CILIP North West Members Day and AGM 2026: Celebrating reading and literacy initiatives in the North West
On 9th October, CILIP North West members met in person and online at Friends Meeting House in Manchester, despite the autumnal weather for our annual Members Day. Themed on the National Year of Reading, we heard from library and information professionals across a range of sectors about the brilliant work being done in our region.
We started
with a literary ‘say what you see’ quiz hosted by our Treasurer, Tracy Owen, in
which we all desperately tried to remember our flags (can you guess the book
title below? Answer at the end!)
Frances
Lennon, BookTrust Coordinator for Cheshire West and Chester, shared Story Joy,
a project encouraging shared enjoyment of reading with local families. The
resource packs loaned to families were handed out in the room for us to
explore, with only minor musical disruptions!
Then, Professor John McAuliffe, poet and Lecturer of Poetry at the University of Manchester, spoke about the Manchester City of Literature Festival of Libraries project.
We then had a mix of online and in person lightning talks from school, academic, and health libraries, talking about literacy and reading initiatives in their organisations. Complete with a mindful origami bookmark tutorial from Lizzie Burns!
Katie Roper,
from Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, showed off the LILAC
award-winning Lancashire Health Hub, a health literacy initiative building a
patient information resource.
After a
cracking lunch spread from our venue, our final speaker, Sarah Bird from the
Literacy Trust, spoke about the National Year of Reading and the Go All In
campaign, with insights into how and why the campaign was launched.
Our Vice
Chair Caitlyn Hallman launched our members survey – live and accepting
responses now! We want to hear from both CILIP members and non-members in the
region to help us shape our work in the future. Fill out the survey here.
Finally, we
rounded out the day with our AGM, sharing what we’ve been up to in the past
couple of years and some of our plans for the future.
Members can
access the slides for all the presentations and our AGM on our page on the
CILIP website – make sure you’re logged in to your CILIP account!
Thank you to all attendees, online and in the room, for being so engaged and bearing with us through tech-induced pauses, and to our brilliant speakers for their insightful presentations. Thank you, also, to the CILIP North West Committee for planning the event, especially to our planning group of Beth O’Donoghue, Tracy Owen and Zoe Collyer.
Say what you see quiz answer: The Wizard of Oz