Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

February 2006 Volume 4(1)

Endpiece

Achievements through consensus.

Colin Will on recent literary highlights; and getting things done by committee.

I totally agree with Brian Osborne’s comments about Kathleen Jamie’s Findings in the last issue – I reviewed it on the Poetry Scotland website. Another of my literary highlights from last year was the publication of the revised edition of The Poems of Norman MacCaig, by Polygon. I’d heard about the discovery by Norman’s son Ewen McCaig of many previously uncollected poems, and I was keen to read them. Norman was a teacher at my old Primary School in Edinburgh (Craiglockhart, 1948-1955), and I remember him coming in to our classroom from time to time. I think I knew at the time that he was a poet, but I didn’t know I would become one too.

Reading poetry at secondary school was, I must confess, a bit of a chore. The only poet in our Higher English anthology who wasn’t dead was T.S. Eliot, and although he wasn’t part of the curriculum, I enjoyed reading his poetry (still do). It wasn’t until I had left school and dropped out of a chemistry course that I discovered Norman’s work, along with Hugh MacDiarmid, Robert Garioch, Alan Bold and the other literary worthies who inhabited the Edinburgh of my ‘beat’ period.

I love the seemingly effortless lyricism of Norman’s work, although I know that he didn’t achieve the effect without considerable struggle. He wrote on many subjects – mountains, frogs, dogs, frosty city parks – the things he encountered on his walks and in his memories. Yet when you’d finished reading a short (“one fag,” as he used to say) poem about Suilven, you realised he’d slipped in a profound thought about the human condition that would live with you for years.

I have his earlier Collected Poems, and my initial intention here was to read the 99 poems not previously included, and to see how good they are in relation to his other work. Was it worth including them? Yes, most definitely. They’re not startlingly different in quality, theme or insights from his other work, and in many cases it’s hard to work out why they didn’t appear in his earlier Collected. They represent extensions to these editions; like finding additional rooms in a house you thought you knew. Having read these poems, I then decided to re-read all the other poems in the book. This reading doesn’t disappoint – it’s a marvellous book, whole, rounded, varied. I must also draw attention to Ewen’s careful commentary, to Alan Taylor’s witty and judicious introduction, and to selections from Norman’s own quotations.

He became wickedly mischievous in his later years, and I was privileged (if that’s the right word) to overhear some of his scurrilously enjoyable flytings. It’s my ambition, if I live as long as he did, to become equally cantankerous. Youse have been warned!

As people progress socially and professionally, sooner or later they find themselves dragged into committees, and eventually into chairing committees. It’s a facet of human nature, I believe, that we prefer to achieve things in concert with others. There are training courses in chairmanship, but I’m not sure how many of my librarian friends and colleagues have ever availed themselves of such training. I received formal training only in chairing appointment panels, and yet during my career and after I have chaired more boards, panels and committees than I care to remember. So what’s involved in effective chairmanship?

Above all else, I suggest, is a commitment to the organisation, group or effort that one supports. You want it to succeed; you believe that you can contribute to its success, and you have the energy and time needed to commit to it.

There are many different types of group, but if you want to chair a public body, you should recognise that it’s not your job to manage the organisation. The primary role of a Board Chair is to support the paid staff of the organisation, especially its Director. I recall one body (no names, no pack drill) whose Chair felt he should micro-manage the outfit. It led to conflict between himself and the Director, and enormous stresses at all levels of management. Policy changes were frequent, as we tried to satisfy two ‘bosses’ who weren’t in tune with each other.

Chairs need to be comfortable with their committee colleagues, and to respect their diversity of opinion. If there are clashes of personality (and there often are), a good Chair will work to resolve them. A Chair should listen first, and then speak – not the other way round.

Meetings have their own rhythm, but with a well-set agenda (another job for the Chair), it should be clear that some items will deserve more time than others. Some will try to discuss the easy things first, and leave the difficult items to last. Others will do the opposite, tackling big issues at the outset, and rushing through the ‘lesser’ items. Both of these approaches are wrong. Work through the whole agenda, but with a flexibility which allows longer discussion where necessary. Be prepared to set time limits if you have to.

After discussion, it’s the job of the Chair to summarise, concisely and incisively, the main points of the arguments, and to draw conclusions. The group will then be in a good position to achieve decisions through consensus.
Colin Will, website

Information Scotland Vol. 4(1) February 2006

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Last updated: 13-Mar-2006