Community Development Committee
August 2004 - Biloxi, MS
August 2004

Welcome and Introductions
The following attended the meeting:
 
Hank Cothran
Alan Barefield
Gail Cramer
Bo Beaulieu
Charles Sheppherd
Ed Jones
Greg Taylor
Brian Calhoun
Emily Shaw
Glenn Israel
Mike Woods
Tony Windham
Rick Mauer
Virgil Culver
Alfred Wade
George Smith
Bill Molnar
Kristen Spahn
Mark Brennan
Paul Waddy
Bill Woodrum
Ernie Hughes

Everyone needs to submit their state reports to Emily electronically.

We need to increase participation from 1890 and 1994 schools. Charles will bring 1890s participation up to the attention of AEA.


SRDC Review
Glenn Israel (University of Florida) is leading a Uof F team (Mark Brennan and Kristen Spahn) to evaluate SRDC. They will be collecting information from a variety of sources to (a) show successes of SRDC for administrators and policy makers, and (b) position SRDC for the future by developing accountability data base. They will need feedback from those of us who have collaborated with SRDC. Glenn and his team will be here for next few days. Regional Economic Development Training - Mike Woods (with Alan Barefiled, Virgil Culver, Ernie Hughes and John McKissick)
Mike passed out an information sheet on the upcoming (May 16-20, 2005) economic diversity training (Building and Expanding Economic Opportunity). There will be a focus on e-commerce. We want to be sure we attract ANR, FCS and 4-H participants. Day 1 (p.m.) schedule consists of the workshop introduction. Day 2 focuses on Entrepreneurship, Day 3 on Marketing and Tours, Day 4 on Marketing and E-Commerce, and Day 5 (a.m.) on E-Commerce. Mike anticipates 35-45 participants. The optimum number is about 30 and it maxes out at 40. The team is still looking for a site in Oklahoma, although Oklahoma City appears to be their preference. Bo announced that there will be some funding from SRDC to defray costs or maybe provide scholarships to agents to attend. We discussed whether or not we want to offer modules or require participants to attend the entire training. We have a natural break between the Monday, Tuesday sessions and the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday sessions. We decided that those who want to participate in the entire training get preference. Mike and the team will move forward and keep everyone informed. NACDEP Update - Greg Taylor and Virgil Culver

Membership. Virgil discussed membership and the first conference that will be Feb 15-18. Virgil encouraged everyone to promote the organization within their state. Emily passed around a membership list and several names appear to be missing. Everyone needs to check with those they think have joined to make sure they sent in their membership applications. Emily brought NACDEP membership brochures to be distributed in each state. The Committee noted that experiment station faculty can use NACDEP to show strong linkages to CES. NACDEP Conference. Deadline for submissions for proposals is extended until September 15. The program will follow seven tracts: (1) economic development, (2) community decision-making, (3) education and workforce development, (4) information technology, (5) local government and community services (6) land use and natural resources, and (7) leadership development. Program leaders from each state should encourage faculty and staff to participate in every tract, especially as we would like to have more participation from the Southern region. SRDC would like to showcase several projects throughout the South and is asking Committee members to submit proposals for SRDC/regional projects and content. SRDC will submit a proposal for CDI. Some of the other projects suggested include the Tri-State Initiative with FMS, RCCI, Regional Health Care (SERA 19), and Working with Non-profits. Members can propose formal presentations, posters, or roundtable sessions. To present, at least one member of team must be a member. Registration fees will probably be around $250. Information for hotel arrangements, etc. is on line. We would like to see more participation from Southern region. Nominations. Nominations for traditional officers and regional representatives are scheduled to open on September 15 and close on October 15. Announcements will be on web site. NACDEP will announce newly elected officers in December. Only members in good standing can submit or be nominated. The Committee decided to nominate a slate of officers and representatives (President, president-elect, treasurer, secretary and 5 regional representatives (the 4 geographic regions plus the 1890s and 1994s together.) The nomination process is designed to be a two stage process - we will know who is nominated for officers before we have to nominate representatives. Nominations open September 15. Both nominees and nominators must be members in good standing. Once candidates are known, then nominations will be open for regional representatives. Nominations close on October 15. Information on candidates will be posted sometime around November 1. Bo Beaulieu and Alan Barefield will make nominations for the slate of officers.

President (Mike Woods)
President elect (Rick Maurer)
Secretary (Deborah Tootle)
Treasurer (Hank Cothran)

CRD suggested several people to be nominated for Regional Representative from Southern Region. These are Dora Ann Hatch, Walter Battle, Rob Holland, Tim Campbell, and Harvey Phelps. All of these people are field staff. Those that suggested their names will nominate them. CRD also discussed Gae Broadwater and Paulette Cooper as potential nominations for the Representative from 1890s and 1994s schools. Charles Sheppherd will discuss these names with AEA. Administrative Advisors Report - Alfred Wade
Alfred mentioned that he is impressed with the work from SRDC and is pleased with how this committee is moving forward with PLN mandates. Larry Arrington could not be here. PLC Report - Ed Jones and Charles Sheppherd
Next year's PLN meeting will be in South Carolina between August 28-September 1, 2005. This is Charles' last year as PLC representative. Ernie Hughes will replace Charles as PLC representative from the 1890s schools. PLC has been talking about (a) leadership in CES and (b) obesity - this targeted primarily to FCS but may cross over with other areas.

Action: We have to have action and information items to PLC and administrators completed by Tuesday at 5:00. Make sure plan of work is up to date on web site. Kathy Ibendahl - need to make sure everyone is updated on list serve.

State Reports
Most of the state reports are virtual reports and will be sent in electronically although some members elected to discuss some of the issues they are facing. West Virginia and South Carolina are moving in the direction of developing e-commerce and broad band access. Oklahoma is moving into entrepreneurial communities and training on grants for CES; Mike Woods would like any information that the rest of us can send. Deborah Tootle and Gail Cramer (LSU) discussed the an opening for a LSU AgCenter rural development director in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana USDA Report - Sally Maggard not present SRDC Report - Bo Beaulieu   [Update of Activities] Two NET scholarships are available for participants working in minority communities. Gail Cramer (administrative advisor) and Rick Maurer (CES chair) for SERA-19 discussed an upcoming Rural Health Workshop. Challenges for Rural America - Bo and Lou Swanson had more time on the CES Director's agenda than ever before. Administrators want regional centers to come back with a plan that we can work on in a more coordinated fashion. Walter Armbruster from the Farm Foundation discussed some of the issues/frustrations that Farm Foundation and others are experiencing. They are frustrated because they feel that efforts are not focused enough and nothing is happening. SGPB is also trying to focus on rural development. Items on Horizon

Nominations
The nomination committee (Tony Windham, chair, Virgil Culver, Alan Barefield). nominated Mike Woods for CRD Program Committee Secretary and Ernie Hughes as the 1890 representative to the PLC. Charles Sheppherd moved up to Chair and Deborah Tootle moved up to Vice-Chair. CECP - Alan Barefield   [Powerpoint Slides]
We will need a review committee for CECP. Alan's term on CECP committee will be up next year and we either need to replace him or ask him to continue. New officers for the committee are Julie Sexton as chair, Fred Piazza as vice-chair, and Jeff Howard as secretary. Each Program Committee will have to create a review team. Before an item is published on CECP, it will also go through an editorial review). CECP is internal to the Southern region. E-extension has new governing body. Paul Coreil represents the Southern region. The 1862s and 1890s are accessing themselves ($2.2 million) for the costs of e-extension. CSREES will provide $500,000 toward this. They are hoping to get $8 million from Smith-Lever. Department of Energy also would like to partner with CES and use e-extension. Currently CECP modules are under construction site on the web site. We need to decide how many levels we want to include in CECP taxonomy for searching. We may want to use the detailed list that Alan sent out as a guideline for writing modules. The steering committee will have to make sure the taxonomy doesn't include a lot of duplication. We discussed how to create and use the CECP courses. Participants need to contact Larry Lippke to get a password and access to the system. We need to develop teams to start working on modules. Also discussed how much "flash" we want to add to each module. Although users can download software to read or use some multimedia components, many people will not download the software to do so.

Action: Create teams to start working on putting together modules.

Alan identified three types of core competencies:

After a discussion of taxonomies and core competencies, we organized the following teams (team leader noted with *): We identified several more long term projects (collecting and using data for community decisions; workforce development; and fiscal impact analysis) for which we need to identify subject matters experts and writers.
Action: Each team will determine what resources we already have and start building modules based on what we already have. At next conference call, each group will have plan for getting one module completed by August 28. Get committee information to Alan.
Review committee. The core team will identify outside reviewers and field personnel to review each module. Send Alan names to include in CECP reviewers database. Volunteers include Deborah Tootle, Alan Barefield (as CECP chair), Bo (ex officio), Gae Broadwater (?), Greg Taylor (chair?), Mike Woods, and Ernie Hughes.

CECP Steering Committee Representative. Alan would like to stay on until 2008. We need to find someone who is willing to shadow him. Certification - Deborah Tootle

Action: Move forward with this along lines of framework that Alan articulated. Committee - Brian, Bo, Deborah, Virgil, Bill, Charles, Mark Brennan, Gae, Greg (?). Will work on and present content to committee during calls (for Jan 2005).
Plan of Work: Information Items Action Items
None for this year.

Conference call dates
October 29, January 31, February 14 or 15(?) in Las Vegas, March 31, May 31, July 29. All with SRDC conference call number, 10:00 Eastern. PLC Meeting
Ed Jones is new chair. Action items from other groups (such as the obesity issue and building healthy communities) may begin to affect us. Middle management will continue to hold urban preconferences. Nominations for NACDEP - Greg Taylor
Nominations open September 15. Nominees and nominators must be members in good standing. Once candidates are known, then nominations will be open for regional representatives. Nominations close on October 15. Information on candidates will be posted sometime around November 1. Bo Beaulieu and Alan Barefield will make nominations.

President (Mike Woods)
President elect (Rick Maurer)
Secretary (Deborah Tootle)
Treasurer (Hank Cothran)

1 Regional Representative from Southern Region (Dora Ann Hatch, Walter Battle, Rob Holland, Tim Campbell, Harvey Phelps). Those that suggested their names will nominate them.

1 Representative from 1890s and 1994s (Gae Broadwater, Paulette Cooper). Charles Sheppherd will discuss these names with AEA.
NACDEP Proposals

SRDC related
Tri-State Initiative (Tootle, Culver, Windham. Sheppherd)
SERA 19 - Rural Health or Rural Health Institute (Rick Maurer)?

State
BRE (Cothran)
Constructing a Community Profile Cothran)
Urban-Rural Interface (Cothran and Carriker(?)) Workplace Ethics (Hatch)