Gemma Wells has been on the eLN Board for 3 years now and each year has brought her new experiences, challenges and joy, along with new faces.
I nominated myself back in 2017 but wasn’t successful the first time, so I decided to start exploring how I could become more involved in the community in any way that I could. I helped host social events, I joined the eLN mentoring programme and generally got involved in any events or webinars the eLN hosted. I then re-applied in 2018 and my application was successful! I can honestly say that being a Director is amazing. It has helped boost my confidence, given me more self-belief that I know what I am talking about when it comes to the world of digital learning and my leadership skills have grown.
My reason for joining the Board was to achieve all the above but also to give something back to a network that had given me so much when I had no one else to guide me through the digital learning space. I am self-taught on a lot of the aspects of my roles so to have had a network behind me that I could call upon if I needed support or had a question, filled me with a sense of belonging.
I stepped into the role of Vice-Chair last year and now play an active part in creating and managing our interactive webinar series for members which has been a brilliant mix of sessions throughout 2021, with awesome hosts delivering topics such as storytelling, storyboarding, writing for learning and evaluation, amongst others. The series has been well received and has given our members an extra layer of events that would not have been there due to Covid and lockdown. I am also part of the team that has arranged our regional events, now that we are allowed to (safely) meet in person again – I love having the opportunity to meet with our Industry Partners and members to network and share hints and tips!
Next year I plan to get more involved in running our face-to-face events again, maybe arrange another webinar series, create a library of online resources for our members and launch the comeback of Connect! Oh, and meet new and exciting people across the year!
Does all this sound like something you want to be part of? What are you waiting for – nominate yourself and help give our amazing network more to shout about in 2022!
