Category Archives: CMLE

Potential Member Event: Let’s Roller Derby!

Okay, to be clear: we are not roller skating at this event. If you are, and are in uniform for the team, we will applaud your achievements!

This is such a fun event – and it might be fun for this to be yet another one of the CMLE member events! Let us know if this is a thing you would like to do; CMLE will pick up the ticket costs for members!

WHAT would we be doing? Attending the SCAR Dolls roller derby home event, against FORX Roller Derby team.

WHEN would we do this? May 18th 2019 “Most home games have a start time of 6pm with doors opening at 5pm, but please visit our facebook page to find more detailed information as it can vary per game.”

WHERE is this excitement? The River’s Edge Convention Center in St. Cloud Minnesota. 

Wait, What? Who are these people?? “The S.C.A.R. Dolls are the one, the only, the original women’s flat track roller derby league in Central Minnesota. We formed in 2011 to create an opportunity for the women in the Saint Cloud area to participate in the challenging, exciting, and empowering revival of modern roller derby.

Roller derby is currently one of the fastest growing sports in the world, with over 1450 amateur leagues currently in existence and new leagues are forming all the time. This is not the exhibitionist, pro-wrestling style derby of the 1970’s, but a fast-paced, hard-hitting sport that the women of the S.C.A.R. Dolls are proud to be introducing to this wonderful community. We are working hard to make our league competitive in order to represent Saint Cloud both home and away.

Besides being talented and tenacious athletes, the S.C.A.R. Dolls are dedicated to giving back to the community through charity partnerships and fundraisers.”

Here’s a quick video of the team talking about their skating work:

WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?? This is not a formal request for your commitment – we are just looking around to see if this is a thing our members might want to try! So if you think you might want to come to this event – comment below, email us at admin @ cmle.org, or tweet to us at @CMLELibs.

We’ll talk about libraries at some point during the evening, I promise! We wouldn’t want you to feel left out of any library-related fun. We can enjoy hotdogs, chips, cheering for the home team, watching kids run around and lose their minds with the excitement – it’s just some noisy fun for all!

If we do this as a member event, we will buy tickets for all members who attend. But there is no reserved seating, and it is definitely a family-friendly event – so also feel free to bring kids, friends, neighbors, or anyone else who might want to have some fun watching some cool skaters with some definitely awesome library people!

Take some tea with CMLE!

Advocate for libraries, chat with library people, and enjoy gorgeous and delicious treats like this!

We had such a delightful time last year when we held a member event at the Mad Hatter Tea House in Anoka that we want to do it again!

Since our members work in school media centers, history centers, archives, public, and academic libraries, we really appreciate hearing about the variety of tasks and challenges you handle every day. Plus, we love when our members get to meet each other and form connections across different types of libraries! We’re based in St. Cloud and hold many events in that area, so we want to branch out a bit to connect with some more members!

Join us on Sunday, May 5th at 10:30 for a Queen of Hearts tea service.
We scheduled this event on a Sunday since the majority of our member libraries are closed that day and can hopefully come join us instead!

We’ll also have a selection of library advocacy postcards with us, ready to sign and mail out to legislators and other library stakeholders. It’s SO important to speak up about the value that libraries add to communities, and we’ll help you do that!

Sip some tea, fill out postcards, and meet some other awesome library folks. It’s a great time!

If you want to reserve your spot right away, RSVP below! We are offering “scholarships” again for this member event, since we don’t want the cost to be the reason you can’t join us!

Dates for CMLE Camping Adventure!

Assorted camping gear

Did you read our article last week announcing our first ever CMLE group camping trip? We know it’s early, but we’ve already started to look forward to fun summer activities! Chatting with our members and making connections is definitely fun, and we thought it would be extra exciting to host a member event at Lake Maria State Park.

Thank you to the members that indicated the dates that would work best for you! We have made reservations for Friday, June 28th and Saturday, June 29th at the Group Camping site. It’s probably not the most beautiful in the park – but we will have plenty of room for everyone to pitch a tent and enjoy some outdoor time! And there will be lots of beautiful things for everyone to enjoy.

We will have hiking, book and library discussion topics, and s’mores! Feel free to just come for the day on Saturday, or bring your gear and camp out! Keep in mind if you do choose to camp there is a $5 fee per car unless you have a State Parks pass.

We will have plenty of time to work out all the details, to give everyone the best chance to have fun at this member event!! We anticipate this will be a nice group of library-related people, and that we will get a chance to meet some new people and have some less-typical library fun!

Check out our previous article for more of the details, and look out for more information as summer approaches! It’s going to come eventually, right?

Podcasting onsite at St. John’s University!

We knew right away we were in for a treat!

We were so lucky to be able to visit St. John’s and use their excellent Media Lab to record some episodes of our Book Bites podcast! A huge thank you to Kathy Parker and all the librarians and tech staff that came to participate!

The goal of our Book Bites podcast series is to share book reviews in five minutes or less. We have had people from all types and positions in libraries participate, and we always enjoy hearing the variety of books people want to recommend!

You can listen to these mini podcast episodes on our site or subscribe to our podcasts Reading With Libraries and Linking Our Libraries and they’ll automatically download to your app!

We support Niko!

Japanese Red Cross Nagoya Daini hospital

We told you last week about a fundraiser for a member of our library community: Niko! His dad, Neil Vig, works at Great River public library system. Niko and his family are battling his leukemia, and could use your help!

You can attend the fundraiser, and all the info is in our article. If you want to just make a donation, you can contact Mark Kolbinger:  mkolbinger@isd726.org.

And we have had requests for a link to provide donations. Here is the GoFundMe account Niko’s family set up. Feel free to donate even a couple of dollars if you have them, to help offset some of the horrendous costs that big illnesses cause for families.

Library people are strong by working together. This is a great opportunity for you to be part of a community.