I'm registered for Chartership with CILIP but haven't done that much work towards it yet, to be honest. Four years after finishing my MA, I decided that the reflection required for Chartership would be beneficial. However, I have had trouble finding the time during my working week to sit down and think about recording my professional development. My intention now is to find about an hour each week, probably on Fridays, to do something related to Chartership. I hope to submit my portfolio before the start of the 2015/16 academic year.
Library Camp (
http://www.librarycamp.co.uk/) is an unconference. There's a Library Camp UK every year, as well as numerous local versions as well. The premise is that there are no keynote speakers or presenters. Everyone who signs up as a participant can propose a topic for a session and that session will be run if enough people like the sound of it on the day. The proposer of each discussions starts it off and then takes part as a regular participant, with everyone else having an equal voice. Library Camp is lots of fun - always accompanied by Cake Camp - and a chance to meet people who work in library and information from all sectors, as well as a few others who are just interested in libraries. For example, a font designer with his own personal library came along in 2014.
I find that conferences and workshops at Sheffield Hallam are great for meeting academic staff in the faculties and also talking to colleagues in the library whom I don't work with personally very often. I've realised that it doesn't matter if these events don't have a library or information focus. Teaching and learning are linked really closely to library resources, and I've decided to pursue a teaching accreditation for staff who aren't primarily teaching academics. It's called AFHEA (Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy).
Social media is perfect for networking with professional contacts. My use of Twitter comes in peaks and troughs; I often tweet the key points from a particular session when I'm at a conference for the benefit of people who can't be there but I might tweet once a week or less the rest of the time. Facebook is more for friends and social things, but I do use it to keep in touch with the people I met on my master's. LinkedIn is something I use less, although I know it's handy for finding out which institutions people work at and what they specialise in, so I keep my own profile reasonably up to date.
LIS Discussion Group is an informal gathering of staff in the library at Sheffield Hallam. We meet roughly once a month to discuss an article or blog post about a particular topic, e.g. how librarians can support democracy. The things we discuss don't have to be exclusively about academic libraries, but they've always got some link to libraries or information. The group is a really good way of encouraging librarians and assistants to mix - they often attend separate meetings - and have free discussion.