Garvin Quinn, chair, called the teleconference to order at 2 p.m. CST.

Present:
Garvin Quinn, Debbie Archer
Ashley Wood
Jennifer Vickery
Don Stotts
Dee Shore
Virginia Morgan
Gloria Mosby
Ellen Ritter
Frankie Gould

Report from November 29-December 1 PLC Planning Meeting - Gloria Mosby, Ellen RitterGloria reported that the next PLC meeting will be held in Charleston, South Carolina, at the Francis Marion Hotel, August 28-September 1. There is a university near the hotel and several shops and restaurants within walking distance.The Southern Region Program Leadership Network logos that were prepared by a University of Georgia designer were presented to the overall PLC committee. The committee likes the one on the bottom left, which is the same logo the communications group likes. She said the committee asked that the words "Cooperative Extension System" be added to the logo.Task force reports were presented during the meeting, and participants talked a lot about eXtension. Everyone agreed that a progress report will be given at the next PLC meeting. Everyone was encouraged to continue working on CECP modules. Ron Brown, Kathy Ibendahl and Ed Jones will work in detail on the program for next year. There was some discussion whether we should have a three-day conference and have the directors join us either ahead or afterwards. Evaluations indicated that the majority of participants liked the format of last year's PLC meeting.Another discussion took place as to how CECP and eXtension will be meshed.Ellen reported that the steering committee said we should continue with CECP module development. There will always be a place for it in eXtension. It was agreed that it would be hard to go wrong with continuing with that process. Details of eXtension were discussed. Having training materials of the type the communications group is developing will be a valuable part of eXtension.Gloria said that conference speakers were discussed. All committees can still have an input. Colien Hefferan was suggested as a general session speaker. It was also discussed that each committee should start developing new work plans. There was also some talk about how to institutionalize eXtension.CECP - Frankie Gould and Ellen Ritter
Status of CECP Modules Being Developed:

• Marketing Extension Programs - Ellen Ritter - The team is currently trying to develop a concept for a cartoon character approach for the visuals, making sure that issues of copyright won't interfere. Feedback has been received from Garvin. Asked for input from others. Needs ongoing review. When something is more visual and ready, she'll put it up on the system and notify the group to take a look at the module again. Efforts are now focused on content and getting the module on the system. Jennifer reported that Bob Reynolds reviewed the module and said it is "great." Writing for the Local Media - Carla Craycraft - not on call Copyright/Intellectual Property - Tom Knecht - not on call Newsletters - Ashley Wood - The group has had an opportunity to go over the material and develop teams consisting of four content specialists, with Ashley being the fifth, a curriculum specialist and a multimedia specialist. They have decided on the parts of how to produce a newsletter that would be important for each to look at: the goals, why write a newsletter, identifying the audience, name of the newsletter, budget, content, writing and editing, formatting, typography, software, editing and layout, duplication, distribution and evaluation. Those have been assigned to different team members. The sections that Ashley has been assigned, he has been able to put down his objectives to be able to write those sections with summary questions. They are not at a point yet where they are ready to put it up on the CECP system. They are still at the writing stage. About 40 percent of the writing is done. Ashley still needs to review a few objectives that people have provided. He will then turn it over to Ron, the instructional designer. A lot of intensive visuals will be needed at that point. By summer, quite a bit should be done and up. Frankie has agreed to be a reviewer, and Ashley will look for a couple of other reviewers from the outside. Media Relations - Tom Knecht - not on call
• Accountability/Impact - Sharon Omahen - not on call. She reported to Garvin that she has received the USDA impact presentation and one from Georgia and has asked that anyone else who has impact statement information, she would like it sent to her.

Update on eXtension - Frankie Gould

• Dan Cotton gave several presentations, one to their faculty council. The big concern there was how to get reward recognition for promotion, tenure and evaluation. Dan says they are going to work on this area in the next month or so to outline some ways that this can work into individual faculty as well as state programs for promotion and tenure. Then he gave a general overview of what eXtension is and the progress. On February 16, at the National Extension Directors meeting in Nashville, a prototype presentation (with input from Texas A&M, Prairie View, Ohio State, Washington State, North Carolina State and others) will show examples of how this will work as well as the different modules that will be there. Then he said there will be a request for proposals that will go out in April for communities of practice, basically content teams. There is money available to help start up those teams. There may be one-time monies or continuing monies depending on what the proposal involves. He also met with a lot of department heads and regional directors on how to merge research and Extension information for eXtension. There is a lot of interest from many commodity people about developing multi-state programs, but even more interest in developing multi-state and multi-disciplinary programs in such areas as cotton, rice and family finance. He met with administrators, the LSU chancellor, the vice chancellor and director of Extension. He met with the research director and then the president of the LSU system, who was extremely supportive of the possibility of eXtension being an outreach component not just for the traditional land-grant system institutions but the entire university system. The presentation was well received at LSU. A job description and applications for a communications and marketing person for the eXtension staff will be sent out. The position will be half-time initially, eventually going to full-time. Hopefully at that point they will rekindle the communications and marketing advisory group that Ellen and Frankie have been a part of already. This should be happening within the next 30 to 60 days. Gloria asked about North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University -- will they show both institutions on the website? Frankie said that the intent is if there is an 1890 institution in a state where the graphics may come up that both institutions will be shown. All land-grant institutions in a state will be visible. Ellen - Dan gave a presentation remotely to their Extension section at an Ag conference and did a great job. The presentation was well received.
• Garvin asked if we might get Dan Cotton on our next teleconference on March 9. Frankie will inquire.

Review of Annual Work Plan - Garvin said it has been placed on the website and can be reviewed.

Other Issues

1. Gloria reported that the 1890 Association of Extension Administrators has hired Dr. Lorenza Lyons as their executive administrator. He comes to the position from Virginia State University, where he was the dean and director of the school of agriculture.
2. Garvin - Asked that everyone take a look at the institutional links on the website for the SRPLN pages to see if they link properly to the communications shops. If anyone has additions or corrections to make, send Garvin an e-mail and he will forward the information to Emily Shaw.

Dates/times for future committee conference calls:

March 9, 2005, 2 p.m. CST
June 15, 2005, 2 p.m. CST
August 10, 2005, 2 p.m. CST