Tuesday 15 December 2009

Minutes of December meeting

Wednesday 9th December 2009

Attendees:

Caroline Mosley, Caroline Covington, Caroline Janukowicz, Diane Harris, Hilary Boucher, Keri Husband, Pat Pritchard, Jasmin Hollingum, Jon Beaumont, Matthew Cadden, Sally Hassall, Stephen Wheeler, Mandy Hulme, Sue Kendall, Helen Dunn, Adele Champken, Natasha Skeen, Paula Biddlestone and Tricia Wyspianska

Steve Wood, Head of Service – Information Services, Central Library


Apologies

Jackie Sellars, Phil Uttley, Christine Newlove, Erica Foster, Hazel Hewison, Alison Parker, Bev Preece, Denise Watkins, Carol Wilson, Rachel Relves and Susanne Homer.

Please note that Phil Uttley is off work following surgery on his knee. If you have any matters to raise from these minutes please contact the remaining committee members, Caroline Mosley, Diane Harris or Caroline Covington.

New Members

Caroline Mosley welcomed Paula Biddlestone who is working at Citadel Chambers and Adele Champken who is now working at Aston University after a 6 month career break.

Seminars

The Company Information seminar on 4th November was fully subscribed and was very successful with all the delegates finding it useful.

7side in Cardiff have held some one hour seminars for various groups on the effect of the Companies Act 2006 on Companies House and are willing to present it to ALLICE members. Those members present agreed that this would be useful to them so the ALLICE Committee will try to arrange for this to take place in January/February 2010.

Is there any interest in ALLICE trying to arrange the next training session on the topic of Web 2.0? If this is something of interest to you, please email Caroline Covington on ccovington@st-philips.com before Christmas.

Subscriptions and Members List

Caroline Covington as Treasurer thanked everyone for their prompt payment of their ALLICE subscriptions. A new members list accompanies these minutes. Please make sure you amend any saved contacts as there have been several changes to the list.

LIM Book Reviews

Caroline Mosley has been approached by the Editorial Board of Legal Information Management as they are looking for book reviewers. In particular, they are looking for someone to review Legal Skills 2nd edition by Finch and Fafinski for the March issue of LIM. Please contact Caroline on caroline.mosley@cobbetts.com by Wednesday 16th December if this interests you.


Social

The committee are planning to organise a social event for late January/February. If you are interested in attending or have a suggestion for a venue, please let one of the committee know. Further details will be sent out in the new year.


Next meeting

The next meeting will be held at No5 Chambers in March (date to be confirmed). Justis will be in attendance to demonstrate their online services, in particular recent developments to JustCite.


A.O.B.

Natasha Skeen is due to finish her maternity cover at the College of Law at the end of January 2010 when Jackie Hanes returns. She is looking for a few months work after her contract ends. If anyone knows of any vacancies or needs a temporary librarian please contact Natasha on natasha.skeen@lawcol.co.uk and she will be happy to provide you with her CV or discuss this further.


Steve Wood, Service Manager, Information Services at Birmingham Central Library gave a very interesting talk about the range of legal and official publications that are available to the general public and businesses. He also gave a progress report on the plans for the new Library of Birmingham which is due to open in June 2013.

Steve has offered to give ALLICE members a tour of the legal and official materials collections at the Central Library. If you would be interested, please contact one of the committee.

Steve also provided the following contact details:
General email: information.services@birmingham.gov.uk
Tel: 0121 303 4545
Steve.wood@birmingham.gov.uk


The committee would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Web 2.0 event in Birmingham

Back by popular demand, new location, the Commercial, Legal and Scientific Information Group invites you to:

Web 2.0 - the truth behind the hype
Monday 18 January 2010, Hammonds, Rutland House, 148 Edmund Street, Birmingham B3 2JR.
Doors open 6pm, 6.30-8pm


What is web 2.0 and what isn't it?

[Web 2.0] is an "architecture of participation" -- a constellation made up of links between web applications that rival desktop applications, the blog publishing revolution and self-service advertising. This architecture is based on social software where users generate content, rather than simply consume it, and on open programming interfaces that let developers add to a web service or get at data. It is an arena where the web rather than the desktop is the dominant platform, and organization appears spontaneously through the actions of the group, for example, in the creation of folksonomies created through tagging." Wired magazine, 2005

"The promoters of Web 2.0 venerate the amateur and distrust the professional. We see it in their unalloyed praise of Wikipedia, and we see it in their worship of open-source software and myriad other examples of democratic creativity. Perhaps nowhere, though, is their love of amateurism so apparent as in their promotion of blogging as an alternative to what they call 'the mainstream media.'" Nicholas Carr on his blog Rough Type 2005

So who is right? In this seminar Karen Blakeman, Independent Information Trainer and Consultant at RBA Information Services, and Phil Duffy, Information Services Manager at Hammonds LLP will debate the pros and cons of using web 2.0 tools and technologies. This event was sold out and highly rated by attendees in London earlier this year.

There will be a networking reception after the event.

BOOKING DETAILS
All seminars are £10 for CLSIG (and ALLICE) members, £15 for non-members and half-price for the unemployed. To book or for more information please email events@clsig.org.uk.

Cheques should be made payable to CLSIG and sent to Irena Valouchova, Denton Wilde Sapte LLP, One Fleet Place, London, EC4M 7WS or DX242 City. Please note that refunds are only available up to a week before the event.

Travelling details:http://www.hammonds.com/Default.aspx?sID=259&cID=952&ctID=11

CLSIG website: www.clsig.org.uk

Friday 16 October 2009

New book - Information needs of lawyers: A case study evaluating the information needs of lawyers in a major city law firm

Joelle Rogan, Information Specialist with Edexcel Information Service has written a book called:

Information needs of lawyers: A case study evaluating the information needs of lawyers in a major city law firm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Information-needs-lawyers-evaluating-information/dp/3639195043/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254918198&sr=1-1

The book was written in 2003 for her MSc Information Science at City University and has been published in October 2009.

This book may be of interest to you or your library.
Hi

I know this seems a tad early but I have to go into hospital on Monday and will be out of circulation until early December (and might not make the meeting) so please accept this notice as your formal invitation for the 9th December 2009 at 1230 at HBJ Gateley Wareing on Edmund Street (location and directions attached)

Steve Wood from Birmingham Library will be our guest speaker

Please let Caroline Moseley whether or not you intend to be there so that we can make the necessary arrangements for catering, etc.

Additionally, those of you who are CILIP members may have seen the latest edition of Open Access which had significant coverage of Web 2.0 including details of CILIP workshops being run in Birmingham during December at the NTI by Phil Bradley

Web 2.0 Workshops

Internet guru Phil Bradley is running two half-day Web 2.0 Workshops at the New Technology Institute in Birmingham on 17 December. Places are still available and you can download the course programme and booking form at: http://bit.ly/sfgHH

We had begun to develop an ALLICE training event for next Spring on this topic (possibly as a joint venture with BIALL) and would have sounded members out on their interest in this later in the year.

Given these imminent CILIP workshops, though, it might be best to 'test the water' now.

Is anyone planning to attend the CILIP Web 2.0 workshop in December?

If not, could you say if you'd be interested in a ALLICE/BIALL workshop on this topic next Spring?

Please send your replies to a committee member (Caroline Mosley, Caroline Covington or Diane Harris)

Thursday 13 August 2009

Hi

Early warning of the next ALLICE meeting

1230 Wednesday September 2nd 2009 at Anthony Collins, Edmund Street

Please let me have an agenda items - things you'd like to discuss, topics you'd like covered, speakers you've always wanted to hear, etc., etc.

Regards

Phil

Tuesday 9 June 2009

Company Information event 4th November 2009

Hi

Here are details of our next training event



ACCESS TO COST-EFFECTIVE ON-LINE COMPANY INFORMATION TO SUPPORT RESEARCH, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING - AN ALLICE WORKSHOP

With the rising costs of ‘subscription’ databases, it is critical that information specialists maximise their awareness of free and low-cost sources of on-line company, market and business data to assist them in traditional areas of research and developing business development and marketing activities

This half-day workshop, run by Terry Kendrick at the NTI facility near Millennium Point, will provide delegates with a hands-on opportunity to explore these new sources of information

When : 1.00pm Wednesday 4th November

Where : NTI Birmingham, 15 Bartholomew Row, Birmingham, B5 5JU

Cost : £100 (ALLICE members £85)

Numbers are limited : Closing date for application is 1st October

Email phil.uttley@hammonds.com for an application form



For more information on Terry Kendrick see

http://www.terrykendrick.com

For details of the NTI venue see

http://www.ntibirmingham.co.uk/

Please let me know if there is anything else you need to know about this event

Regards

Phil

ALLICE meeting 3rd June 2009 - Minutes

Wednesday 3rd June 2009

Attendees:

Jon Beaumont, Matthew Cadden, Caroline Covington, Diane Harris, Sally Hassell, Hazel Hewison, Jasmin Hollingum, Caroline Janukowicz, Sue Kendall, Caroline Mosley, Alison Parker, Rachel Relves , Jackie Sellars, Phil Uttley

Apologies

Paula Biddlestone, Hilary Boucher, Louise Bowler, Margaret Brittin, Helen Dunn, Erica Foster, Susanne Homer, Lee Houghton, David Houston, Mandy Hulme, Keri Husband, Aileen Johnston, Christine Lambert, Bev Preece, Natasha Skeen, Mike Troon, Stephen Wheeler, Carol Wilson, Tricia Wyspianska, Louise Young

Subscriptions

The meeting voted in favour of an increase in subscriptions to £25 from 1st September 2009

Future events

The meeting supported the plan to run the company information event as proposed and agreed that the focus should be on ‘free’ company information sources with additional references to business development and marketing. The course should, initially, be offered to ALLICE members and then to both ASLIB and BIALL members if capacity allowed.

All members were asked to feed ideas for additional training events to Phil Uttley who would liaise with both Sue Kendall (BIALL) and Alison Parker (ASLIB) so that opportunities for co-operation were maximised. One idea for the future was a Web 2.0 event.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held at Anthony Collins on Wednesday 2nd September 2009.

Phil Uttley was asked to contact Steve Wood, Service Manager, Information Services at Birmingham Reference Library to see if he could join us for that meeting

A.O.B.

Hammicks would be interested in attending an ALLICE meeting in the future

Members of the Birmingham Law Society who have not received a request to renew their library cards for the BLS library at Aston University, or who are interested in making a bid for any of the BLS stock, should let Pat Pritchard know before she attends the BLS meeting on 10th June

Caroline Covington will advise all members of the address for the Statute Law Revision Society in Hereford

ALLICE meeting 3rd June 2009 - Agenda

12.30 pm Wednesday 3rd June 2009

Meeting to be held at

Clarke Willmott
138 Edmund St
Birmingham,
B3 2ES

Agenda


1. Apologies

Hilary Boucher, Helen Dunn, Erica Foster, Lee Houghton, David Houston, Mandy Hulme, Keri Husband, Aileen Johnston, Christine Lambert, Bev Preece, Mike Troon, Stephen Wheeler, Tricia Wyspianska, Louise Young

2. Subscriptions

3. Future events

4. Next meeting

5. A.O.B.

ALLICE meeting - 3rd June 2009 - for comment

Hi

The next ALLICE meeting will take place at 12.30 pm on Wednesday 3rd June at Clarke Willmott, 138 Edmund Street

This will be a business meeting, primarily to discuss Association finances and planned activity over the next 12 months

The treasurer's projections of likely income and expenditure using various subscription levels follow this note. We'd like to be able to formulate a proposal on future subscriptions that can be sent out to all members after the meeting. If you can't make the meeting, please let me have your views so that these can be included in the discussion.

We'd also like to develop ideas about putting on more events like the EIA seminar we ran last year. Details of a proposed event showing course fees that would be necessary to make it self-funding follow the treasurer's report. Again, please let us know at the meeting, or before if you're not attending, what you think of this proposal, from both a content and cost perspective.

Please let me know whether you can attend or not

Regards

Phil



Financial Analysis

Bank Balance at 8th May 2009 = £1050

Assumption that we hold 4 meetings per year and each meeting incurs a charge of £250 to cover the cost of food and drink. Therefore, we need to maintain an operating budget of £1000 pa.

Assumption that we are charged £250 for June meeting.

£800 remaining at end of 2008/09 financial year.

The following projections are based on a membership of 40 people.

Option 1 – Maintain membership fee at £15 per person

Assumption that we do not subsidise any training or social events, there is no BIALL Conference bursary or charity donation

2009/10 £15 x 40 = £600
Plus £800 surplus from 2008/09 = £1400
Minus £1000 operating costs
= £400 surplus

2010/11 £15 x 40 = £600
Plus £400 surplus from 2009/10 = £1000
Minus £1000 operating costs
= Zero bank balance

2011/12 Subscriptions would need to increase to £25 per person to provide an operating budget of £1000.


Option 2 – Increase membership fee to £20 per person

Assumption that we do not subsidise any training or social events, there is no BIALL Conference bursary or charity donation

2009/10 £20 x 40 = £800
Plus £800 surplus from 2008/09 = £1600
Minus £1000 operating costs
= £600 surplus


2010/11 £20 x 40 = £800
Plus £600 surplus from 2009/10 = £1400
Minus £1000 operating costs
= £400 surplus

2011/12 £20 x 40 = £800
Plus £400 surplus from 2010/11 = £1200
Minus £1000 operating costs
= £200 surplus

2012/13 £20 x 40 = £800
Plus £200 surplus from 2010/11 = £1000
Minus £1000 operating costs
= Zero bank balance

2013/14 Subscriptions would need to increase to £25 per person to provide an operating budget of £1000.


Option 3 – Increase membership fee to £25 per person

2009/10 £25 x 40 = £1000
Plus £800 surplus from 2008/09 = £1800
Minus £1000 operating costs
= £800 surplus





Company Information Event

Trainer

Terry Kendrick

http://people.netcom.co.uk/r.kendrick/terry/

Venue

NTI

http://www.ntibirmingham.co.uk

Subject

Similar to:

http://www.cilip.org.uk/training/training/2009/research/findingcompanyinformation.htm

Cost

£100 (£85 for ALLICE members)

Date

To be agreed but hopefully before the end of the year

Duration

Half day (pm) Tea & coffee included

Friday 24 April 2009

Birmingham Law Society Library

There are new pages on the BLS website providing details of the library stock now held at Aston University

http://www.birminghamlawsociety.co.uk/library_about.asp#findbooks

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Minutes of meeting on 11th March

Wednesday 11th March 2009

Meeting held at : Martineau, No 1 Colmore Square Birmingham

Attendees:

Jon Beaumont, Louise Bowler, Adele Champken, Caroline Covington, Helen Dunn, Diane Harris, Sally Hassell, Hazel Hewison, Jasmin Hollingum, Susanne Homer, Lee Houghton, David Houston, Mandy Hulme, Keri Husband (No 5 Chambers), Caroline Janukowicz, Sue Kendall, Christine Lambert, Caroline Mosley, Beverley Preece, Jackie Sellars, Natasha Skeen, Phil Uttley, Denise Watkins, Tricia Wyspianska and Louise Young

The Chair welcomed Gavin Cummy, Kathryn Johnson and Lucy Cudd from LexisNexis

Normal business

1. Apologies

Hilary Boucher, Margaret Brittin, Matthew Cadden, Joanne Dunn, Erica Foster, James Furnival, Aileen Johnston, Christine Newlove, Alison Parker, Pat Pritchard, Rachel Relves, Mike Troon, Barry Vickery, Stephen Wheeler and Carol Wilson

2. ALLICE Bursary for the BIALL conference

This bursary covers the cost of conference fees for one ALLICE member to attend the BIALL conference in Manchester from 18th to 20th June. No applications have yet been received and the deadline for these is 4th April 2008. A bursary application form is available from Phil Uttley phil.uttley@hammonds.com or on the ALLICE blog
http://www.allicelawlib.blogspot.com/

3. Union List

Bev Preece has again offered to co-ordinate the publication of the ALLICE Union List this year. This list holds details of the journal and law report holdings of those firms that contribute. Copies of the list are sent to contributors. Bev will be contacting members separately to ask for contributions

4. Future events

There is a social evening at Chez Jules http://www.chezjules.co.uk/ on Tuesday evening 24th March. Deal on offer that night is 3 course meal and half-bottle of wine for £15. Please let Phil Uttley know by 17th March if you would like to join the party





5. Next meeting

The next meeting will take place at 12.30 pm on Wednesday 3rd June at the offices of Clarke Willmott on Edmund Street. It will be a networking meeting to discuss plans to run and fund training events in the future.

6. AOB

Alison Parker has taken over as Chair of ASLIB Midlands from Margaret Brittin and she is looking for any new ideas or opportunities for training events - either to run in-conjunction with ALLICE or another third party. She is also looking for new committee members so, if anyone is interested in getting involved, please contact her either on 01384342100 or by e-mail Alison.Parker@higgsandsons.co.uk

Sue Kendall informed the meeting of an upcoming BIALL course in Birmingham. It is called "Managing Training Challenges" and is scheduled for 9th July at Mills & Reeve. It will be a variation on the theme of "training the trainer" with case studies from law firms and advice on devising library/online training for fee-earners.

7. LexisNexis

The slides from the presentation given by Gavin, Kathryn and Lucy are attached to the same email as these minutes. The following questions were tabled :

1. Can you demonstrate your new PSL product, or talk about it with examples?

Gavin had covered this new product in his presentation but asked people to contact him or their account manager if they required more information or a trial.

2. What impact has the present economic climate had on your current round of negotiations for subscriptions?

Again, this had been covered in general discussion but they were talking to individual clients in an attempt to help them realise overall savings in their information service budget.

3. Have you had any significant cancellations this year?

No, except where companies had gone out of business altogether or there had been mergers between clients

4. We are looking at cancelling a number of print journal and law report subs next academic year, 2009/10, since they are duplicated in full text on Lexis. This will make us vulnerable by relying on the electronic source and my question is whether it is procedure for updates to be sent by Lexis when titles are dropped? Do they have lists of what has been dropped, say over the last 5 years? If we cancel print, we need to know there is a reliable archive. Can we have a regular update on this area? More communication?

It transpired that the real need here was for more timely communication when online content was removed. Gavin explained that their most vulnerable content was that supplied by third parties. The LexisNexis content acquisition team were constantly negotiating agreements to ensure retention of new and archived content but, on occasions, it became impossible to maintain the content in a viable way. Currently information about content changes was communicated via the e-burst newsletter but he agreed that more could be done.

5. What is LexisNexis pricing policy or pricing strategy - when the cost of a looseleaf or database is reviewed, how it is reviewed.

It depends upon the publication but all are constantly reviewed based on cost, update frequency, etc.

6. What are their plans for the future in terms of paper and electronic. Many are stopping paper subscriptions. Will they assess titles based on subscriptions and will some titles be stopped altogether. Probably the question is how are Lexis dealing with the downturn in regard to unprofitable titles.

Currently, contribution from their paper based content represents 60% of their total revenue so this has a sound future

7. How can they possibly take on PLC? What would make the user switch to their Know How product? Are they selling them based on content, price or what?

This was discussed after the presentation but Gavin believed they are marketing LexisPSL on both content and price grounds

8. What is their view on CD-Rom products? Do they see them as worthwhile continuing or are they planning to phase them out?

There are no plans to phase out CD titles as subscriptions to these remain fairly static

Action Point : Finally, Gavin took away an action point to check plans for the frequency of updates to Harvey on Industrial Relations and Employment Law and let Bev Preece beverley.preece@emwph.com know

Thursday 19 February 2009

Birmingham Central Reference Library - Law Department

The Central Reference Library has a number of historic law reports and local acts that my be of interest to ALLICE members.

They have local and some private acts, Statutory Instruments and Acts of Parliament , and Parliamentary Papers from 1800 onwards, as well as Halsbury's Laws & Halsbury's Statutes . Although they used to have an extensive collection of loose-leaf legal texts, because of financial constraints they ceased subscriptions five years ago, moving to CD Roms and On-line subscriptions where they could afford them.They are just coming to the end of a three year deal with LNB which gave them access to LNB's "primary service" (All ER, Halsbury's Laws, Statutes, EF & P as well as one or two modules such as employment law and education law, as well as discounted hard copy Halsbury's Laws, etc. They may well change to Justis for some provision later in the year. Financial constraints caused the termination of their subscription to hard copy Weekly Law Reports at the end of 2008. Additionally no new books/material have been purchased for the library since November 2008.

They face some hard budgetary choices in 2009 and will cancel any hard copy if it is available electronically. They are also going to be moving the balance of their purchasing to monographs in line with official city policy.

As far as historic material is concerned, they have a number of nominate reports as well as some Private Acts, Local Acts complete from 1946, - those prior to this date are not complete, local statutory instruments, and some local and canal acts in the local history library.

The Reference Library as a whole is starting to plan now for it's move into the new building in four years time. This will entail discarding a significant amount of stock as well as re-directing services. They are keen to have customer's views.

Hazel Hewison has suggested inviting Steve Wood, Service Manager for Information Services at the Reference Lbrary to a future ALLICE meeting to learn about the provision they make for law, and future service patterns when the new library building is finished. I think this is a good idea and I am sure you will too.

June meeting - good home wanted

We need a host for the June meeting. Choice of dates are either 3rd or 10th. Can anyone help?

ALLICE Social Night - 24th March

We're arranging a 'credit crunch beating' social event on 24th March at Chez Jules in Brum

http://www.chezjules.co.uk/

3 course meal + half bottle of wine @ £15 per person!!

Let Phil know if you're going to be there

BURSARY for BIALL Conference

It has been agreed that ALLICE will again offer a bursary to facilitate attendance at the BIALL Conference in 2009.

Eligibility criteria will be similar to those applicable to BIALL bursaries:

1) Applicants must be current members of ALLICE

2) Preference will be given to applicants who have worked in law libraries for less than 5 years, who have not attended a BIALL Conference before and who would not otherwise be able to attend due to lack of funding from their employers.

3) The bursary will cover the cost of the Conference Package - it does NOT include travel or accommodation costs.

Applications forms can be obtained from:

Phil Uttley,
Hammonds LLP,
Rutland House,
148 Edmund Street,
Birmingham,
B3 2JR
DX 708610 Birmingham 17

phil.uttley@hammonds.com

Final date for applications - 27th March 2009

Applicants will be informed of the outcome as soon as possible after this date

Agenda for 11th March 2009

12.30 pm Wednesday 11th March 2009

Meeting to be held at

Martineau
No 1 Colmore Square
Birmingham
B4 6AA

Map & Directions:

http://www.martineau-johnson.co.uk/map_bham.htm

Agenda

§ Normal business

1. Apologies

2. ALLICE Bursary for the BIALL conference

3. Union List

4. Future events

5. Next meeting

6. A.O.B.

§ Lucy Cudd from Lexis Nexis. Product update and Q&A session

In order that Lucy can provide the fullest answers to our questions, she had asked that we provide her with details in advance of the meeting, where possible. Whilst I am sure she will try to answer our questions with as much detail as possible, I expect she will only be able to respond generally to any questions about subscriptions.

Could you, therefore, please let me have details of any questions on any other subject you would like Lucy to address by 27th February

Friday 30 January 2009

March meeting

Hi

Here is advance notice of our next meeting for your diaries

The meeting will be held on Wednesday 11th March at 12.30 at the offices of Martineau in One Colmore Square

The visiting speakers will be Lucy Cudd and, hopefully, Gavin Cummy from LexisNexis. They will be updating us on their new products and services and taking any questions we might have afterwards

Trust that's whetted your appetite - more details, with the agenda, will follow nearer the day

Regards

Phil

Friday 16 January 2009

Job vacancy at Anthony Collins

This vacancy notice has been received from Anthony Collins

Law Librarian

We are seeking to appoint an experienced law librarian to manage and develop library services within the firm.

This vacancy notice has been received from Anthony Collins

We require someone with experience of library procurement, managing budgets and a good knowledge of legal research sources. Formal qualifications, whilst desirable, are not a requirement.

A team player with excellent communication skills is essential.

The role is part time (approx 16 hrs per week), with the opportunity for flexible hours. Salary dependant upon experience with excellent benefits package.

For more information on this role, or to apply, please contact Deborah Taylor either by email on deborah.taylor@anthoynycollins.com or by post to 134 Edmund Street, Birmingham, B3 2ES.

Closing date: Thursday 12 February 2009

Friday 9 January 2009

Annual Charity Donation

Happy New Year

The voting for our annual charity donation went in favour of Linda Kalinda's Zambian Law Centre.

Unfortunately, I have yet been unable to contact Linda to tell her the good news but I am informed that, while she is away in Zambia, she is virtually incommunicado so I guess that is where she must be at present.

I will wait for her to respond to the various messages I have left by email and telephone.