ALIA West

August 2004

WA Library Technicians' weekend at New Norcia

Spanish Benedictine monks founded New Norcia, Australia's only monastic town, 1½ hour's drive north of Perth, in 1846. Since the closure of the Aboriginal schools in the 1970s, the community has changed its focus and the former college buildings now host school camps and adult workshops and conventions.

An ideal location for a residential workshop we thought, and so it was. On a cold but mostly fine weekend in July we gathered at the Old Convent for two workshops, good food (including the famed New Norcia bread and nut cake) and great company.

We arrived late morning and after settling in to the rooms, we enjoyed a lunch of home made soup, New Norcia bread and tacos.

The first workshop, in the Education Centre just a short walk from the Old Convent, was presented by Irene Hughes, HR manager at Legal Aid Western Australia. In The Dreaded Performance Appraisal, Irene helped us to understand the performance appraisal process and how it need not be stressful and unpleasant but can be a positive and beneficial experience. We performed role-plays (with gusto!) and completed a self-appraisal of the 3 Ps - performance, progress and plans for the future, keeping in mind that objectives should be meaningful, achievable and timely. We learned how to identify our training and development needs and encouraged to manage our own development, being proactive and following up on our training needs. Irene is an experienced and entertaining speaker and we all learned a lot.

Saturday evening, following a delicious roast dinner, we adjoined to the Main Common Room and gathered around the fire for drinks and nibbles and a Quiz Night - Judy Clayden very kindly offered to compile and run the quiz. We paired up for support and tried to remember. It was a fun evening. Thank you to all those who generously donated prizes - especially to Raeco for the bottles of wine!

Next morning a few got up early and braved the cold to attend mass and/or do the River Walk and enjoy the peace and quiet of the countryside. Most, however, made a more leisurely start to the day, getting up just in time for breakfast.

The second workshop was in two parts. The first, an Introduction to Myers Briggs Type Indicator, was presented by Jane Loring, from Curtin University of Technology. This was followed by an Introduction to Creative Visualisation and Meditation presented by Jodie Moyle, from Edith Cowan University.

Having already completed the MBTI questionnaire, we added up the scores and determined our types. Before talking to us about the different types, Jane explained that the Myers Briggs Types were developed from Jung's theory of personality - that personality has a strong genetic basis. How we express this is influenced by our environment, and as we mature we develop skills and learn to adapt, but in stressful situations we revert to our basic preferences. Knowing our preferences helps us to understand why we behave the way we do. Jane then explained the four MBTI dichotomies:

• Extraversion-Introversion - where people prefer to focus their attention and get energy
• Sensing-Intuition - the way people prefer to take in information
• Thinking-Feeling - the way people prefer to make decisions
• Judging-Perceiving - the way people orient themselves to the external world.

Following the MBTI workshop, Jodie got us up on our feet, walking around the room - to help us think of something we would like to achieve. Once we had decided what our goals were, we returned to our seats and Jodie guided us through a creative visualisation, which we could later continue to use to help achieve our aims. It was a relaxing and energising experience.

There was some free time before lunch and many took the opportunity to visit the Museum shop which has a wonderful variety of goods ranging from handmade monks sandals to cards and including New Norcia bread [but you had to be quick!], nut cake, wine, olive oil, candles, pottery, book marks, aprons - the list is long.

It was a very enjoyable weekend - it was great to catch up with old friends and make new ones, learn new skills, discover a truly special community - and not have to cook and wash up! Thank you to everyone who came and made it such a great weekend, with special thanks to Judy Clayden for the Quiz Night (it was fun) and to Thelma Allen and Wendy Morris for all their hard work.

Judy Allan
Convenor, ALIA WALTG