bout de papier, September 1983 // Septembre 1983, p. 4
It’s always hard to say good bye, and hardest when you are having fun.
I am in that position now because, having gone out on secondment, I have to leave the Executive. It has been a good year, a year during which the Association started on a new track. I’ll miss the fun, and the people who did it all — the Executive, the Professional Committee, the office staff, the members who took part in the things we organized. But I am getting maudlin. What is worth saying is that I hope things continue to go well, that even more of us get involved in the Association in one way or the other.
Active participation in PAFSO has grown significantly last year. It will be an ever more stable, useful and forceful institution for the promotion of our interests, the more the action is spread around. Even if individuals do no more than write a letter to the executive or for the bout de papier, the sense of the organization and its members being the same entity will become the more real and lively. The sense of community, which is what gives the Service its strength and character will flourish as a result.
I suppose this will be particularly important because the future isn’t going to be easy. The Service will continue to be challenged to prove itself, to achieve excellence, to be a vital force. To do all this, under a new structure and in an unkind world, will require self confidence and toughness. It will require that FS’s continue to press for conditions that best permit us to do the job, and for the tools, intellectual and organizational to do it well. The vehicle, for doing that, at least in my eyes, is the Association, and the sense of solidarity, openness and confidence that it can give us. PAFSO is up to the job, if last year is an example. It did a job to be proud of, on issues like open plan, FSD’s, Lateral Entry, the creation of new streams, education and professional development. The Professional Committee created a whole new dimension to our intellectual self respect. Some new services have been created including the bout de papier; others will be this year. We made an embryonic start to a social side for the Association, and that can and should be built on next year. It was all worth doing and will be even more so in the future. And it’s there for you.
Use it and have fun!
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Originally published in bout de papier, September 1983 // Septembre 1983, p. 4. Read the rest of this issue →
