November 2021
Therina Theron and Andrew Bailey hosted the #MySARIMA session at our recent conference providing members with the opportunity to give some general feedback as well as to provide some input into SARIMA’s future direction. It was great to have enthusiastic participants interacting through Slido and creating some inspiring ‘word clouds’ that we thought would be great to share in the newsletter in case you missed the event.
Something that came through strongly was a sense of community and a network. It is probably one of the primary functions of SARIMA and the Communities of Practice and Regional Technology Transfer meetings keep the network alive in between conferences, training events and webinars.
We have revived our newsletter, which will be issued quarterly and ask members to write opinion pieces, or to showcase their activities so that we get to know our community across SADC. We are keen to share a lot more on key projects that SARIMA is busy with and their outcomes – to raise awareness and to allow you to get involved too.
Emails – which typically alert members to specific training events, etc. – are the most popular mode of communication, but interesting WhatsApp came through as something that is of interest. We will be giving this a try in 2022 and will be in contact so that you can join the group.
When asked what SARIMA should be adding to its various programmes and offerings, a host of initiatives were suggested in the Word Cloud below. Key was mentoring. There have been various exchange programmes in the past where people can spend time in more established offices, but the type of mentoring that is actually required perhaps needs to be unpacked more. Is it personal or whole office mentoring? What is the most effective way of doing this – visits both ways, twinning offices, ability to reach out to get quick advice / sounding boards? The SARIMA Committee will look into this, along with the other great suggestions, but please do send through any thoughts you have.
As mentioned during the conference session, SARIMA is a members organisation so it’s all about our members and we are keen to hear from you with new suggestions and ideas at any time. Please send mails through to either sarima@sarima.co.za or president@sarima.co.za .
Written by Andrew Bailey
