Present: Van Varner, Bobby Lawrence, Joe Kelpinski, Bob Bricault, Stan Moore, George Silva, Mike Staton, Phil Durst, Tom Dudek, Julie Pioch, Mark Longstroth, Jerry Lindquist, Don Smucker.

Secretary’s Report is posted on the Web.

Treasurer’s Report:
Bricault presented a summary of Spring Conference funds. Total inflows, $3880.00. Outflows $3413.00. Balance $467.00. The Association paid for all speakers’ rooms. Gail Arendt’s office paid speakers’ fees and MAEA paid other expenses. A $300.00 scholarship for study travel is in the budget. First-timer scholarships for agents attending the National Meeting were discussed. Moved by Lawrence to correct the amount in Number 5 under Scholarship Committee Duties to change to $200.00 depending on available funds. Seconded by Kelpinski. Motion approved.
Varner recommended that we need to set up a liability account to show the $5000.00 that we are holding in contingency for the Wisconsin meeting. Bricault will set up the account.
Bricault reported on problems he had in getting our Association dues paid numbers corrected at the National level. He was able to document that we have 131 paid members; therefore we are eligible for three DSA’s and five delegates to the AM/PIC meeting.
Delegates to AM/PIC in Jackson were discussed. Names that will be submitted as delegates are Van Varner, Bobby Lawrence, Stan Moore, Mark Longstroth and Don Smucker. Alternates will be Julie Pioch and Phil Durst. Linquist moved to submit this list, seconded by Dudek. Motion carried.
The reimbursement support for AM/PIC delegates will be set at $200. apiece. Van Varner will let MCEA know that we are requesting this support for our delegates, a total of $1000.
Varner will e-mail first timers and encourage them to take advantage of the MAEA funds available for attendance at the National Meeting. Pioch will keep track of who plans to go to the National Meeting, how they plan to travel, whether or not their families will be attending and also set up a State Night’s Out of the group. Members are encouraged to let Julie know what their plans for National Meeting are. Longstroth moved that all first-timers be given $200.00 if they attend the National Meeting, supported by Dudek. Kelpinski moved to amend the motion that we accept our budget amount at $2000.00 and pro-rate if the maximum would exceed the $2000.00 line item. Lindquist supported. Amendment passed and motion as amendment passed.
The budget line item of Awards and Recognition was discussed. Dudek moved that we budget $200.00 for each DSA and AA Award recipient and amend our projected budget to $1000.00. Supported by Durst. Staton moved to amend the motion to increase the amount to $300.00 per individual and the proposed budget of $1500.00. Second Moore. Amendment passed. Motion as amended passed.
The support for persons giving presentations and posters at the National Meeting was discussed and Varner stated that we need to give notice to MCEA by letter notifying of presentations at our National Meeting. Jim Kalcheck, Committee Chair, should have a list of who has submitted entrees for poster presentations and any others who will be giving presentations. Pioch noted that the dollars for presenters will be awarded on a competitive basis through MCEA and encouraged us to submit those as soon as possible.

REGIONAL REPORTS

Ray Clark has returned from Armenia.

Robyn Oliver has been appointed as Extension Natural Resource Agent Wildlife and Privately Held cervidae management in Ogema County. We need to find ways to get people involved and possibly consider making a list of ways the Association involvement can benefit them. It was discussed that the Association has a Representative at the three year and six year staff reviews if they are participating members. We need to consider a packet to give to new people. Bobby volunteered to work on some drafts of benefits of Association Membership. Dudek suggested that our three past Presidents should also be involved with Bobby in putting these together.

New Staff: Tom Kalachek, Added Value Agent. – Mentor Jim LeCereux
Tim Beemer, Small Fruit Agent, Ottawa – Mentor Amy Irish Brown
Wayne Beyea, Economic Development Agent, Ionia
Rebecca Mitchell, Dairy Agent, Ionia/Kent/Montcalm
National Meeting Attendees for 2000: Fred Springborn, Don Smucker, Kara Griffith
Norm Myers has resigned as Vice Chair of the Professional Improvement Committee. A new candidate will be selected.
Request that MAEA consider the support for a field position on equine. There use to be 5 specialists and field agent positions, now there are two. Request that we write a letter to Maynard Hogberg.

Saginaw CED position is open. The Beef position which is open in the Thumb has been posted again.

Jon Clements is moving to Massachusetts as State Tree Fruit Specialist. The county will be re-posting the position with a $40,000 salary with benefits will be picked up with Regional Non-Recurring Funds.
John Faul, VanBuren Economic Development, is moving back to a county position as Department Head of the Land Management Office.
Jerry Draheim, Regional Horticulture Agent, will be retiring as of July 1.
A new hire is Insa Raymond, as Extension ANR Agent in Horticulture in Branch County.
Jennifer Hubbell Otto has been appointed as Extension Communication and Community Development Agent in Jackson County.
The Southwest Regional Director is emphasizing core competencies and building it into evaluations and the question was raised as the number of opportunities available to do inservice education in core competency areas. The Draheim position will be posted soon and they would like to have a month overlap if that is possible.

Matt Boling, Livingston County Natural Resources Agent, left position.
Christine Hahn, Wayne County Horticulture Agent, started November, 1999.
Terry McLean, Genessee County Horticulture Assistance, was promoted to Home County Horticulture Agent.
Non-Board Appointed Agents:
Jennie Stanger, Monroe County, Horticulture
Wendy Cole, Washtenaw County, Horticulture

Each Region needs to look at its Committee responsibilities and refer to the operation handbook. Varner stated that an agenda should be made for Regional Meetings so that each Region will take a look at the sub-committees they need to appoint and will make these appointments in a timely manner. Dudek and Lawrence will work on making a document that can be posted on the web that will help assist in this process. It was discussed as to how well we were doing in contacting agents and how aware agents are of accessing items that we put on the web. It was recommended that we need to still consider sending things out on somewhat regular basis to keep people aware of what is going on with the Association. Longstroth suggested that we particularly needed to do this for the three committee chairs that have the most responsibilities and possibly utilize past directors and past presidents to help put this document together.

Mentors for new agents were discussed. The Southeast Regional Director has noted that she would like to be notified when mentors are appointed for a new agent. The document put together by Paul Marks,"Regional MAEA Monitoring Program", was discussed. CEDs have an important role in doing this responsibility and it was felt that the Association needs to make sure that things don’t fall through the cracks and someone is appointed to help agent understand many of the informal relationships of the Extension agent responsibilities. Probably one of the more effective ways of doing this is to make a contact and communicate on a regular basis. A committee of Dudek, Chair; Moore and Staton were appointed to look into the mentoring situation, also Amy Irish-Brown is to be contacted.

The Awards of Presidential Citation, Specialists Awards and so forth were discussed. Lawrence has volunteered to develop a document detailing procedures for assuring nominations are made and plans to have a draft by June 1. Regions need to do this at summer regional meetings and the Board needs to make these selections at its August meeting. Also at this time we need to be well along in looking for new Board member. The secretarial position is elected yearly, everyone else is elected for two years.

A lengthy discussion took place regarding Spring Conference. We had received 15 evaluations, there was a total attendance of about 50 and about 6 of these were Home Economists. It was suggested that we need to look at this activity as a part of the total in-service education system, and now that Tim Brannen is leaving it is likely that this system will be re-evaluated. It was recommended that this item be taken to the MCEA and ask them to put together a committee to look at alternatives for the our in-service system. The Board feels that we need to meet as a group at least two times a year. One idea that we would recommend is that in the Spring Meeting Area of Expertise teams be encouraged to incorporate a planning meeting of their group all at the same location, at the same time.

Administration has been supportive of our Spring Meeting. Dudek recommended that we talk with the coaches of the AOEs and ask them to take this idea forward to have each individual AOE discuss. Varner will send a letter to AOE coaches encouraging them to hold these discussions on how AOE’s feel about helping to reschedule the calendar to work something like this in. Van suggested that AOE coaches are meeting on June 6 and 7 and he will see if there may be an opportunity to meet with him and discuss it at that time. Moved by Dudek, seconded by Lindquist to move ahead with contacting the AOE coaches. Motion carried.

The need was discussed for the Professional Improvement Committee to have their group start to think about the Spring Meeting of 2001. West Central needs to appoint a new Chair for this as their current Chair has resigned. The North Region will have a new Vice Chair for this committee. Moved by Moore to send this letter, seconded by Kelpinski. It was further discussed that the people that are on this committee now includes Joanne Davidhiser, Ron Goldy, Ira Krupp and Coleen Boyer need to be contacted to get their help to get this process started. Motion carried.

Nominating Committee was discussed. Varner noted that this group was usually appointed by the Chair. Bricault was appointed as Chair. Other Committee members will be Dudek, Staton and Steve Foch.

Varner summarized issues that need to be taken to the MCEA. These included a discussion of the direction of our Fall Conference, staff development mentoring issues, a welcome packet for new members and their support for the National Meetings.

The County Agent Directories were discussed. These have been purchased in bulk in the past. Varner will check if a current hard copy is available and see how much it would cost. It was discussed that we have four new agents that are statewide and located in the DNR office, and that we need to make sure that we invite these people out to the Regional and County meetings to get them to participate in our programs.

Varner will take care of getting some more retirees plaques.

It was discussed that the support for equine programs has been greatly reduced at the field level. Currently we have two people on staff at the state level for this which is a growing area of participation and also an area of considerable political strength. Dudek moved that a letter be sent to Maynard Hogberg, Arlen Leholm, Gail Arent and Mike Kovacic expressing the need for field based equine support. Seconded by Lindquist. Motion carried.

Dudek suggested that the Association purchase a hat for all members. It was suggested that we do a voucher, then let the member purchase whatever item they would like. Moved by Dudek to do this, seconded by Lindquist. Motion passed.

Next meeting will be August 24 at 9:30 a.m. at the Livestock Pavilion on Campus.

Kelpinski moved to adjourn. Seconded Staton. Motion passed.

Respectfully submitted,

Donald R. Smucker

Secretary

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This page was posted on 7/5/2000