Minutes of September 2009 Phone Conference

From Extension Collaborative Wiki

NCERA 209 August conference call agenda

Attendees: Jason Ellis, Mark Robinson, Peg Herring, Becky Koch, Dee Shore, Pat Melgares, Mark Tucker, Joan Thomson, Frankie Gould, Martha Filipic, Beth Forbes, Virginia Morgan, Suzanne Steel

September Team Reports

Research Team Report –

(1) A review of literature on Issue Management and a collection of published Best Management Practices. – Mark Tucker will lead; Courtney Meyers assisting. Deadline, Oct. 1. Sept.

Update – Mark says they are well underway, they are finding a plethora of material and will be ready to present what they have by our Oct. call. Jason will have his portion wrapped up by the end of the year and will be prepared to present that at the Feb. meeting.

(2) Research project to determine high-priority issues facing LGUs. Survey producers and interest groups (NGOs) to determine what each of those groups thinks the biggest issues in agriculture are. Survey LGU field faculty (agents, educators, specialists) to gauge what they see the biggest issues are. Compare these results with the list of priority issues provided by APLU. Determine the commonalities and the gaps.

Update -- Jason, group out of Omaha, US Farm Data, manages databases of producers in the US that they can overlay with FSA data that they can coordinate with “farmerbility” and can scrub on deliverability. They possibly have a more expansive list for what we need, and it would be more economical. Their list is also available for a 12 mo. unlimited use as opposed to a one-time use. We can send them HTML for a Survey Monkey survey if we want to do it online. $150 gets us 10,000 names. $3,000 gives us 100K names. Gives us a lot of flexibility. $2,000 - $5,000 would get us what we want. Guarantee 90-97% deliverability to the list.

--- Mark T. agrees that for non-commercial purposes we should be able to slash that price.

(3) A review of published data/media coverage on the identified issues: food safety, indirect land use, feeding the world and animal welfare. Fill in gaps with need content analysis/framing studies to see how the APLU-selected issues are being covered in traditional media now. We also need to look at non-traditional media – Web sites, blogs, social media – to see what is being said there about these issues. Then monitor during the issue campaigns and see if the amount of coverage/discussion and/or tone of the coverage/discussion changes. This will show if we are being effective in our approach. – Dwayne Cartmell or Jason Ellis lead. Courtney Meyers will join this group. Deadline for lit/media coverage review – Oct. 1; deadlines for additional studies will be assigned as appropriate; to be completed by the end of the year for Feb. presentation.

ACTION before Oct. call:

Faith will get with Research team in a few days to develop a specific ask for APLU AHS. Can ask some state-specific questions if that will make it more appealing to them.

Tool Kit Team Report – Pat Melgares reports the team is in holding pattern for research to be completed so they can assess the tools available and the tools needed.

Outreach/eXtension Collaborate Site Team Report – Martha Filipic has the site up-to-date with latest minutes and models. Check the site for needed information.

Training Team Report – Frankie Gould and Faith Peppers submitted a SAAS proposal that has been forwarded to the president for consideration, but no response yet. Frankie will keep us updated on developments.

Issue Management Initiative Project Reports

1) APLU Issue Response Project – Brian Meyer was unable to join us; lively discussion on progress of project and projections of what we can and need to do to persuade administrators to support this effort.

2) Impact Database – Suzanne Steel has everything together for the eXtension CoP and is looking for support and input into what we need in a database. We all need to have discussions with our administrators about why that project is important, how it will be valuable to the system and what we need to make it happen.

Notes:

Virginia – Each program area has about $10,000 assigned through USDA for conferences. She will try to find the information and forward to us. Mark R. added that it’s a conference grant that allows up to $10K of competitive funds and a bit “first come, first serve” and it has to be done by submission. The program leaders can be advocates. The deadlines to request in based on RFA and you will have to contact that national program leader to get the dates.

Our next call is Oct. 2 at 10 a.m. EASTERN. Call instructions follow:

Long distance calls originating within the U.S.

• Conference Bridge Dial toll free 1-866-652-6689

You will be prompted to enter the Conference Bridge Code 900 followed by #