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UPDATES FROM THE CALIBA OFFICE
Happy New Year!
The CALIBA team is excited and looking forward to what we have planned for our organization and members in 2025.
The most major change will be our new CALIBA website! The CALIBA team has been working hard the past couple months to create a more user-friendly and organized platform for our members. We hope to launch it with new colors and a new logo in February, just in time for the NorCal Spring Forum registration! We are super excited for what you as members can do with it, as well as, the benefits it will provide to the CALIBA staff. More news on that to come!
This year, we’ll find ourselves back in some familiar places, like Oakland (Spring Forum) and South San Francisco (Fall Fest), and we’ll be moving forward with our traditional Holiday Catalog and the Golden Poppy Awards. The team is planning some new aspects for each! You can expect more education on the Holiday Catalogs (Why we do them and how we can use them better), as well as the Golden Poppy Awards (What are they and how do I get my store involved?). Along with what the staff has planned, our growing Education Committee will be forming some great education panels for you. If you have thoughts on that, you are encouraged to join the Committee OR send your idea directly to me!
Next, you have already seen our Golden Poppy sticker merch. The money that CALIBA makes from your purchase of those stickers will go towards the Glenn Goldman Scholarship Fund and bookseller education. As I write this, we are working on designing an enamel pin featuring the same beautiful Obi Kaufmann art that you will be able to sell in-stores too. By adding just a little bit of extra income, CALIBA hopes to provide you with more in-person opportunities in the future.
Finally, we’ll have our first Advisory Council meeting this month which will add new voices and ideas to the mix and enhance the great work the CALIBA Board Members and Staff are already doing. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it many times more, but CALIBA is only as strong as its members. Your participation in our programs and your feedback for making them better is invaluable. As I’ve been visiting stores I’ve been making a point to ask this one question, and I’ll pose it here, “What is one thing you would like to see from CALIBA?” If you have an answer for that question, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to call or email me directly. If I didn’t make it to your store last year, don’t worry, I plan to hit the road some more this year! As always, I hope to see you virtually or in person over the next coming months. There is so much more the CALIBA staff is working on, but I’ll leave some fun surprises for you!
I hope you all had a successful holiday season and are scheduling some “me time” into your 2025 calendar, you’ve earned it!
Best Wishes,
Hannah Walcher
CALIBA Executive Director
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