By Angela Gardner, Ross High School

This summer, our American Association of Spanish of Teachers and Portuguese Buckeye Chapter saw a changing of the guard with Bill Langley moving from the position of President to Past President, Angela Gardner replacing him as President, and Liz Becker taking over as Chapter Treasurer. These chapter officers are dedicated to making the AATSP Buckeye Chapter rich with benefits for members in terms of networking, sharing practical classroom resources and strategies, and celebrating and maintaining skill in the Spanish and Portuguese languages.

Early in the summer, the AATSP officers reached out with a survey via the OFLA ListServ and our Facebook page to see if there would be interest in participating in a book exchange event, where teachers could meet and trade books in Spanish or Portuguese. Multiple locations and dates were offered in the survey. A few respondents expressed interest in such an event and a willingness to participate in the Cincinnati area. So, we arranged to reserve a room at the Midpointe Library in West Chester for the morning of June 13th for 1 hour for networking and book exchanges. Despite a glimmer of interest generated from the survey, the June 13th event (see photos embedded in this article) went on with books ready for exchange, cookies ready to be consumed, and a sign-in sheet ready to be filled in, but no attendees. This may have been in part due to the venue–they located us in a room off the beaten path, and also removed signage indicating where the event was taking place, so any participants that came may not have been able to find the event. We hope to offer another such event in the future, to help teachers to get titles of books that they no longer want off their hands, while other teachers will have the opportunity to read something new, supporting their maintenance of skill in the language they teach.