires.  Thus, it was important that the Learning Lab is organized and clean.  Anti-clutter will be assigned on the schedule for staff to clean their desks and the surrounding workstations.  However, staff should start right away today when they are at their desks.

Thanks!

September 19th Staff Meeting

Staff meeting September 19^th, 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Russ Wagner, Leona Hoegsberg, Richard Ford, Eric Marques, Edith Partida, Nichole Lewis, Teresa Eshelman, Kameshia Smith, Cyrano Machey, Britney Scott

Living Room pics September 14th : displayed during meeting.        

Living Room: November 3^rd; Refugees discussion,  John welcomes ideas and input from Collier staff. John will also bring in guest speakers for event.

Staff led Meetings:  staff will get more involved in meetings, with discussions, trainings, exercises. Staff will be paired in groups of two. These will occur every other week on Wednesdays, and it will be an opportunity to add a skill to staff resumes. This will be a lot of work, but it is meant to benefit the staff with experience in leading meetings and encourage group participation.

Collection Development: LMS will come this Friday, staff should be ready to assist them. Stacks and lists of books have been compiled for their review.  Staff is only to be on hand to assist the LMS.

Open Discussion:

                Central Parking will go to metered parking under the CoH.  Planned travels and meetings to CEN will require several days of notice to get approval for using Central’s parking garage.

                Movie on Saturday: Movie instead of STEM. Equipment has been ordered for AV displays.

                Art Out Loud will start this week: for Clifton students only. Every Tuesday afternoon in the meeting room.

                Emergency Contact Information: due this Friday, and mention your contact preference of text or phone. John reminded us all that the group text conversations worked very well last year during and after Hurricane Harvey.

                Outreach Calendar: please enter outreaches onto online calendar. Britney will update, Russ uploaded new link to new Excel Online sheets on Collier’s blog.

Staff Meeting September 12th 2018

Staff Meeting Wednesday, September 12^th, 2001

In Attendance: John Hong, Russ Wagner, Eric Marques, Britney Scott, Teresa Eshelman, Richard Ford, Kameshia Smith, Nichole Lewis, Edith Partida

Living Room on Saturday:

Assignments: Britney is picking up food from the caterer.

                Need People to setup and serve Food: Melinda

                Need people to setup meeting room, Friday and Saturday: Russ

                Staff who will operate normal duties: Kameshia and Nichole in Passport office.

                Crafts: Volunteers assigned to this with Teresa.

MECCA will begin around 12pm: Need Ushers; John and Eric and Britney.

-          Dance performance begins at 12pm, Crafting afterwards.

-          Mexican Bingo in meeting room at 1pm.  Janice will assist with this.

-          Pin the Tail on the Burrito, for kids;

-          Photo Booth: Edith will setup at 10am.

Outreaches for Living Room: Last week staff went to Clifton.  This week Melinda and Britney will go to Dean, Wainright, Bane, and Clifton schools again. Outreach staff will try to go to many of the schools in the area, to promote ASZ and other events we have at Collier. Schools want more info on how kids can learn and research outside of school. Britney also has done outreach at Jersey City schools, the farthest school in the area. Any possible outreaches to help Britney should let her or John know.

Emergency Contact Info: During Harvey, we participated in group texts, which worked very well. Form will circulate for staff to circulate and fill out with contact information.

USB Thumbdrives: Kameshia reminds staff not to use new USB Thumbdrives for sale to help computer users. We do have a staff use thumbdrive for this purpose that is black and labelled.

Hours of Operation: In the next few days vendor will come to correct the hours on the front door glass.

LSM Collection Development: Next Friday, LMS will come and weed collection.

Alarm Code Access: Anyone without a code should tell John so that a code can obtained.

August 29th Staff Meeting

Staff Meeting August 29^th 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Melinda Campbell, Russ Wagner, Cyrano Machey, Edith Partida, Kameshia Smith, Britney Scott, Richard Ford, Eric Marques, Leona Hoegsberg, Teresa Eshelman, Sandra Cortez, Carlette Evans.

1.       5 Team Expectations: Group activity of 3 staff members each, to come up with five typical expectations that staff are required to show.

Example:

a.       Professionalism

b.      Respect

c.       Helping out where you can

d.      Punctuality

e.      Timely Communication

2.       Living Room Update: John showed a video compilation of Living Room events from many different HPL locations, including some shots of Collier. Edith and Eric want to make sure photos of Collier’s events get uploaded and shown in following videos by International Services.

Edith updated staff on MECCA confirmation of performers for Sept 15^th, and will come to Collier by the end of next week. A team of volunteers will assist with the crafts for the Living Room, freeing up staff to focus on other tasks for the event. Goal is to put up decorations by next week. Youth librarians will incorporate. Committees that need extra help should tell Edith. Advertisements of the event will be given to library customers today.

Melinda informed staff that anyone who wishes to help with the event should inform her to be  scheduled to assist in short two hour shifts. Regularly scheduled staff off that day are NOT required to attend, however.

3.       Attendance and Punctuality: Policy has changed a little. 3 minute rule in writing; anything after 9:18 or before 9:12 is not permitted. Coworkers that switch Saturdays are responsible for these switches.

4.       Open Discussion:  

Outreaches coming up at Clifton Elementary at the end of September. Other opportunities will be given at other schools in the community. Two open houses will occur on September 12^th and 13^th. The outreach calendar is on the staff Collier blog; anyone interested should type their on it or tell Britney. Clifton has allowed us to put up our fliers and other library advertisements.

Any new home address should be changed and updated through Employee Self Service, located on the intranet.

Copy machine will now take 5 dollar bills, but at the advice of Coin Copier we should encourage coin use, as the machine gives out change from bills into coins.

Thursday evening, on the 30^th, the meeting room will be cleared out of tables and chairs for GSD to clean in the morning.

Staff Meeting Notes  Wednesday August 22^nd 2018

In attendance: John Hong, Djuina Hammet, Russ Wagner, Angela Barratt, Richard Ford, Kameshia Smith, Eric Marques, Teresa Eshelman, Leona Hoegsberg,

Fairly short meeting today

1.       Incident Report Activity: 

Group activity reports were shown during meeting, staff read and commented on the  proper guidelines, and whether the reports were filed correctly and accurately, with all relevant detail possible. Reports should be sent to supervisors first for review of proper spelling and grammar and that reports are written in the past tense and in third person.

2.       Living Room updates:  Melinda and Edith are planning this event. Anyone who wishes to work the event for a few hours that day should notify John. If you haven’t volunteered to help with a committee, they could use the help.

3.       The Refugee Living room event: Photo display is up already, event will be held in November.

4.       Collection Development visit: LMS will visit Collier on September 21st. They will look at the collections and help with collection maintenance. Staff will be available to help with discards. Angela mentioned that extra book carts should be requested for this.

5.       Open Discussion:  

a.       Wand training is available through Eric if needed.

b.      Phones forwarded in the middle of the day on Tuesday due to a system glitch.

c.       Phone in staff work room at sticker label printer maybe not working right, and should be looked at by Russ, and if necessary IT.

d.      New toy placed in kids’ area; fishing pole and blue dish with laminated fish.

Staff Meeting August 15^th 2018

In attendance: Melinda Campell, Russ Wagner, Richard Ford, Alisa Baker, Teresa Eshelman, Eric Marques, Nichole Lewis, Kameshia Smith, Edith Partida, Angela Barratt

Scheduling and time at front Desk: Telephone duty? Sometimes phone calls get out of hand. Melinda asked staff to think about designating a telephone duty person per shift.

Melinda’s Book Club: May get passed on to some other staff member? Melinda’s duties are becoming heavy, and would like to pass it on.

Living Room September 15^th:  -

Guest speaker, graphic illustrator will show off art as well as photograph exhibit. Large painting to be hung in front lobby area. For now he’ll be the only guest speaker, geared towards getting kids interested in art at a young age.

 Crafts will be shifted around to direct towards guest speaker. Think about what crafts could be done for the event and pass them on to Melinda, who will tell them to Helen Chou at International Services.

                Caterer will provide enchiladas for everyone. Vegan types also will be served.

                Invitation cactuses will be handed out to invite everyone to living room part. Fliers for the event will come next week. Melinda and Edith want to invite more groups to attend and promote soccer or other sports.

Open Discussion:

Richard enquired if those scheduled to be off have to come. Melinda said attendance is optional for those scheduled to be off. Budget was $650, and food was estimated to be about $500 of that. Staff also should not use personal money or time to work on this event.

Eric is doing good work with scanning wand. It’s still giving him problems, however.

Angela has put in her two weeks  notice to leave HPL to work in South Sudan, then eventually to Dallas.

Kameshia mentions that she has only two volunteers left. She wants everyone to consider if there are any tasks to be done that new prospective volunteers can do.

Russ mentioned about laptops being turned in for staff to double check that they are shut down completely.

Teresa wants staff to be careful about current magazine copies to not be taken or damaged by customers.  Also, we should encourage people to use the xcheck machines as these will properly demagnetize the items they check out.