MAEA Messenger - June 2002

It was great to see many of you at our Spring Conference this year on campus. This event continues to receive positive evaluation by those attending (about 1/3 of our membership). Please plan on attending next year during ANR week. This year’s conference included the now famous Fish Boil by Jon Anderson. The fish boil was definitely a great way to "practice" for our sponsored meal in Wisconsin in 2003. We received lots of great feedback and suggestions, and are implementing them into the menu plan. Four members of our committee recently went to Wisconsin to view the facilities with Mr. Anderson. The facilities are going to work great for our meal, and the visit helped us work out some logistics with Jon. We are going to need about 60 individuals from our association to help with the meal in Wisconsin (of coarse the more the better). Besides regular member involvement, we specifically would like to have Life Members there to help with greeting, crowd control, etc. for the meal. Spouses and older youth are also welcome to help with the event. Please put July 13-17, 2003 on your calendar now. Our meal function will be on Monday July 14.

Your MAEA Board has also begun discussions about putting together the committee structure for our hopefully successful Annual Meeting/Professional Improvement Conference (AM/PIC) bid. The AM/PIC committee structure would include a National Meeting Chair and then Vice-Chairs that would oversee multiple sub-committees. If you have an interest in serving in one of these leadership roles, please contact your regional director for MAEA or call me directly. The board feels that these are very important positions and thus we will vote on them during our annual meeting at fall conference. We are also looking for members that would be interested in serving on the NACAA board as a North Central Region Vice-Director starting at the annual meeting in 2003. This position would be a commitment of 2 years as Vice-Director and 2 years as Director. Again, please let your MAEA regional director or I know of your interest.

Please continue to look for sponsors/donors for our 2003 Fish Boil. At this point we have individuals working on Potatoes, Milk products, Fruit Juice, and Wine (for the hospitality suite). We also have $10,000 from the Directors office, and cash donations being sought from the Milk Companies, Corn Growers, and Soybean Growers. Products that are still needed are Carrots - Baby Carrots, Onions, Cabbage, Cole Slaw Dressing, Hot Dogs, Buns, Condiments, Cherries, Blueberries, Plates (heavy Cornet Style), Plastic Ware, Bowls for Ice Cream, Napkins, Salt, Pepper, Coffee, Cold Tea, Dried Michigan Fruits, and Give-a-ways for delegates. Menu items may change slightly as we get closer to the event. Please call or e-mail me if you are able to help with any of these donation contacts or with intentions to contact organizations for cash. Please remember to use the fish boil brochures in working with possible donors, and make sure individuals make checks payable to MSU if they want it to be tax deductible.

Hot, Hot, Hot best describes this year’s National County Agents Annual Meeting and Professional Improvement Conference to be held in Savannah, Georgia and that is without even considering the weather! This year’s event will take place July 28 – August 1 in Savannah, Georgia.

Our National Association of County Agricultural Agents staff and the entire State Association of County Agents from Georgia have been working diligently to put together a great event. As always this National Meeting will have a fantastic blend of professional improvement meetings, tours, and recognition of NACAA membership from across the United States, including some from Michigan. Add to this exciting family events, a wide variety of recreational opportunities, mouth watering Southern cooking flavored with southern hospitality, a State that rivals Michigan in it’s agriculture and natural resources diversity ( with a southern-oceanic twist ), and you have the makings for a memorable conference.

There is still time to register. All registration information is available in the April, 2002 edition of The County Agent Magazine. You can also register on-line at www.pware.com/2532a. Conference info is available at http://www.gacaa.com/2002/sights_htm. You can also find a lot of info on Savannah by doing a web search on "Savannah, Georgia". And by the way, don’t worry about the weather being too hot. Conference advisors say come prepared for heat, especially on the tours, but remember that the South long ago figured out ways to keep people comfortable!

If you cannot make this year’s Annual Meeting and Professional Improvement Conference mark your calendar for the following year’s:

Green Bay, WI. - July 13 –17, 2003
Orlando, FL. - July 11 – 15, 2004
Buffalo, NY - July 17 – 21, 2005

Next July at the annual NACAA meeting in Green Bay, MAEA will be bidding to host the NACAA annual meeting in 2007. What we need is a slogan or tagline to go with our bid. Something to go on flyers, buttons or websites to promote our bid and then the NACAA meeting itself.

I like "Great Lakes, Great State, Great Times", but they tell me that it is already taken. Other suggestions were "See Canada from a Safe Distance" and "Come to Michigan in 2007". We would like a good slogan and have decided to have a contest open to all members of MAEA. The prize to the winner is that MAEA will pay the registration fee for the 2003 meeting in Green Bay. So if you have the winning Slogan we will pay your way to Green Bay in July of 2003.

The contest rules are simple you need to be a member of MAEA and you need to get the slogan to me by September 30, 2002. The slogans will be posted on the MAEA Website and the membership will pick the winning slogan at our annual meeting during Fall Conference. So you have three months to think about a nifty tagline that could win you a week in Wisconsin.

I will be updating the MAEA handbook posted at our website. I hope to have it finished and posted by July 1. There are also changes that need to be made to our association Bylaws and Constitution. The changes to the Bylaws and Constitution need to be voted on by the Membership and the Board is required to make these changes available to the Members one month before the meeting. By posting these Bylaws changes on our website we will be making the document available to you all. There are also changes that are being made to the Michigan Council of Extension Associations (MCEA). These will soon be posted at the MCEA website. These changes also have to be voted on by the membership of the member associations.

So if you have suggestions for changes to Handbook or the Bylaws let me know. You will see an email posting early next month when I post them to our website.

Retired	Kurt Anderson
Retired-Life	Gale Arent
Retired-Life	Morse Brown
Retired	George Byelich
Retired-Life	Ray Clark
Retired	Ken Kernstock
Retired	Mel Matchett
Retired	Bob Ojala
Retired-Life	Bobbie Paschka
Retired-Life	Greg Patchan
Retired-Life	Roger Peacock
Retired-Life	Tom Purdy
Retired-Life	Don Smucker
Retired	Roy Spangler

These are the newly retired MAEA members. Life means I have sent in the $50 payment for NACAA life membership to NACAA. The others have not indicated to me that they are interested in the NACAA Life Membership.

If any others decide to be life members, I need an email with their new address, phone and email. Paul Wylie, wylie@msue.msu.edu

Slide Set, Transparencies, Computer Generated Presentations: Phil Durst, Ogemaw County Extension

West Central MAEA members met on Friday, April 26 in Newaygo. Dr. Stuart Gage from the Department of Entomology spoke to the members about the Land Use and Cover Change project. This study projects land use change across the state for the years 2020 and 2040. It contains both statewide and county specific data regarding how specific land uses (such as farmland, recreational land and urban areas) will change as the state continues to urbanize. The members found the presentation highly informative and strongly recommend Dr. Gage as a speaker for Fall Conference.

Regional Director Dave Guikema provided members with an update about the budget and vacancies within the region. Vince Greiner has been hired as a part time consultant to assist with farm management. Vince has worked with Tom Purdy in the past with Telfarm and FINANs. The Field Crops AoE team members will meet with the CEDs to discuss coverage for vacancies. The Swine AoE position continues to be vacant.

Congratulations to Christina Weide, Mecosta-Montcalm Groundwater Agent, who was elected to serve as a regional director for MAEA.